A More Deserving Cause

A day to catch my breath I think. L runs and I take the dogs on the park. Unfortunately the weather turns and the park session is mostly in driving rain, so much so that we don’t get very far round the park at all. Although we’re still out for over an hour.

L and Daughter, the doggie addicts that they are, get another fix and go to see Bolt at cinema. I decline. A cartoon in the afternoon is just going to be full of pop corn eating, coke swilling infants who won’t actually watch much of the film. This is pretty much Daughter’s complaint when they return.

I spend most of the afternoon trying to download the video of our Crufts performance but getting our broadband connection to stay at full pace for the duration proves impossible. I shall try again from work.

The saddest new story this week concerns the fact that after forty years in business Nottingham’s legendary Selectadisc record shop will close at the end of the month. It’s absolutely tragic, Selectadisc is as much a part of Nottingham's heritage as the likes of Raleigh bikes... err ok they’ve gone too... or the Home and Shipstones Breweries... oh, of course they’ve gone as well. At least Robin Hood is still here, but without his ‘tails of’ obviously.

We were always in ‘Sleccy’ as students and we always felt a one-upmanship on those saddos who only bought from places like HMV. When I first went they had a shop on Bridlesmith Gate, as well as the one on Market Street. Then they expanded to have three shops on Market Street. One for singles, one of second-hand stuff and their main shop. Their boom years I guess, because they eventually downsized to two, and then more recently to just one.

The place was also an oracle of information about the local music scene. In the pre-internet age, the walls of Selectadisc were where you found out what bands were playing where and of course you could purchase your tickets there as well.

I suppose this closure was inevitable really and I guess they did well to last as long as they have. I haven’t bought much from there for years, my excuse is because I no longer work in Nottingham. So I’m partly to blame for its demise but I’d always assumed each year a new intake of students would take over from where we left off and keep it going.

Unfortunately today’s youngsters don’t even shop elsewhere because the majority probably don’t pay even for their music. A place like Selectadisc can’t survive under those circumstances. Of course it’s always nice to get something for free but one day when those people finally finish studying or whatever they’d doing now, they’ll be getting a job and they'll expect to be paid for what they produce. I’m sure they won't be giving their services for free in the way they expect the music industry to.

I too download music for free but if I like something, I always make sure I go out and buy the CD. In any case the quality of a CD is far superior to an mp3. I also like to have the physical thing in my possession, so that I can file it in my collection but also, I know that without any revenue there would be no second album from that artist.



Now like Way Ahead before it, Selectadisc will soon be gone and it will be sadly missed. The government ought to step in and save it; ‘Sleccy’ is a far more deserving cause than a few corrupt banks.