RICHARD ORD: Give me the sound of silence to earbuds any day of the week

Arrived in Edinburgh at the weekend for a birthday treat to be greeted by two women scrabbling on their hands and knees at my feet. And in case you’re wondering, that wasn’t the treat!

They had just stepped out of a taxi and one of them had lost one of her earbuds. For those of a certain vintage, earbuds are mini wireless headphones that plug into your ears so you can listen to music, or take a phone call.

While I have never owned a pair, I am familiar with them. They are forever being ‘lost’ by the youngest of my two sons.

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Hardly surprising given they are about the size of a Malteser (the earbuds, not my sons). That said, I rarely lose a Malteser. Yet our Isaac manages to misplace his earbuds at an alarming rate. The alarming part being how expensive these little contraptions are to replace. I mean, they are an impressive piece of kit, but at £100-plus a pop, they lack what I’d consider as vital security features.

I was shocked to find these earbuds do not come with a super-strong ear glue to secure them to your lug holes.

A combination of ergonomic design and gravity is utilised to keep them in place. That and sticky ear wax I presume. I have suggested bulldog clips, but my squeamish son isn’t having any of it.

Anyway, the Edinburgh lady was clearly hindered by slippy earwax genetics so I joined the search party.

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‘It should be easy enough to find,’ I said, remembering how white my son’s earbuds were, and how dark the road was. With a sigh, the woman showed me the surviving earbud. If the colour of the device was to have a fancy Farrow & Ball paint name, Edinburgh Road Black would have been perfect.

After about five minutes, one of the search party - dodging the moving traffic around us - found what she thought may be a fragment of the missing bud. It was time to go.

Earbuds are an accident waiting to happen and a modern gadget that leaves me cold. Give me cumbersome old-style headphones with unnecessarily padded ear comfort any day of the week.

Anyway, I headed to my Edinburgh hotel for some birthday fizz and even a present from my current life partner… a pair of earbuds! And in Edinburgh Road Black too.

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