I was clearing out a tangle of wires and old equipment from a desk drawer this afternoon. Among the mess - most of which has been thrown out - I discovered my old Sony MZ-R30 Minidisc Player/recorder, complete with power lead and remote controller. I rooted around and found a small box of recorded discs.

The lithium battery was shot so I plugged in the power lead and inserted a disc labelled "Richard Thompson: Mock Tudor" and - lo! it worked first time. I'd forgotten how good the sound quality was so I checked the net, discovered that replacement batteries are available, and ordered one.

OK, it's old technology now - superseded by laptops and iPods for playback and equipment like the Zoom series for recording - but it's well made and still functioning after many years of lying in a drawer.

Glad I found it - now to find all those boxes of discs from years ago...