Meanwhile, on an iPod in another part of town...

If you read the introduction to this blog (it's up there on right, go on, have a look), you will know that the Shuffleman project is a two-man operation. Indeed, if roles were being awarded then I would be 'Goose' to Matt's 'Maverick', being as this whole thing was his idea.

So you may be wondering why it is that this has all been a bit one-sided so far, with me describing the soundtracks to my days, and Matt being rather silent on the whole thing.

He'll probably show up at some point, with some nonsense about trying to move house, and being busy and so on.

Yeah, right.

Obviously all the time Matt's picking albums for me, I'm picking one for him. Not one for one obviously - he must have had four or five while I was ploughing through that Irish Folk thing - but he's had plenty.

And that gives me a little window into his world. A couple of times a day, he gives me five albums to choose from. Now I don't know about you, but when I visit someone's house, if I get the opportunty to trawl through their record collection then I do.

It gives you an insight into their personality in a way that few other things do, as music's a very individual thing. If you find half a dozen 'Now That's What I Call Music...' CD's and a Jamie Cullum album, then you can be fairly sure that they don't like music at all - they just want some background noise at dinner parties.

So gradually I've been building up a picture of Matt's iPod.

And it's not good...

I'd estimate that it consists of:

30% Chillout

25% Indie/Pop from 1985 - 2005

15% Rap / R&B

15% Urban

15% Mr Scruff

The Indie pop is largely ok. The Rap/R&B/Urban is not to my taste, but it seems to be good quality examples of the genre. I can't knock the Chillout - courtesy of my wife, I have a handful of Chillout albums on the little white box, and now and again it's good to have some relaxing

background 'choons', but he seems to have tons of the stuff!

But Mr Scruff...

I've never heard of Mr Scruff. The first time (and indeed, for comedy value, every subsequent time) he came up, I had to ask 'Who the hell is Mr Scruff?' Matt pointed me to his wiki, which you can find here. He seems to be one of these DJ people who seems to want some sort of credit for playing other people's music!

Let's get something straight. I own a CD player and a pile of CD's. That does NOT make me a musician, any more than being able to walk into a supermarket and buy a cake makes me Mr Kipling!

This is a quote from Mr Scruff, or as his mother calls him, Andy Carthy.

"It’s about putting a lot of effort in and paying attention to detail. I get annoyed if I don’t take risks. I’m very hard on myself."

You. Buy. CDs. And. You. Play. Them. To. People.

Effort? Attention to detail? Taking Risks?

F&%$ Off!

Sorry. I don't have much time for DJ's, even if they do try to set themselves apart from the crowd by brewing and selling tea at his shows, as Mr Scruff does.

Watch out! He's ker-azy!

Reading that back, maybe it was a little harsh. After all, if a proper musician gets a sale because somebody heard one of their songs at a Mr Scruff 'gig', then I guess it's a good thing.

But why Matt has a pile of CDs of some bloke playing other people's music is beyond me. Although it maybe that it's actually Mr Scruff remixes of other songs.*

In any event - Holmes! Sort your record collection out!

Hilariously, he said the other day that he has some new music coming.

Including James Blunt.

Oh I can't wait for that to turn up...

* Remix : To take a perfectly good song and make it worse. Indeed, in some cases making it completely unidentifiable as the original tune. I don't think I've ever heard a remix that improved on the original.