Dear List I'm no Scientist but I think the answer to Keith's battery conundrum is quite straightforward. It's all to do with the little elves that live inside your machine and the kind of music you play. Now we all know that Keith's taste in music is without parallel and that's why the batteries last so long. The elves inside are getting down with such abandon to the top tunes that he just can't help but spin that they don't need any music juice from the batteries. The music juice is only used when duff tunes appear; to lubricate their way out of the machine and through the headphones. Normally the elves do this themselves but when the music ceases to "rule" for a second they need some extra help that batteries provide. Try this at home - just slip "Ma he's making eyes at me" by Lena Zavaroni on your walkman - you'll eat up those AA's like there's no tommorrow. "OK then Mr TechnoPixie" I'm sure you're saying "What about on the train - Keith says that used up some of his batteries - how do you explain that you overgrown child whose inane fantasy life really needs better exercising than here on a kick-ass music list - and don't think that going on about Elves and pixies will get you anymore list crushes - you were bloody lucky to get one so don't go pushing your luck Mister...." Well, I'll explain. One of the unknown side effects of the privatisation of British Railways was that the trains were taken over be evil malevolent sprites who didn't care for dancing or merry making of any sort. The disco pixies who live inside walkmen are scared to dance (The Skids wrote a song about all of this...) and they lay low unable to stop the music juice resources being depleted. And because the elves are hiding they can't do anything about some of the music leaking out of your headphones and running madly around the carriage instead of interfacing directly with your brain material (as Chris Morris would say). That's why you can always hear other people's music on a train. xx John +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +---+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+