That's Fraser's speciality.

I don' know how they do it, either. I don't even have time to hum in the shower.

To stop yourself humming.

Time, stretch it I might. In the car to listen, Yoda has ways. Many miles, many miles, has Yoda to drive.

... is good place to listen. I have a 75min drive to work (and, obviously, back home) so it gives me a great opportunity to listen.

Also, if I'm on a day off, I have music on in the house (if the other half is at work).

A third time is on the headphones, with a few cool beers at night (but only if I'm off the next day!!).

I worked out the other day that it would take me nearly 3 years to listen to the music I have on my computer, if I devoted two hours a day to it and never listened to the same track twice.

So, as I've said elsewhere, I've almost stopped listening to most of it and devote myself mostly to a large folder labelled Soul.

And that was going really well, until a friend of mine sent me two dvds worth of Northern Soul mp3s.

How can you have too much music? I'm not sure, but it's happened to me.....

...Vorticella - the debut album by dour 1980s synthpop duo Michael's Charades - has left me with the ability to experience an ordinary 24 hour day as a 31 hour expanse of spacetime.

As an additional side effect, I find that I am able to communicate telepathically with all three of Michael's Charades remaining fanbase, thereby negating the need for a myspace page or facebook group.

I remember reading an interview with David Bowie and he was talking about his book collection. He has a vast, carefully collected library, but he admitted that he’d have to live to a pretty ripe old age to read them all. I imagine a lot of people’s music collections are like that. I can understand completism. If you like an artist it’s pretty natural to want to hear all their stuff.
What I don’t really connect with is this urgent desire for something new. I’m quite happy with stuff that I’m familiar with and, to be perfectly honest, I could could quite happily live out the rest of my days only listening to the music I’ve got already. It’s not that I’m stuck in that past - I do listen to and buy new music and enjoy discovering stuff I haven’t heard before to some extent. It’s just that the older you get - I’m 44 - and the more music you’ve absorbed over the years, the thrill of a new discovery lessens. Diminishing returns. It’s fantastically exciting to hear something new and original when you’re 15. When you’re getting on for 45 you’ve pretty much heard it all before.

As mentioned above, the answer is driving. I spend a good ninety minutes in the car - sometimes the train - a day, and that's when I listen to music. I used to be the most enormous film buff. Now the time no longer really exists to watch films, so I tend to be hugely out of touch and concentrate my energy on music instead. I don't feel like I've lost out.

I went and saw David Simon talk about The Wire last week, and he said that so much television is watched leaning back, jaw slightly open, brain half switched on; that he wanted to devise a series that got everyone leaning towards the television, utterly engaged and maybe not even picking everything up. He said that once the viewers sat forward in their chair, he felt he'd got them.

Of course this is true, and The Wire is among the best television ever made. But, you know what? As I get older and the evenings seem less like a time for relaxing and more a time for collapsing, I look at the box set of series four that a friend lent me and think, " I do want to watch The Wire. I really do. I love it. But I'm not sure I've got the energy, and there's last week's Doctor Who and half a bottle of wine on the side in the kitchen..."

So, back to the subject in hand. Music? A bunch of shortish songs I can listen to whilst doing other things. Right now, that wins.

I was mostly listening to Tim Buckley's "Goodbye And Hello", while this afternoon I was mostly listening to Ry Cooder's "Chicken Skin Music".

Tomorrow I will be mostly listening to a Greensleeves reggae sampler in the morning, and Dennis Bovell's "Dub Conference" in the afternoon.

And that's just the drives to and from work.

At this rate, my music collection will last until I am commuting in the year 2153.

Except I'll have to eventually find contracts on Mars, or the rocket car will be getting me to work in the time it takes to hear a 3 track EP.

Long drives to and from work, whenever I cook, which is often and whenever Mrs Path and I have visitors. And when I am alone or if there is naff all of interest on telly: "go and play with your i-pod". However that is normally summative rather than formative. (Or is it the other way round?)

Yes driving / train, also Waitrose is good. The other day I listened to "Let's work together" by Canned Heat 6 times straight whilst walking the aisles - I was positively boogieing by the till. Last week it was "Rocky Top" by Heather Edwards - highly recommended as a quick 79 pen'orth (off to iTunes with you) - serious shit kicking country bluegrass with a belting singer. Perfect for the supermarket or indeed anywhere else.

My other regular date is the BBC or Guardian politics weekly podcasts with a rollup and glass of rosé on the patio late at night. Marvellous.

......in the car or kitchen, or whilst surfing.

My real pig out though, when I put 5 or 6 of my latest purchases on my 512Mb Zen is in the garden. No, not with a bottle of wine, but simply catching up with the mundane weekly chores of grass cutting, leave clearing, window cleaning, drive washing, weed pulling etc etc.

Each week (weather permitting) I spend a 2-3 hour shift carrying out these duties. It's about as much as my ears can stand (and my back for that matter). CDs listened to in their entirety! I'm really familiar now with the latest Earle, R. Thompson, Bragg, Wainwright III and Hiatt; all which I love. They'll be relegated to the shuffle before the next shift though.

Yes I 'discovered' taking music round the supermarket with me (first CD Walkman, now iPod easier) and it makes a dullish task a near-pleasure. Only neg is when you reach the checkout and it feels rude to keep it on while packing. The aural bump down to earth when you press stop is pretty gloomy.

Track 3, Side 2 of London's Burning.
(Or track 9 on Burning London, to which I add the advice, don't bother.......)

Hours on a bus five times a week plus newly purchased music at home.

I have a very good system in place. I pay money for music and I listen to it within a few weeks. I know the CDs are there and I'm not going to forget about them. This way I have kept on top of my music collection and I have listened to every single piece of music I have ever bought. Sometimes I've got to be hardcore and listen to music I don't want to listen to, which of course begs the question, would did I buy it in the first place? I am also very prolific at returning unwanted music to the shops.

It would send me loopy to know that I had a massive stack of CDs that I'll never listen to. And no matter how much I tried to get through it I would always be defeated because of endless new purchases, or because the unheard music is unheard for a very good reason.

I spend many hours most days with music playing. I spend most of my workday sitting in front of a computer, listening whilst I work. I'm an hour in the car getting to and from work, so there's a whole CD there each day. I help a friend by walking her dog, so there's a very enjoyable hour or so of strolling with my iPod during each walk. A bit of music helps doing the dishes and cleaning all the more tolerable too. Finally there's usually a little spare time for relaxing in the evening or at weekends with the iPod on shuffle. So, all in all, I listen to a lot most weeks.

Since Fopp closed, my music buying has slowed considerably anyway, so I am managing to keep well on top of things. Where one year I bought two albums each day on average, this year my CD collection has only had 150 new additions. Every album I have has had a listen, when I've brought it into work to put onto my computer. It's not always a full play as some albums I buy just for one or two tracks but the joy then is hearing an unknown track come up on a playlist one day.

Played from start to finish, my mp3s at work would take 130 days. For me that just means I have everything I enjoy to choose from or have shuffle choose for me.

I am a bit of a hoarder. I couldn't bear to throw away any of my CDs, even if I'm never likely to ever touch the majority of the CDs again now that I've got them on my computer. Likewise, I've kept all the books I've ever read and all the music magazines, boxed in the attic for space reasons and quite probably never going to be read or looked at again but just in case I'm keeping them.

DVDs though, that's where things are getting a tad out of control. It's not like DVDs can be randomly dipped into and my DVD collection really has become something I'll never get through. I've watched the last two seasons of the West Wing and the Wire Season 3 in the last month, and I started on Homicide Season 2 last night. All well and good, if not for my having ordered NYPD Blue 2,3 and 4, and Homicide 3 and 5 just last week.

Have probably bought around 50 cd's this year - not as many as Andrew - if that was the case I may be minus a few appendages. Anyway I found that I was listening exclusively to my new cd's at the neglect of established catalogue. the exception of course being good old IPOD shuffle. Anyway I made a decision - the cd player in the car is a 6 disc multi changer. Instead of having 6 new discs on it there are now 3 new discs and 3 old discs with the old discs being rotated every week. This week it is Whiskeytown - Pneumonia, Jackie Leven - Defending ancient springs and Edgar Broughton band twofer (the meat album and Inside out). I now get to hear cherished oldies alongside my new stuff and it has certainly renewed my interest in long forgotten nuggets.Tomorrow I have a 2 and half drive to Somerset so later this evening will be selecting some new 'old' to put on the playlist.

I find it hard to even keep up with Word CDs... Maybe when I retire (though there will be 20 more years of stuff to catch up with before then). Hope my hearing holds up.

I find that when I have time, the choice of music I could listen to is so difficult that I tend to listen to podcasts - The Word, The Bugle, Collings and Herrin, by the time I've got through that, the cycle starts again.

it's just after half ten on sunday morning and i'm sitting at the computer in my pants

(and dressing gown)

.......can stretch time. I can listen to Led Zep 1-4 in the time he takes to come to the bloody point.