Decay

The climate here is unforgiving. Philip Jeyaretnam gets this nicely through the narrator of Abraham's Promise: The pages are yellow, blotchy and discoloured. Looking at these repositories of learning, my best friends, I pity their sufferings from our heat and humidity. Scholarship can never conquer in these parts: every seeming victory is mocked by the steady workings of the climate, a climate that rots wood, paper and fabrics with democratic indiscrimination. I would add CDs to that list.

Today I was trying to play my box set of the four symphonies of Michael Tippet and found that the ravages of time had had a real go at the third and fourth. When II first started buying CDs, around 1987, I think, we were told they would last a lifetime. Most of those I bought then still play okay, but I can't see them lasting a great deal longer, marked as most of them seem to be simply by time.

I used to get mildly depressed by the damage caused by the climate, especially to books. But there's a positive side to all this. It's a reminder that collecting stuff just to lie on the shelves is not a particularly useful thing to do. Use it - and then it's really not so bad if you lose it. Though I must say I'd like a good listen to Tippet's last two symphonies again - just wish I'd played them more when they were in good health.