On the way back from Manchester to Colchester at the end of the week, I felt like some familiar sounds, so I put the iPod onto Artist (Beatles), songs (all) and hit shuffle and bask in 3 hours of randomised HJH.

On the tube journey, leaving Farringdon, "For No one" came on and I was bowled over. It finished before I reached Barbican - the song is 2 minutes long (according to the iPod it's 2:00). But it's almost perfect. It's complex (in terms of lyrics and tune) and it's complete (it tells a story). It packs a punch and - after a couple of hours of complete Beatles with hardly a duff note (admission: I skipped Yellow Submarine when it came on) - it made me appreciate (once more), these guys know what they are doing.

I must be using headphones in a very peculiar way. My latest pair (Sennheiser CX500) have just stopped working in the right ear-piece. I got these in late-October last year.

Checking my amazon account, previously I had bought headphones in early-March 2009 (Sennheiser CX300) - these must have lasted 7 months. The headphones before that were bought in early-November 2008 (Sennheiser CX 300) must have lasted 4 months. Before that was mid-January 2008 (Sennheiser PX200) which managed to hold out for a heroic 10 months! I didn't look earlier than that.

I think that for all of these headphones, the problem was that one ear-phone stopped working.

As far as I know, I treat the headphones normally. They are used multiple times daily but nothing which I would have thought was extreme.

Perhaps I just buy 'cheap' headphones (< £20) which are a false economy?

Perhaps I should stop buying Sennheiser?

I am assuming that this turnaround in headphones is not normal...?