BY SHENGAS  MCGLUMPHIE

A man from Eglish finally succumbed to the relentless march of progress and bought a CD player on Saturday afternoon in Dungannon.

“I’ve always been an early adapter with all the new technologies, and buy stuff just as they come onto the market”, said Terry Malloy, an astro-physicist from Eglish. “I was one of the first to buy a fax machine about three years ago and you still don’t see very many of them about. I’ve always loved vinyl but now it’s time to embrace the modern world, and this Amstrad CD player is a beauty”.

Malloy bought the Amstrad CD430 stereo system for £35 from Johnny Skinner’s hardware shop in Dungannon, which comes complete with a twin-deck tape recorder.

“Two tape recorders, not just one!” said a proud Malloy. “So I can tape the CDs and then play them on my Walkman when I’m in the lab smashing photons into each other. Did you know that it’s got something on it called ‘Shuffle’? I know what you’re thinkin’. But it’s nothing to do with playing cards. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like putting all the songs that were in one order into a different order but not the same different order every time but a different different order. I’m still getting my head round it”, admitted Malloy, shaking his head in wonder. “Everyone will have one of these soon”, he predicted. “Well, maybe not them ones in Greencastle”.

Malloy’s first foray into the CD market was the purchase of Daniel O’Donnell’s ‘Moon Over Ireland’ album. Unfortunately, he got so excited about hearing the Donegal pensioner-botherer, the CD got badly scratched when Malloy got confused and tried to play it on his old record deck.

“Fitting 70 minutes of music onto this wee disc thing is deadly”, enthused Malloy. “In like a hundred years, they might find a way of squeezing maybe 2 hours onto it, but I’m not holding my breath. Jaysus, it would be like something out of Doctor Who or Space 1999”