I Do Want What I Have Not Got

About a month ago I was feeling particularly virtuous regarding the fact that I was going into bookshops and record stores (do they still call them that?) and not buying anything. This was particularly true of our time in KL. It all boiled down to the fact that I had committed myself to a reading list of books that I owned but had either never read, or miserably failed to complete, and was even more embarrassingly aware than usual that I've got an awful lot of CDs that deserve better listening than I've ever given them. The result: I was popping into shops that would normally provoke a certain amount (actually a lot) of acquisitory salivation and genuinely wanting nothing.

Sadly that state of grace has not lasted and I blame Elvis Costello. The reason is simple, in a convoluted sort of way. Late last week I found out that the true King Elvis is due to play a solo concert in our little corner of the world. Now obviously it was imperative to buy tickets, even though it's a bad day - Monday night, ugh - but it also seemed relevant to weigh up which albums I've not got. Now I own quite a few but Elvis has a substantial catalogue which, as befits a genius, is growing all the time. I haven't got the last two albums, for example.

My research for this took place on amazon.com and, of course, there are lots of useful links to all sorts of associated music. Browsing what's available from Allen Toussaint (Elvis fans will know how I got there), resulted in me wanting everything on his page, badly, really badly. And I progressed from there like a happy drunk falling from an especially high wagon.

The good news is, I'm too tight-fisted and guilt-ridden to have done anything about these desires yet. But the operative word is 'yet'. There's an inevitability about my wanting stuff that does not augur well for a frugal future.