Little Trinketry

I recently made a bizarre personal discovery. By which I mean that it's probably common knowledge for the rest of you but new news on Planet G. 

Radios have gone completely missing from brick & mortar stores. Why in Beelzebub's name do you need one, you ask? The father is hankering for a radio. Not just any fiddly variety but one which has a clock feature as well. A decade ago, in one of his occasional Marie Kondo moments, our clock radio, in perfect working condition of course, was shown the exit. Now, father can't find the right one for love or money. A piece by Sony which came close is only available at a price that suggests it should be able to pick up radio stations on Jupiter.

Now cease and desist with the "tch" and eye-rolling for a minute and hear me out. There are 6+ stations on the FM band in this city and many more across the country. Surely that's enough customers to keep manufacturing radios? On the other hand, an irritatingly learned friend is likely to indicate that radio stations occasionally playing songs in between long and inane ads suggests they're struggling for both money and relevance. Radios are now de jure part of music systems in cars. App stores boast of radio, world radio at that, apps available for download. So, maybe it doesn't make sense to manufacture them anymore. No amount of nostalgia can fix that. Besides, why am I not looking for one on Amazon? First place I went to, actually. But the ones there had rather iffy reviews and inspired no confidence at all.

So, I shall tune out all the faultless and sensible logic and continue my lamentation. Which neatly brings us to this week as I walked into a number of big and small emporiums claiming to stock the widest variety of electronic goods and barely made it past the first sales person. You know, the greenhorn who oils up to you with a hopeful look right after the security chap takes your temperature. The standard terse exchange goes something like this:

G: Do you have clock radios?

SP (startled): Wha? What?

G (martyred voice): It's a digital clock which has a radio.

SP inner monologue: Why couldn't he just ask about phones like everyone else?

SP: No, no... we don't have.

G (desperately): How about radios? You have those?

SP (sudden spark of hope): Sa Re Ga Ma Caravan? That we...

G inner monologue: Shove the caravan up your natural loudspeaker, idiot.

G (tiredly): No, just a regular radio... which has a clock display.

SP (eyes glazed over, slight drool at the corner of the mouth, backing away): No, no... wait!

G (ember of hope aflame): Haan, you have?

SP (pointing to yet another crappy Bluetooth Speaker): We have this.

G (mentally hacking down the guy with a blunt machete): That's okay.

Exit stage left. End of scene.

Look, I'm not even asking for a single function item, which even I'll admit is probably redundant. Surely though, a digital desk clock with a built-in radio which doubles up as a nifty alarm justifies its existence? And why does it feel like everything I know is going down this road? The mills of god may grind slowly but heavens above, the mills of technology are grinding away at bloody light speed!

Anyway, since the paterfamilias' birthday is upon us, with his heart set on this electronic El Dorado, I eventually did exactly what you'd expect - capitulated and ordered one from Amazon. Let's hope it's decent.

FM-L indeed.

Song for the moment: Free me - Uriah Heep

PS: This is a great online classic radio station