Over Christmas, and with absolutely no prior warning or apparent reason, my iPod died. I was quite proud of it. I bought it not long after the launch of the third-gen model, and was inordinately proud of its slinky shape and then-vast 20GB storage capacity. Over the years it acquired a distinct patina, and as I wrote in the magazine recently, I discovered that attacking the metal back plate with a sanding block gave it a lovely brushed aluminium effect which completely disguised the scratches.

But now it is no more. I just went to switch it on and the hard disk made the most gut-wrenching scraping sound. While I could technically have replaced the hard disk, the iPod was BER – beyond economical repair; a new iPod could cost less. So today it shuffled off this mortal coil in style: by being dissected. Above you see a quick camphone shot from the inside of the front casing showing the plethora of capacitive sensors which determine where on the scroll wheel your finger is.

It will be immortalised on the printed page in due course laid out with all the reverence of a pharaoh, but it the meantime I am sans iPod. I could in theory afford to buy a new one, but I can't quite justify the expenditure so close to Christmas. I may have to wait till March for my birthday, but that does mean three months without my music collection, In Our Time podcast and audiobooks. :'(