Monkey business

When I was a budding Richard Branson, two fellow school chums and I got together to buy albums, record them using our stereo systems, and then sell the records...each one played only three times.  There were some downsides to our approach, not least of which was trying to select which albums to buy.  I think I put the final nail in the coffin when I decided we 'had' to have the Rezillos.  Evidently I was the only person in all of Essex who liked them.  Oh dear.  We could all agree, though, on bands like Brand X (a superb Phil Collins vehicle that even our music teacher liked), Weather Report and The Alan Parsons Project.

Alan Parsons is not desperately well remembered by many, except for this rather amusing sketch from Austin Powers



His albums were not ones that I chose to re-buy when I moved from vinyl to CD, but in a moment of sentimentality, probably prompted by the end of school days, I searched them out on play.com, and found I could buy them for about £4 a piece.  So I have.  I have a feeling that listening to them may not be quite as pleasurable as I hope, but I am looking forward to their arrival....after all 'concept albums' are so 1970s, and I don't wear flares, heals and long hair anymore.

And no, that monkey doesn't belong to Justin Bieber