One nation under a groove

Britons still love to play long-playing records even though most Europeans have packed away their turntables.

With compact discs now dominating the music market, just 3.7 million LPs were sold in Europe last year according to a survey today. But Britons were responsible for 2.3 million of these sales while some countries bought none, the consumer researcher Euromonitor reported.

However, UK music-lovers did not neglect CDs. Sales reached 164 million last year, second only to Germany's 213 million, although the biggest buyers per head were the Swiss, who purchased an average of 3.3 CDs each last year.

The findings also showed that Britain is second only to Germany in lawnmower ownership, but that Belgians spend the most on garden products.

In addition, the survey recorded that nearly 22.5 million newspapers were sold every day in the UK last year - representing more than 23 per cent of the European market.