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Friday 9 January 2009

Taking risks

Charles Spencer on his addiction to buying CDs

I had what reformed alkies call a moment of clarity last week. On one of my regular trawls through the Amazon website, I clicked the One-day 1-Click button and ordered the first CD in what I felt in my guts was going to be an expensive and enjoyable binge. But instead of the usual response thanking me for my order there was a problem. My credit card had expired. All I had to do, however, was enter the details of the new one, already activated, signed and tucked away in my wallet, and we could immediately get back to business as usual. Instead I decided enough was enough and let my account lapse. 

About six months ago I bought a new shelving unit that comfortably holds 200 CDs. It is already almost full. This suggests an average buying rate of about one CD a day, seven a week, 30 a month, more than 350 a year at a cost, I’d guess, of about £3,000 per annum. Oddly enough that’s exactly the amount I calculated I was spending on drink when I entered the Priory eight years ago. Had I merely swapped one addiction for another?

It’s been ten days now without an Amazon delivery and I’m surviving. I’m not adopting total abstinence. I’ll still buy CDs but I’ll buy them, discriminatingly and in smaller quantities, in shops. If the recession proves as severe as feared, music retailers will be among the hardest hit with so many free downloads now available. We could wake up one day and find that music stores no longer exist on our high streets. That would be a shame. Thumbing through the racks has given me countless hours of pleasure since I was eight years old. Shopping on Amazon never had quite the same thrill about it, though the ability to get your hands on almost anything, however obscure, is something I will undoubtedly miss.

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