sales

i love them.
i hate them.
every time there is a sale on i go in the hopeful expectation that there will be things i need, not just want, but need. pretty much each time i am rebuffed and disappointed.
so currently i want to buy some expensive tech stuff - there is the apple ibook i want - oh cheers apple.com and apple store you are not even bothering to have a sale......
then there is the nikon d100 i want - nice one jessops £20 off (and considering the mark up they have on that they are still making mondo bucks).
just going to have to look harder.
so what about the books, cds and dvds i could get (notice i have skipped clothes and household goods. lucky i am a slob!)
oh borders make a big song and dance about their sale - but it amounts to a bunch of books chucked in boxes with no rhyme or reason. pretty much the same at foyles. blackwells actually have some items for sale and they have them on shelves for you to look at! (and i bought some). haven't tired waterstones yet, not that i need to as i have enough books to last me for years. besides which i have a few months to wait until the sequel to "quicksilver" comes out.
hmv have yet again got one of their many sales on - where certain dvds seem to be permanently on sale, but sometimes they are half price, sometimes they are part of a buy one get one free, or just have a basic sale price. oddly in all those guises the prices are roughly the same once you take into account the offer. hmv are like the enron of the sales world. virgin's sale prices just seem to have no basis in reality, so why bother going there.
while the national gallery proclaim their sale in big letters throughout the gallery and it seems to be about 5 items and the stuff they have left over from christmas. i know you are an art institution and should not be sullied by commercialism but i can tell you now: it's not a sale not by a looooong chalk.

and what i really hate about sales is that they are always packed (which is part of the reason for them i know) but it still doesn't make going to them any better. i suppose that is why i don't do clothes and household goods, because as bad as it is in some of the stores i have mentioned above its even worse in the other ones.
just walking around in the centre of london is an assault course at the moment.
but i just have to do as one of those stores might just have that copy of larry adler plays gershwin i have been after.

criminey christmas is over and i am still a grinch.
more things change the more they stay the same.