Faithless iPOD

Can I really pull off an outfit entirely in shades of khaki?

Can you still be a credible trustafarian* if your underwear is clearly from Marks & Spencer?

But never did I expect to be pondering which of my garments looked best with a black armband, or shopping for a lacy black bonnet in a Queen Victoria-inspired fit of grief. My iPod, you see, is dying.

As a mere whippersnapper, I wrote a piece for this paper about my iPod.

Written in the first throes of young love, it was a suitably gushy ode to the little white machine I had christened "my new boyfriend", full of rose-tinted declarations about his dependability, his impeccable taste, and the beautiful future we were going to have together.

There were photos: I, fresh-faced and radiant, he, shiny and scratch-free, looking like one of those Big Brother couples on their first cover of Heat.

Two years, many playlists, one new battery and a few near-miss dropping incidents later, the honeymoon period is definitely over.

We're on our fifth Heat cover, the one with separate photos where I'm wearing no make-up and he looks like he could do with a stint in mp3 rehab.

First came the arguments. Trifling tiffs at first; him playing me Bob Marley when I expressly asked for Dylan, or my being too demanding with the shuffle button and him freezing by way of response '“ a technological variation on the "cold shoulder" that one doesn't much appreciate when the non-musical alternative is playing I-spy with one's sibling from Worthing to Wales (clue: the answer's probably sheep).

But these hitches were minimal, nothing a few runs of the Beatles' We Can Work It Out couldn't cure.

No, the cracks in the relationship really started to show around January of this year, when . . . I'll admit it, but please don't judge me . . . I was unfaithful.

When my mint-condition, 1960s, genuine Dansette record player arrived on the scene, I knew that despite my best intentions, I would never be able to remain musically monogamous.

As all philanderers do at first, I thought I could find room in my life for both.

Dansette, being the size of a small suitcase, with an accompanying pile of vinyl, could clearly not be a satisfying train companion in the way that Mr Pod could, and thus both boyfriends had their separate roles and could live in harmony side by side.

Until, that is, I started (unfairly, I appreciate, but there comes a time with every gadget/spouse when you just have to push them to their limits) taking Mr Pod to dusty record shops, making him sit in my handbag for hours while I trawled through boxes of old blues LPs and compared prices on Motown singles. Understandably, he got jealous.

An icon of the technological age he may be, but he knows that the dust and scratches on my copy of Sergeant Pepper are like manly scars on the stubbly chin of a jungle explorer '“ life experience wins every time.

But little did I know that my reckless infidelity would drive poor Poddy to his deathbed.

After a big, public fight in which he wiped out all of my playlists and I said a lot of hurtful things I didn't really mean, his health took a turn for the worse.

He can't remember half of the music I've uploaded. He doesn't have the strength to connect to my laptop and he can't make it to the corner shop without cutting out.

Now, of course, I am the very model of remorse, because as punishment for my musical mischief, I look set to become an iWidow. Wreaths would be appreciated, miracle cures more so.

He looks so small and helpless, lying there on my desk, permanently plugged into his charger as though he were on life support, while I weep delicately into a hanky and play Abba's Thank You For the Music on a loop (at times like this, matters of taste have to be overlooked in favour of being appallingly melodramatic).

I only hope he can hang on in there, even if just as a shadow of his former self. Of course, I could spend a nice chunk of my student loan on a new one, but it just wouldn't be the same . . . because, as Paul McCartney is singing from Dansette at this very moment, money can't buy me love.

* The Editor consulted an online dictionary of slang to discover that a "trustafarian" is described in various terms, including: a spoiled white rich kid who lives with poorer people, probably has fake dreadlocks and might or might not smoke pot, listens to Grateful Dead tribute bands and says "peace" instead of "bye", all in a misguided attempt to gain credibility, or street-cred, while disguising the trust fund they actually live off.

It doesn't sound like Lauren at all.