Our "cutting off random posts in mid word" seems a minor problem compared to others - the Record of the Day has been offline for ages (judging by the E-Mails I'm getting from people who find the Tip Sheet board more interesting anyway) and the "long tail" theory has been shown to be false (the vast majority of tracks available online haven't sold a single copy - quite right too, but it tends to disprove the theory).

Add to that our own site hiccups - suggested due to extreme popularity but none of our sites seem more popular than usual although Vile Pervert: The Musical has increased hugely over the last week thanks to Madame Arcati choosing it as the Best Film of 2008 - several hundred full length views/downloads a day at present.

I suspect, like retail, internet has reached spontaneous combustion time.

Regarding long-tail theory.

20 years ago me trying to sell rubbish hope-recorded cassettes at a bootfair and failing wouldn't show retail to be false.

The same remains today.

Getting to a wider market is easier today than it has ever been - practically speaking the distribution and manufacture of Vile Pervert would have stalled to extinction without huge expenditure not so very long ago.

Vile Pervert offers a prime example of the long-tail theory working and working in a way it claims is should.

I was looking for prezzies for a teenage fan: the "Twlight" soundtrack and Nightwish who are selling out their tour in Europe at the moment (43 million listens on Last.fm! www.last.fm/music/nightwish ) After visiting five general and specialist shops, I eventually found a lone copy of Twilight and had to turn to eMusic.com for Nightwish (at a fraction of the retail price). I also picked up a high-quality MP3 version of a Wim Mertens album (not my cup of tea, personally).

Thank goodness for the Internet. Giving the gift of music was becoming a bit of a slog.