Today I snarled and laughed at my stereo

You know how it is when a simple inanimate object can send you red-faced with rage?

Now, music's pretty important to me. I have the radio on, or play tunes all day and night when I'm working, so it's important to have a reliable, decent quality player that keeps me entertained when I'm working hard in my small office.

Sadly, my four year old Sony 'Mini Hi-Fi Component System' '(DHC-MD333 if you're interested) does none of these things.

Sure, the radio works just fine, as does the built in MiniDisc and cassette player, but the CD player is a nightmare. Touchy isn't the word.

Sometimes it will decide it simply doesn't agree with my taste and refuse point blank to play an album.

Other times, it likes a long 'warm up' period before electing to play a CD, with the disc audibly spinning around inside but no music forthcoming.

It can take anything from 20 seconds to several hours to start playing a CD (I know this because I put a CD in and forgot about it, and was surprised to hear music bursting out at 4am).

One way to speed its dithery way along is to give it a good old fashioned thump, lifting the box up an inch or so and crashing it back on the desk top. It may take two or three of these aggressive kabooms to get the song playing, but it invariably works.

Unfortunately, the thumping often results in other objects on the table getting knocked over, cups broken, tea spilt etc etc

Sometimes it likes to reorganise the playing order of a CD, while other times it likes to indulge in a bit of remixing, playing back random snatches of music on an infinite loop.

Occasionally, it plumps to play a CD at triple speed or (and this usually happens when I'm settled in a relaxing bath after a hard day) it endlessly plays the last three seconds of a tune.

The useless piece of shit drives me fucking mad.

So, today, I'm looking at it and cackling, "You're history chum!".

Yep, I'm off to buy a swanky new Onkyo player with a CD player, RDS radio and (best of all) a built in DAB tuner.

Sony! Your reign of terror is over!