As I was walking home today, I was struck by the incongruity between my surroundings and the music on my mp3 player.

Around me, the late summer sun shining on inner-city redbrick housing, on the bins out for collection and the scruffy pigeons foraging for scraps; in my ears and inside my head, Patti Smith singing "Seven Ways of Going" in a voice that hints at candle-lit rooms and incense and silken decadence.

Music insulates me.

While that's not always a good thing (sometimes I need to be here, in the moment) that distance from reality can be a blessing.