I'm digressing here, I admire your interest and devotion to the job of DJing, but at my age, my experience of DJs is not particularly enjoyable.

I only experience them at family weddings. These days its usually the kids of friends and relatives. There's usually after the wedding, a DJ at the afternoon reception.

These occasions are great to catch up with people you've not seen in years and all you want to do is have a chat. The only ones interested in dancing are the young kids, of ten or whatever. there's usually only a few of them. Oh yes! plus a couple of unattached women "of a certain age"dancing. The DJ wants people up on the floor, that's what he thinks is his job. So he turns the music up so loud that people find conversations around a table difficult. Not a situation many people of my age enjoy.

I'm sure you're not like that.

there's a few types of dj's. you have your old fashioned radio dj's who's most important job was to promote themself by talking over the top of the best bits of the records and telling you the time and weather every 5 minutes

you have your functions dj's which are like you describe, bloke turns up with all the kit, shit lights, shit PA, and does a similar thing to the radio dj's by self promoting themself and talking between all the records, to which few people actually understand what is being said, and they just play any old crap the punters want to hear

i just don't do talking between/during the music, and just tell people there is no mic if they ask for something to be said. if it's important i'll offer to drop the volume and they can shout, which sends them away just like the old trick of avoiding anyone who dares ask for a request who isn't smoking hot on the babe o meter, by telling them you don't have that track with you - harder to do these days, and of course if you didn't have it and wanted to play it you can usually download it via the venue wifi (first thing i connect to when laptop is on!)

then you have the club dj, and they generally play tracks and don't talk, each track blends into the next without missing a beat. of course various genres can differ such as hip hop of reggae having MC's or scratching, and you get the meat market type bar/club/disco places where the dj plays chart shit and talks shit between the records and few people approach the fat slobs dribbling lager down their front whilst sweating profusely

you also have the bedroom dj's who basically cover all sorts of stuff including the above, a bit like the new pirate radio but they can stream online to about 4 people who clicked the wrong link by mistake, out of about 17 million online stations

i get offers from time to time to do birthdays and weddings from people who've never heard me play before but i just fob them off as it would be excruciatingly horrible to do, unless it was a crowd of people i knew that may appreciate what i was playing, and no grannies and kids and tea drinkers. much of the music i play has lyrical content or themese that may not go down so well with those type of punters

That's the important thing. That you enjoy the experience and enjoy the music.

Until recently, and by recently I mean in the last 10 years or so, Rega only produced turntables.

Whilst I don't buy that much new vinyl I do buy some from bands I really like, limited editions, etc, but I think a lot of people these days buy vinyl to collect rather than to actually play.

Respected turntable maker Pro-Ject has just released a vertical turntable that you can mount on the wall and connect to your speakers via bluetooth. It's a brilliant idea for the people who want a designer solution to playing vinyl and it's a proper audiophile component not a suitcase job.