Read the music press that is designed for men of a certain age (some of whom stroke their beards) there has been a lot of excitement this last few weeks on the first three Led Zeppelin albums being remastered and reupholstered and sent out into the world again.

I was tempted. I have all the albums in the attic and haven’t listened to them for years. Here would be a great opportunity to reinvest in them and this time round there would be a some sonic clarity to clear away the 1970’s murk.

But I resisted that temptation. Instead I bought myself a pre-amp for the record deck. I had been promising myself one of these for years.

I have known for a long time that the sound of the record deck needed some boosting but somewhere along the way I had stopped listening to records in the way that I had in the past. The ease of CDs had got the better of me.

So I got the pre-amp and I plugged it in and Galen and me did a test. The nearest test subject was Dexy’s Don’t Stand Me Down. So we started it on vinyl and then tried it on CD. Vinyl won hands down. It still wasn’t as loud but there was a physicality from the sound.

This evening I moved the testing on to Led Zeppelin and took an opportunity to try out Dazed & Confused  as loud as it would go (and I thought the neighbours would tolerate – not, of course, necessarily the same thing). Five minutes in I found myself with an air guitar in my hands, on my knees puling out Jimmy Page moves in a purple Japanese jump suit.

So all I need to now is try find a way to sort out my life so I can spend my days moving to and from a turntable turning over and changing records preferably eating good food as I do so.

We spent some time touching on that this afternoon with a long brunch with friends in the sun that finished about 6.00 in the evening. Very little cooking for me until I got home and put a beer can up a chicken’s backside to cook on the barbeque. I find that sort of thing relaxing.