GENNARO CASTALDO WATCH: Edged out of his own party

Poor Gennaro Castaldo - he spends his life managing to squeak references to his employers, HMV, into news stories left and right, and then when HMV is the news, he's elbowed aside in favour of some chap called Gideon Lask.

The occasion is HMV's launch of a new service which allows you to buy CDs using your mobile phone.

Gideon is very, very excited. He's seen the future, and it has a Crazy Frog ringtone:

"We have recognised that our customers like to shop across a number of channels," said Gideon Lask, the head of internet at HMV.

"We need to become a true multichannel retailer and the mass-market penetration of mobiles is an attractive proposition to give people flexibility to buy wherever they are, whenever they want."

Whoever they are, whatever they are, whimsoever they be. This ability to order records without even having to power up a PC is great news for the sort of artist who only ever sells records based on instant whims. If it takes off, Shayne Ward may yet have a career ahead of him.

music