We're back. Not that you even noticed we'd gone, but we're home again, back to Blighty, fish and chips, Fullers bitter, right-hand drive and cheese & onion crisps. Frankfurt may only play host for one week out of 52, but it's not long before you've had your fill of Weiner Schnitzel and frothy lager.

But we don't go there merely to eat, drink and say 'wie viel?' to the locals. No, we're there to traipse around a bloody big hall watching loads of hair German geezers destroying thousands of Deutsch marks' worth of delicate new technology. We're there to spend hours shouting above the din of electronic kits being played by Suzie Quatro's drummer and to scream above the collective racket of Corporate House Bands playing a 13/8 on gear they've never before laid eyes on.

But we persevered, we searched and we found — enough new products to fill 15 pages of this very issue, some of them without 'digital' written on them. We've had to lose a few of the more regular items to fit them in, but they'll be back next month along with reviews of the more interesting show products.