Poor Mike Oldfield. It seems that no-one told him that his Tubular Bells album would be given away free with the Mail On Sunday.

From the sound of his letter to industry trade paper Music Week slamming EMI Records for this oversight, Oldfield must have found out only when he went down the shops to get a sliced pan and the Sunday papers.

"EMI's decision to give away Tubular Bells was taken without my agreement or even the simple courtesy of EMI telling me about it," he fumed.

"To group real music with cheap loan leaflets and the other freebies that fall out of most publications is to devalue it."