Vinyl day of the year

I got a turntable for Christmas.

I'm not one of those people who is a massive fan of vinyl to the exclusion of all else; I don't think it sounds superior or anything. But I am one of those people who likes my music on the shelf, in physocal form, actually owned by me. Spotify and downloads just aren't the same; too ephemeral, never really mine. Not there on the shelf to catch your eye, take your fancy (although I do like a bit of a random shuffle, sometimes).

I replaced very few LPs with CDs, as until we moved onto the boat we'd always had a turntable (or three). Over the years I've been away though, they'd stopped working, or been adopted by someone else. Having inherited some fairly high quality speakers from my mother, and invested in a new amp to go with her CD player, a turntable seemed the next logical step - but it was still a splendid surprise to unwrap one (from Jim and Sebastian) on Christmas morning.

So I have now come back from Sussexd with a small selection of my vinyl collection, including all my Paul Simon archive, starting from the Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits which I see from my carefully orange-inked note on the inner sleeve I received for Christmas 1980 and taking in a few rarities as well as both the British and US versions of Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage... (bonus points for knowing the difference). There are a few Bob Dylan, my Beatles Blue and Red, Lloyd Cole, Tracy Chapman - and Squeeze - all of which I haven't listened to for going on a decade now and some not for two and more (hmmm.. and where are Tanita Tikaram and Suzanne Vega?)

Whatever you enjoy, I hope you have plenty of it in 2018.