ARE THESE FACTS, IN ANY WAY, CONNECTED?: i love fucked up noise buys an ipod; within a fortnight everything sounds uninspiring, lost, distant. I always wondered, to be honest, about the nursery rhyme about the woman with "rings on her fingers and bells on her toes/ she shall have music wherever she goes" - it's one of those things that sounds like a really cool idea but, when you think about it more closely, could actually turn out to be a curse. Like an aural midas touch. Maybe the iPod - all that music, always with you - could be a similar curse. Plus, you lose that age-old stand-by to exit dull pub conversations: "Sorry, but I have to run home as I have an overwhelming urge to hear the Sea Urchins right now."