In one of the funniest articles he's written, A N Wilson says what's wrong with the Sony Walkman, and calls it "the gadget that helped break Britain."

For those of us who liked getting on a bus or a train and overhearing, or even taking part in, conversations, there is something a bit bleak about the dozens of private solitudes which nowadays clamber aboard.

It apparently hasn't occured to him that many of them are listening to the music from the walkman, ipod, or whatever in preference to listening to him. But I suspect they prefer their music to his conversation.