I took another step further into the digital age this week. I was listening to a programme being presented by Arièle Butaux, someone I think of as the Sean Rafferty of France Musique. Like him she has a lovely voice, gathers an eclectic mixture of music and musicians and chats with them in a relaxed and lively style.

I particularly enjoyed one piece and had a look for the CD on the web. I found it easily enough at around 18 euros plus postage but I also found it downloadable at 99 cents a track or 9.99 for the complete album.

Given our dial-up connection here downloading the album was a non-starter so I picked one track (the one I had heard on the radio). According to the licence rules I can make 7 CD copies and 5 MP3 player copies for my 99 cents.

It took about an hour to get the 4 minutes 33 seconds of music but I have it and I've transferred it to CD. Admittedly the CD won't play on David's machine but I have hopes that a younger machine might cope.

With broadband I can't see a better way of buying a CD. Who needs sleeve notes?

The album by the way is Bach to Beirut by Trio Rhéa. Here's an extract.