2014

Adventures in Stationery, again

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Last month I sent an email to James Ward, the author of Adventures in Stationery, asking him about his favourite pencil. I’m not surprised that I didn’t hear back from him, but my email might have triggered another reaction (or not): I got an email telling me about a competition where you can win a signed copy of his book.

A quick look at the terms and conditions shows that unfortunately this competition is only open to UK residents.

You can find the competition and a Q&A with the author here.

Adventures in Stationery

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Handicraft with Bleistift V – reusing a pen loop

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After my initial disappointment with Leuchtturm’s pen loop, my pen loops caused problems because of protruding plastic with glue at the bottom, I adjusted my pen loops by cutting the bit of the plastic off that put glue on the pens put in the pen loop and that scratched their surface.  I wonder whether the pen loop has improved since 2011, maybe the problem is gone from later version of Leuchtturm’s pen loop. I haven’t found out yet because I haven’t bought new ones, but reused my old pen loops, as you might already have seen in this blog post. This weekend I have reused the last of my original pen loops, so I took some photos along the way.

before

Leuchtturm’s pen loop in my old diary.

removing

Removing the old pen loop. The glue is quite something.

removedThe old pen loop removed

toolsI’ll attach it to the new diary with a paper riveter I bought in Shanghai many years ago.

finishedReady for another year of action…

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Don’t mess with a pencil enthusiast.

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After Lexikaliker and Sean: my blog post about the Adventures in Stationery book.

This book must have been mentioned in all the major British newspapers and I have to say that it’s very nice to see that there is such an unexpected interest in stationery. I hope the readers will be as enthusiastic about this book and stationery as the newspapers.

Quality

Unfortunately it took unusually long for my order to arrive, but thanks to Sunday deliveries I got my copy today. I certainly didn’t expect such a well made book for under £10. Let’s take about the non-content aspect first: Hardcover, the rubbery feel to the cover which became popular a few years ago, nice, rounded corners, and  amazingly well put together (and printed and bound in Italy). Even the ‘ribbon’ on the inside of the spine keeps to the outside’s colour theme.

Adventures in Stationery

I didn’t have a good look yet, but I had a quick look at the pencil chapter and my first impressions: the content is extremely exciting.

First thought (pencil chapter): nice – finally all the information that is spread across different sources offline and online in one place. It would have been nice though to see references to the original sources, e.g. Petroski’s book, Derwent’s material, etc. – but then, this isn’t supposed to be an academic article …so references might not go down well with most readers and might interrupt the flow.

Second thought: What’s that – Sean being mentioned‽ That is unexpected. An analogy to Moleskine – what a good way to get the point across. The title of this blog post is a reference to Sean, taken from the book.

I’m very much looking forward to reading more of this book.

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Late back to school offers

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Two late back to school offers I picked up this week in Tesco:

A Black n’ Red polynote A7 and a Pilot V Pen.

Black n Red and Pilot

I mentioned the A7 notepad in a previous blog post. What happened since then? They dropped the ‘polynote’ part from the name and the price more than doubled! It usually sells for £2.50, so getting it for £1.25  (~$2.05; €1.60) is a good deal these days. Last time I only paid 60p – but the steep increase in stationery prices in the UK is nothing new…

Unfortunately I only bought one. I should have stocked up. Maybe I’ll be lucky and it will still be on offer next time I go to Tesco.

The other item: a Pilot V Pen for £1 (~$1.62; €1.28). You might be disappointed though if you hope to get a fountain pen with  a ‘mirrored’ nib, as displayed on the packaging 8^P. The actual nib is labelled the normal way round.

Pilot V Pen

Prices and exchange rates: September 2014.

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