Around a week into my trip to Canada I decided to browse through my iPod library whilst it was connected to my iBook. I connected the two and ensured that iTunes didn’t update the iPod. Sure enough it didn’t and I could browse the library.

Then I decided I wanted to play something on my iPod. I disconnected it from the iBook and selected an album to play. The iPod whizzed through all the tracks in the album and that was it. No music.

I then did a little experimenting and concluded that all the music I’d bought through the iTunes Music Store was no longer playing on my iPod, although prior to connecting it to the iBook all was well. This behaviour has been reported on the Apple Discussions forums for many months. Turns out the workaround is to restore the iPod and upload all your music back to the iPod. Great. But my iTunes collection is 3,500 miles away. Another reason to buy music on CD.

Which brings me to the very talented Emm Gryner. She’s a Canadian artist who I recently bought two albums by from the iTunes Music Store. So, yes, these are two of the albums I cannot play on my iPod. Just before I left the UK for my holiday, I discovered I could buy the entire collection of CDs from her website as a special package.

Today I decided to order it. But it’s no longer available. Indeed two of her CDs are no longer available for purchase from her store. So, it’s back to basics: Buy all the CDs I could buy on her store, then grab the two missing ones from resellers on Amazon.co.uk.