Pods -i

There is no doubt that being able to carry hundreds of albums around with you in a handy, compact format is useful, but the ubiquitous i-pod is also undermining the English language and cataloguing conventions.

If you transfer an album by Bob Dylan to your MP3 player then this is filed under 'B', for Bob. Similarly one of Neil Young's masterpieces is filed under 'N' for Neil. Call me old fashioned if you like, but my CD collection, ordered alphabetically by artist (and then chronologically if required), finds Bob under 'D' for Dylan and Neil under 'Y' for Young. This convention is followed widely in the real world. You only have to visit a music-store, bookshop, or dare I say it, public library to see this simple phenomenon in action.

Perhaps I am worrying needlessly but how will members of this digital i-pod generation ever find anything when they are eventually forced to take their ear-phones off and use their eyes for a change?