Vinyl has never gone away and, in certain areas of music, is flourishing and in demand - not just the s/h market. IT journalists and future-visionaries have long been predicting the death of vinyl and the book - the death of the book in 10 years was predicted 20 years ago. It won't just happen. The music and print publishing world is, of course, subject to IT trends, and there are always movements away from and towards certain types of media. Some do die, like 8-track car stereo, and the cassette format, for example, is slowly dying.

What people forget is that computer media and formats are also not stable. Lord, how we enjoyed the music we stored on our 5 1/4" floppy discs - stored on what? (Yes, I know we didn't, but imagine we had done...). Whatever happened to laser disc?

What remain relatively stable are vinyl and paper. Didn't back up your iTunes on your Mac? iPod gone ppphht? Oh dear - all those downloads down the Swanee. Power cut - and Kindle not charged? Better pick up a paperback.

New technologies have huge benefits, but throwing out all the old willy-nilly is never wise.