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I was travelling in to London on the tube last week, when I had something of a revelation. It wasn't a religious experience, but I did suddenly realise just how much our electronic trade has changed in the past few years.

Everyone in the carriage seemed to be part of the digital generation.

About half the passengers sitting opposite me had faces that were framed by either thin white or black wires that descended from their ears to form a "Y" that ended up in their pockets or bags.

Most of the other passengers were sending text messages on their phones and four passengers were using their laptop computers. I was the only one in the carriage reading a newspaper, if you don't count the lady sitting next to me who was reading the Daily Mail's online edition on her notebook PC and its Vodafone "roamer" wireless connection card.

The passengers with the silky thin white wires were the most revealing, as they signify that the wearer is listening to MP3s on an Apple i-Pod. Apple sold five million units at Christmas. Most of the other wired passengers were obviously listening on other MP3 players, as only one person changed a cassette during my 50-minute journey.

Long ago, people liked to have peace and quiet as they travelled, but now everyone seems to want to have their own background noise. Designer noise is the new silence.

I must confess that I have become addicted to having sound of my choice in the background while I work. As I sit by my computer typing this page, my PC is also connected to www.klrz.com and I am listening to music from Louisiana.

Of course, people have been using headphones since the days of the crystal set, but the habit really caught on when Sony introduced the Walkman. But that was more than 25 years ago, when most people wouldn't carry more than a few cassettes. The real difference now is that the customer has the ability to select and carry thousands of tunes. The music they play in lifts and restaurants now jars with me as it is unwanted, unrequested and totally superfluous in the modern digital world.

Everyone can now play something to suit their mood or work. As a person's mood changes, they can instantly choose whether they wanted to be lulled by a symphony or livened up by some Eminem.

This ability to instantly choose from thousands of customer-selected tracks is the main reason for the popularity of MP3 and this choice has been enabled by the change from analogue to digital. But as I looked around, the connected people in that train, I suddenly realised that most of the passengers were using music players that had not been purchased from traditional dealers.

Sony's researchers must have been travelling on trains, too, as I notice that it has just released a new product in Japan that combines a mobile phone with an MP3 player. This seems like an ideal way to combine the two "must have" portable digital items.

And guess what? Sony is going to start using its Walkman brand on the new phone. The real question is this: Will traditional dealers sell the new Walkman?

WE HAD TWO very important visitors in our shop last week. Retra's chief executive, Fred Round and his wife Helen.

I have known Fred since he started running training courses at Retra 23 years ago. Back then we both travelled round the country talking about the latest technology and Fred helped me greatly during the year that I was Retra president. Fred had never visited my "wee shop" and the first thing he said was, "it really is a wee shop".

He renewed acquaintances with my business partner Neil, who does all the real work, and of course he met Spikey again. Helen was delighted to meet Spikey, as she had read about him for years in ERT Weekly but they had never met.

Spikey even had news for Helen: our Spikey is getting married in September and I am to be the best man. Spikey's fiancee discovered that he has kept a scrapbook full of Spikey stories cut from ERT Weekly and she has been reading about his wilder younger days.

Now the poor girl is worried about the stories I will tell at the wedding. That trip to Amsterdam; the young lady at the Retra training course; the other young lady whose dad let Spikey drive and crash his Ferrari, and what Spikey did in Comet's car park at midnight, etc, etc.