You spin me round (like a record)

I was in the local branch of HMV this afternoon and this purply vision caught my eye. No, not the Beatles specifically but the fact that there is a tiny corner of the shop still devoted to that slightly apologetic blast from the past the vinyl record.
I am just about old enough to remember vinyl records. I even bought a few, although I was never a huge fan. They always seemed to me to be unsettlingly flimsy objects, forever ready to warp and scratch. But I do remember the distinctive aroma of warm vinyl and the in-your-face bigness of the artwork. There was certainly a little bit of shamanistic magic in conjuring music from all those orbiting little grooves, each of which looked as though it had been carved by hand from the black plate. That's a feeling that MP3 music can mever conjure, for all its infinite variety and click-happy convenience.