Thanks, council, for killing the music

You may not have noticed, but Wednesday may well have been the day the music died,

The latest people to try to bring live music to the pub-going public in Shrewsbury say they have been forced to knock the idea on the head - because the red-tape brigade have asked them to turn the music down.

The Albert pub used to be a hangout for the sort of people who think Burberry caps and acne is a fashion statement.

Recently it was revamped and the upstairs room turned into the B-side - a cracking little venue which has attracted local bands and big names alike.

But now the pub is closed. At a time when pubs are closing all over the place. The reason? Environmental Health - aka the fun police - has slapped the pub with a noise abatement order, claiming it is causing a nuisance to neighbouring homes.

This follows the idiotic ruling from the same officials during the summer that chart-topper Travis should be asked to keep it down a bit when they played in the Quarry, with the result that many people were left wondering who exactly it always rained on.

The Albert is in the centre of town. I'm sorry but if you chose to live in the middle of what is, effectively, Shropshire's city then you know what to expect. And given the size of the venue I fail to see how much noise they could actually be making.

As for the Travis debacle, officials want the concerts - and the loot they bring in - but only if the letter writing brigade (who let's be honest are all of a "certain age") don't object. It appears you can have your cake and eat it.

It's interesting to note that a stone's throw from the Albert is the new all-singing, all dancing Theatre Severn - a council facility designed to attract, amongst other things, live bands.

Now I'm sure that has better sound proofing than the pub down the road, but are we really being asked to believe that the disturbance caused by theatre-goers and their cars will be less than that of a few people out to watch a bit of live music?

Presumably anyone who arrives at theatre by car will be asked to put it in neutral and push it out of the town centre before starting their engine and continuing their journey home.

It appears we are quite happy to have artists like James Morrison - who will play at the Severn - and Travis in Shrewsbury but we are not prepared to do anything to help find the next James Morrison or Travis in our own backyard.

Is it any wonder the last big name to come out of Shropshire was T'Pau? (ask your mum. Or your dad: he would've fancied Carol Decker).

But live music is not the only victim.

Also on Wednesday, radio chart show Hit40UK announced it is ditching CD sales and will only reflect downloads from now on.

The show, which boasts some 1.9 million listeners, broadcasts on more than 130 commercial radio stations.

And so the CD goes the same way as the novel.

I like buying CDs. I love music, but I also love the effort that goes into the packaging of an album. I like to see in innovative cover designs. I like to read the sleeve notes and the lyrics.

Well, looks like I won't get to do that much longer.

There is a website which sells a wall mounting that you can put CDs in and, hey presto, you have instant artwork.

But that looks like it's going out of the window.

I own an MP3 player, of course I do. But I regularly buy CDs too, the same as I like to buy books.

The new bookreaders mean you can download novels much the same way as you can music. They are even designed to be "booklike" so you still get the idea of turning the pages.

But it misses the point.

Apparently you can't judge a book by its cover. Not true. You can't judge a book that doesn't HAVE a cover.

I want to see the front of my novels, read the inside bit about the author, and stick my tattered old bookmark between the dog-eared pages to mark my place.

Perhaps when we are all working from home, downloading all our entertainment to our multimedia centre, eating free-dried chicken ping and ending up looking like the fat, muscle-wasted humans from the film Wall-E the fun police will finally be satisfied.

I'm off to read a book and listen to one of my CDs.

But don't worry. I'll keep the noise down.