What will '£50 man' do if HMV goes? I'm one of those sad middle-aged chaps you see hanging around record stores. While the young have learnt to download music for free, I still like buying CDs in shops. The music industry had the unappealing name of "£50 man" to describe middle-aged blokes like me who would spend more than we could sensibly afford on classic rock and pop CDs to replace scratchy vinyl discs and recapture the thrills of our distant youth. These days, however, we are thinner on the ground and HMV, Britain's largest music retailer, is in trouble. It has closed 40 of its stores, flogged off the Waterstones bookshop chain and issued repeated profit warnings. Sales over the crucial Christmas period to the end of December last year were down by 8.1 per cent, though there was a glimmer of good news the other week after the company struck a deal with banks and suppliers aimed at halving its substantial debts over the next three years. Nevertheless, I strongly suspect HMV is doomed. You only have to walk round its shops to realise there is a smell of decay about this once booming business. The large Trocadero branch near Piccadilly Circus feels unloved, and the shop assistants often seem more interested in chatting among themselves than in serving their few customers. They also have a nasty habit of giving you a look of utter contempt should you have chosen a CD or DVD they regard as uncool. Even the bargains aren't much cop. HMV faces especially tough competition from the online giant Amazon. I was delighted to see a box set of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes TV series in HMV the other day, with a sale sticker announcing that it had been knocked down from £120 to £30. I snapped it up, only to discover when I got home that Amazon was offering it for £20. You get the impression that HMV is desperately rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Every time I visit there seems to be less space devoted to recorded music and more to electronic gadgets, video games, naff T-shirts, novelty mugs and even confectionery. CDs at the Trocadero have been relegated to the first floor at the back of the shop while the selection of specialist music in its flagship store in Oxford Street seems less extensive that it was. I fear HMV will soon put up the shutters like Tower Records, Virgin, Our Price and Zavvi before it, and that before long only a few specialist independent music retailers will remain. What will £50 men like me do with our lunch-breaks then?