I dream of vinyl

Mr Pooter wants to hear my records too, originally uploaded by Ampersand Duck.

One of my ambitions in the near future is to get my turntable set up so that I can get my record collection (or more rightly, vinyl survivors) up and playing. Bumblebee thinks they are big CDs; Best Beloved once met a salesboy who were amazed to find that they could be played on both sides.

I'm not making any claims about my records; I wasn't one of the cool people who have a pristine collection of 70s and 80s classics. I started buying records in 1980 when living in England and continued through a very middle-of-the-road adolescence in Townsville and Orange (hence the Christopher Cross albums and a few really daggy compilations like Full Boar) until I met a man at uni who seduced me and took my recording tastes in hand. So there is a lot of shite, all of which has sentimental value with a stiff drink or five, and a lot of really good things, few of which I have replaced on CD. I really miss all of it.

The tricky thing is that I have an all-in-one stereo ('hiss' go the die-hard musos) with an extra component -- the turntable -- which sits on top. These days, the top of the stereo holds the video player, the dvd player and the broadband set-top box, and the latter can't have anything placed on top of it because it will then overheat. We put them all there so that the tv sound can run through the stereo, which works a treat. Unfortunately, that leaves no room for my beloved turntable, so it has been put out to graze the last few years. What to do? Nothing, has been my attitude for ages.

However! My determination has renewed its vigour because everytime I pop in to crazybrave's house, she is playing vinyl delights which arouse much envy in me. Usually they are records I don't own, so I just enjoy, but last week she pulled out Fleetwood Mac's Rumors. That album accompanied a lot of my adolescent angsting, along with Janis Ian. (I do not apologise for the dagginess of my musical taste, it was very important in making me the dag I am today.) I came home desperate to get creative with my entertainment area to try and get my Fleetwood Mac album under the needle.

I figure I'm just going to have to build some sort of rack over the set-top box which will support the turntable, but it will have to be fairly solid (or padded) otherwise any romping on the wooden floor will bump the needle. Oh, I'm just not into contruction. Does anyone have any suggestions?