Tag: ink

Bottled Ink

I have always loved the smell of bottled ink. It has a distinctive acrid smell that takes me back to learning to write in my first year at school. While today I find the smell nostalgic and comforting, the experience of forming letters on a page was torturous. Unlike children in Australia who learn to write using large, soft pencils, in Austria, we were expected to master the vagaries of the fountain pen at the age of six.

My memories of that time are shrouded in tears and ink blots on the page. Did I push too hard or was the pen leaky? Was the nib too thick or did I not hold the pen at the correct angle? Fountain pens can be tricky at the best of times. I don’t think I ever had ink free hands for the duration of my primary school years.

While quills have been used for centuries, the modern fountain pen was only invented in the early 1800s. It continued to evolve, with advances made by Lewis Waterman in America. His pens were able to be refilled and he invented a mechanism to allow ink to flow more freely. To this day, Waterman fountain pens are renowned for their style and reliability.

My pen clearly wasn’t a reliable one. My inky fingers no doubt made their way into my mouth as I turned pages. However, unlike with the forbidden book in Umberto Ecco’s Name of the Rose, there was no danger of any intellectual threat emerging from my scribbles. I was hardly going to be poisoned for my inattention by licking my blackened fingers. The only danger I faced was the wrath of my teacher for messy handwriting and blotting my copybook.

I am heartened that even King Charles has experienced the painful exposure to inferior pens even if he does own a Montblanc Solitaire among other prestigious pens. His outburst at Hillsborough Castle was beamed around the world. The newly crowned king was affronted by a leaky pen and let everyone know it. My own outbursts were met with a dressing down, a stern directive to stop moaning and to try harder. Not that any of this helped.

I don’t quite understand why I have persisted with fountain pens. Mine still leak and from time to time my blackened fingertips take me back to being a six-year-old. While I love all the wild ink colours that are available, I usually stick to black, just in case my signature needs to be validated or a page photocopied. Still, I love my Japanese murasaki-shikibu purple ink, named after the female Japanese writer who wrote the exquisite Tale of Genji in c.1010. This Japanese ink has a much more pungent smell than the inks I associate with my childhood. The shade of purple reminds me of my paternal uncle who would only write with a violet biro. Every time I use purple ink, it is a nod to my Hungarian uncle Lajos and his slight eccentricity which he maintained throughout his life. In a country where only blue or black were commonly available, it is hard to imagine where he sourced his pens.

I, on the other hand, am spoilt for choice. Besides the Pilot Japanese purple, my favourite Lamy colour is turquoise. In the Waterman range I adore absolute brown which is perfect for a nostalgic sepia look, harking back to the early twentieth century. For durability, however, I can’t go past Montblanc permanent black.

There is something almost subversive about writing with a fountain pen in the digital age where uniformity is prized over individuality. Colour is definitely not to be encouraged. But as always, I am happy to be counted among the renegades.

Stationery obsessions

I used to think I was the only one who couldn’t resist Milligram, Larry Post or Bespoke Letterpress. It turns out I was wrong.

I have often joked that I could keep a whole village supplied in stationery for six months if not a year. However, visiting my friend J. in Sydney made me realise that my obsession is small fry.

I may have enough ink cartridges to last a few years for my two fountain pens, but he has ink cartridges in a variety of colours for his ten stylographic pens. He opens toolboxes filled with nibs in various thicknesses, mechanical pencils and leads and unopened packets of Rollerball pens to show me.  He wins. It’s a laydown misère in a competition I never expected to enter.

It makes me wonder about my compulsion to buy yet another writing pad; I drafted this post on a newly purchased Japanese jotter. It is gridded, not lined, and has a small diagonal cut on the bottom left corner. I wrote in violet, using the same-coloured pen that my late uncle loved. Each of these items feels gratifying to admire and hold. Yet when placed with all the other stationery supplies vying for attention in drawers or shelves, they become part of the overwhelm of ‘too much stuff.’

‘Can I offer you a pen, some ink, or a nib perhaps?’ J. asks with exasperation in his voice. He is frustrated by his own inability to say ‘no’ to his stationery obsession. I look at him with compassion because I know that temptation to buy one more item only too well. I don’t submit to it with clothes, make-up, or jewellery but I can’t resist stationery or books. It takes every bit of my willpower to walk past a bookshop and I try so hard to avert my eyes when I come across boutique stationers.

What is it about a beautiful pen or good quality paper? I am a highly tactile person and get much pleasure from feeling the way a pen sits in the crook of my hand and how it glides effortlessly across quality paper. I enjoy looking at parchment which is easy on the eye. If I had my way, all notebooks would be buff rather than glaring white.

Then there are the evocative smells. You may prefer the scent of Chanel No 5, but for me there is nothing quite like the aroma of a newly opened ink bottle or the smell of an old notebook. It turns out I am a stationery geek. And friends, there’s nothing wrong with that.