I started collecting in January 1999, when due to slowly building Phantom Menace hype, I decided to buy myself a birthday present and 'splash out' (I was a starving student) on the double CD set of Return of the Jedi. I remember buying it from a tiny record store called D'Amato in our capital, Valletta. The same day I bought The Truman Show from another store, because I had just watched the film and noticed the music. Other than those 2, the only other soundtracks I had ever heard were Out of Africa, which my parents had on tape, and Gandhi, which my father has on LP. I also had a compilation of main themes performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, including Star Wars, ET, Chariots of Fire and For Your Eyes Only.

Of the circa 1,025 I now have, I bought the vast majority from online 2nd hand CD shops, so it's very difficult to calculate how much I have spent on my hobby. However I still have all the receipts and invoices, so one day I'll sit down and do some maths.

I also keep all my receipts*... I started collecting in '94, and must be at about 1000 now, though not all of them are originals. I'm currently in the process of ripping all CDs to my computer (as FLACs)... so far I'm somewhere around 60 GB, which equals about 2 weeks worth of continuous music, but that's not even close to half my collection yet. I need a bigger drive...