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It is perhaps an inescapable side-effect of being in the second-highest concentration of technology companies in the world that if you find a random group of men in a Cambridge pub they are more likely to be talking about web servers than cars or football.

On a completely unrelated note, I did go out and buy a new surround sound setup: a Cambridge Audio azur 340R receiver and Mordaunt-Short Premiere (sic) speakers, and spent all afternoon cutting, stripping, and fitting speaker wire. It is like sticking all the decals on a new Hot Wheels set, only an order of magnitude more expensive, so a lot more fun. The other difference from a Hot Wheels set is that you can turn it on at the end, listen to music and films, and hear details you couldn't before.

I even tried listening to a Beyond Our Ken episode. These things were recorded when bits were what your valves smashed to if you ran them too hot, and have sat around on magnetic tape for the intervening years. The BBC conservation experts do an excellent job, and kudos to the BBC for putting resources into this essential area of their remit, but inevitably the passage of time still shows. Even so, pushed through my new system, the sound is much warmer and fuller than before.

I'm quite happy with my purchase, and I expect I will be increasingly so over the next few weeks as the components settle and the sound balance improves, and as I manage to hit some old songs on my playlist that never sounded so good.