on a certain much maligned late night TV music show - good place to hear this kind of stuff. Was impressed. Not got the album though.

Those stickers can sway you. I went for Royksopp Melody AM which had similar stickers. Had never heard it. I didn't regret it. I think it's really excellent.

including, as it happens, Feist, as well as Cat Power & Mindy Smith.

...HMV's sale is bizarre. I bought the DVDs of "For Your Consideration" and "Ghost World" for three quid each. Fraser tried to do the same thing at a different branch and couldn't find anything for less than twelve quid.

I regularly buy blind and ones that stick in the memory as being winners are Joan Osborne, Royksopp (me too, Sven) and Groove Armada.

One thing I do miss in the world of 'modern' music buying is leafing through the LP stack while listening to what's on the PA. Often it was tripe,but there were a significant number of occasions when an album I didn't recognise on the PA kept me in the store for jalf an hour longer than I intended....All three of the names above came to me via that route and I can remember the stores really well:
Joan Osborne - Kingston HMV
Royksopp - FOPP Leamington Spa
and most memorably Groove Armada was heard in a record store in Parth WA. It became the soundtrack to my stay in Oz.

...when I had sufficient funds to purchase something that I knew I would like and enough leftover to take a gamble on a CD by an act I had never heard of.

Now, in leaner times I can afford to do one or the other. Mostly I take the safe option. After I finish writing this I am going to walk into town and pick up the new R.E.M album in full knowledge that, even though it won't set my world on fire, I will probably end up enjoying the music. It's a bit sad - a large portion of my collection is made up of stuff I picked up because it looked like it might be good. Maybe I would be better served by closing my eyes and pulling something out of the racks at random.

The closest I came to buying blind recently was The Vampire Weekend debut. That doesn't really count because I had heard the name before, and the many complimentary things said about the album.

I can remember making took place yonks ago.

On strolling into the Virgin Records stall (yes, stall; their square footage was probably only just into double figures) in Plymouth one Saturday morning, I discovered that they were moving their interesting collection of dodgy US import pressings and other weird stuff to new premises, and were having a clearout.

The regular racks yielded little in the way of bargains, though I did pick up a US pressing of Mountain's "Nantucket Sleighride", complete with gatefold sleeve and several 10 x 8 black and white prints of the band (not a pretty sight) along with Gail Collins' delightful booklet of lyrics and illustrations for all of the songs, for the knocked down price of 2 quid (mainstream albums at the time retailed at around £2.75 I recall; this is waaaaay back in the mists of time).

On approaching the encumbent long haired Jack Black lookalike to pay for this plunder, and having successfully negotiated a clump of greatcoated punters, clouds of pungent Gauloise smoke, and a forest of headphone leads hanging from the ceiling, oxygen-mask style, my eyes alighted upon a single cardboard box of albums, propped up next to the till. What caught the eye was the label, "Deletions - 25 p each".

Now, the term "deletion" was enough to raise my interest, it always being gratifying to grab the last copy of something half-good that will soon spend an eternity in the wilderness, but the real killer was the 25p price tag; in fiscally cautious, impecunious times this was a welcome licence to purchase experimentally!

A brief flick through the box of thirty or so albums revealed no titles on my hit list, but a perusal of the covers for the musicians on board for each album, the instrumentation used, and other pertinent clues, like label, titles and choice of album art, revealed some interesting possibilities. So what did I get?

I picked up Paul Brett's "Sage" album on Pye, which includes this little gem, "3D Mona Lisa",

as well as Fairfield Parlour's "From Home To Home" on Vertigo swirl, Fucshia's eponymous album on Pegasus and Mike Vernon's "Bring It Back Home" on Blue Horizon featuring Rory Gallagher and Paul Kossoff amongst other guests. For a quid. Every single one has music of merit and interest, though none is a "lost classic" or work of genius.

Conservatively, as a quick look on eBay or in the price guides will tell you, these four albums are worth about £200 these days, but despite being all available on CD, I love the fact that I have the originals, in mint condition vinyl. I doubt I'll ever get that lucky in a high street shop again.

Admittedly a much less frequent or much less enjoyable experience, now that it seems only to be HMV or Zavvi.Even Fopp in Solihull closed down 2 days before I got to it! I can't resist trying out recommendations, such as yours, VV, for Roogalator, which will clearly be in neither. Online is much less fun, so I tend to let "ideas" languish in shopping cart awhile. Sales in supermarkets can be good territory, as are charity shops.I am old enough (and lucky enough) to feel spending the odd fiver purely on whim to be nobodys business than my own. Mrs Path indulges me this habit if I promise not to make her listen to or go with me to see some of those rewards.

The quintessential 'last one out of the three for ten quid' purchase, it's simply splendid. I bought it partially on the basis of the backing band (Quine was a name I recognised) but mainly for the cover photo - a lady dressed only in a man's dinner jacket often draws the eye. Little did I know that the co-writer 'Charles' was Red Dwarf's Carig Charles and I had no idea that she'd served an apprenticeship singing BV's for Stock, Aitken and Waterman, but the CD itself is trul wonderful. Where is she now, I wonder?

...going into a record shop, browsing the sales rack and seeing al the CDs you bought last year for full price......