MY accumulated music — “collection” is too grand a title — is made up of vinyl LPs (and one or two singles kept for sentimental reasons), cassettes that have so far failed to unravel and lots of CDs.

Elderly musical equipment allows me to play them all whenever I wish. Despite suspicions, I do not have any tunes on 78 rpm records or wax cylinders.

How long have I got before the current musical revolution forces me to change?

HMV, which has a store in Bolton, lost £121.7 million last year and the chief executive, Simon Fox, says that within three years technology will become the biggest product category ahead of both CDs and DVDs.

It plans to devote 25 per cent of floor space to MP3 players, tablet computers and headphones as the CD becomes increasingly defunct. Apparently, consumer electronics companies are not making CD players any more and many modern cars come fitted with MP3 players.

All this is bad news for those of use who like browsing in HMV — even when we do not intend to buy anything much.

If anybody ever launches an OMPS (Old Music Preservation Society) I will be happy to join.