Nokia Headphones - New heights of embarrasment

My love/hate relationship with my Nokia N73 continues - it's managed to learn a a new trick now, a very, very annoying one...the other day I was merrily continuing my journey through the top 100 classical tunes of all time when I arrived at London Bridge station, tutted slightly at the reduced gate entry for the Jubilee line but joined in the scrum, suffering some inevitable gentle knocks/the odd rucksack in the face/briefcase in the shins...as I shuffled slowly forwards though the neatly dressed queue, the track I was listening to drew to a jolly (kettle drum filled) conclusion and there was a short pause while the gremlin in the phone threw his newspaper to the floor and scrambled to flip the tiny record over...oddly the next track was of noticeably worse quality, but I shrugged and turned the volume up a notch or two (nearing maximum), got to the barrier and slipped in my season ticket and began my two escalator descent into the bowels of London...

The platform was quite busy, I had to wait for around five minutes, surrounded by a crush of fellow commuters but eventually a train with enough room arrived and I "twister"'ed my way into a fairly comfortable position (i.e. one with a good amount of head room and minimal back pain)...as we pulled away from London Bridge (after a couple of attempts by the driver to get the doors to shut without any limbs poking out) I started to notice a young couple peering up at me through the forest of clinging arms, talking quietly and giggling (and then looking embarrassed at themselves as they noticed me noticing them with my slightly confused "is this *really* a laughing matter?" expression)...and then one of my ear buds fell out (as they have a habit of doing) and it immediately became apparent that for the last 10 minutes, not only had I been enjoying Mozart's Klavierkonzert (and whatever had been on before that, and maybe before that) I had also been broadcasting it at full volume through the (excellent) handset speaker to all of those around me...*sigh*...

Face+Palm...(still, at least this time it was pretty far from the worst thing I could have been listening to)...

Getting into Classical Music

So last week, frustrated by total lack of decent signal for "Classic FM" in practically every situation when I might wish to listen to it (mostly commute), I decided to get hold of some portable classical music of a more "on demand" (and non-wireless) nature...Simple, one might think...however, it proved to be a bit more of a problem than I originally anticipated - there is a collossal amount of classical music available, and it is of distinctly variable quality (beauty is in the ear of the beholder and all that), so where on earth does one start?

I decided I would begin my quest completely at random with a 3 CD collection called "Beethoven - Piano Concertos (Pollini - Abbado)"...it took me a couple of days to get through it all, I recognised very little of it, I also (unfortunately) enthusiastically liked very little of it either...with a bit of (half-hearted) repetition some of the good bits of the compositions started to pop into my mind when it was being otherwise idle (over the weekend, that sort of thing)...but largely, I judged myself to have made a rather dissapointing choice, and thus an inglorious first foray...

Attempt two faired only a little better as I then, rather foolishly, rushed to the complete opposite end of the scale and picked up a VA release called "The Top 100 Masterpieces of Classical Music 1685-1928"...while the first couple of tracks were interesting and new it then descended rather quickly into track after track that probably should have been titled "The Top 100 Masterpieces of Classical Music 1685-1928 that you are already sick of hearing because they have been ruthlessly battered to death and subsequently dumped in a stream by the Advertising Industry"...and although I'm only on track 58, the horrifying conclusion I'm starting to uncomfortably and uncontrollably slide towards is that all the really good and catchy bits of Classical music are already down there - and starting to decompose - waiting to be discovered by someone that was "just out walking their dog"...and who will react as I did - with some revulsion...

I'd love to be wrong...any suggestions?

(Update - Duo Des Fleurs does sort of work on the escalators in Cabot Square)...