Seen in the wild

Dangerous Pencils and Fountain Pens 8

 in Fountain pens / Pencils / Seen in the wild  tagged Bosch / Plane / Sky News by

What a cruel world:

In the real world…

…people seem to be taking planes hostage with fountain pens.

Look at this headline from Sky News:

An Air China flight had to be diverted after a passenger held a crew member hostage using a fountain pen as a weapon.

Picture from Sky News (Image © Sky News)

In the fictional world…

..people seem to get tortured with pencils. In the TV series Bosch this pencil is referred to as the Black Guardian Pencil.

You might think the torture is down to the pencil being so scratchy – or so overpriced and doesn’t keep it’s point …but the fictional world is far more physical when it comes to stationery torture.

Last chance to look away…

Bosch: The Black Guardian Pencil

Bosch: The Black Guardian Pencil

 

The images in this blog post have been taken from Sky News and from the second episode of the fourth season of the TV series Bosch. I believe that the use of the images shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

Dave’s Kaweco

 in Fountain pens / Kaweco / Seen in the wild  tagged Dave / Kaweco / Perkeo / Red Dwarf by

Is it just me or does there seem to be a mysterious link between Kaweco and Red Dwarf, a British Sci-Fi comedy?

In my Kaweco Prototype blog post from two years ago I had a “This blog post has been brought to you by Kryten and the Jupiter Mining Corporation” message (for fun), but when the latest Red Dwarf series aired last autumn the intro video from Red Dwarf current home, TV station Dave (part of UKTV), featured the newly released Kaweco Perkeo.

Mysterious, especially since Kaweco isn’t exactly a high street brand in the UK. Maybe in the future Kaweco will become part of the Jupiter Mining Corporation.

One of the images from the old blog post

I guess the conclusion to draw here is that creatives, like the ones making UKTV’s intro videos, like a good pen, in this case a Kaweco.

..and now for something completely different (in case you haven’t heard yet): WHSmith bought CultPens.

A Noris Pencil Case 5

 in Seen in the wild  tagged Amazon / Noris / Staedtler Noris by

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Staedtler’s Noris…

…so I was very excited to see that there’s a Noris pencil case!

Noris Pencil Case (Image copyright probably Staedtler)

I first thought this a UK only set, but when I checked Amazon US I saw that it is also available in the USA.

There are even different sets with different pens.

Noris Pencil Case (Image copyright probably Staedtler)

You can find one of the UK versions here and the US version here and here.

 

By the way, Daan De Winter’s Noris in the Belgian TV series Professor T. is visible in many episodes. It is also used to remove the seal of a crime scene and for other tasks. Nice.

The screenshot/animated GIF in this blog post has been taken from Episode One of Season One of the original Professor T. TV series. I believe that the use of Staedtler’s image shown in this blog post and the use of the animated GIF from Professor T. falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

Copic Copies (and Lego Notebooks)

 in Seen in the wild  tagged Aldi / Copic / Lego / Made in China by

Another one of those ‘there’s a good offer in the UK’ blog posts, so the following might be of limited interest if you are not in the UK.

My first (and only) set of Copic markers is from the Nineties. Back then a friend told me about them and after hearing about their miraculous properties I really wanted to try them out. Back then, like today, they were not cheap. As far as I remember I paid around 20 Deutschmarks for each of them1. Well, they did and still do a nice job, but they usually bleed through the paper, maybe because they are alcohol based, so the reverse of the sheet of paper will look nearly as ‘stained’ as the front.

They certainly keep well over the years, my Copics all still work well. Just one of them had some of the ‘ink’ leak a bit into the cap, but that can be cleaned easily. If they ever dry out you can refill them.

Why did I mentioned them?

When we went grocery shopping this weekend I saw that Aldi in the UK sells a whole pack of what looks like Copic copies for less than the price of one real Copic marker. It seems a good offer, but I can’t comment on the quality of the pens.

✏︎ ✏︎ ✏︎ ✏︎ ✏︎

..and here a little bonus I found in the local Lego shop: Lego notebooks, reduced from £10 to £6. I assume the offers are similar in different Lego shops, but I can’t be sure.

In case you wonder, I bought neither the Copic copies, not the Lego notebook.

  1. As a comparison, as far as I remember a casual job paid around 10 DM/h at the time and video and computer games were around 60 DM at the time [↩]

Stationery Shopping in Germany 3

 in Seen in the wild  tagged Germany / Müller / shopping / stationery by

After several blog posts and videos about stationery shopping in Shanghai today’s post is about stationery shopping in Germany.

The video shows one of Müller’s branches’ stationery selection. Originally a pharmacy, Müller are now a chain selling all sorts of items.

The video is in 4K, so you’ll see more details if you open it in YouTube instead of watching it embedded in this blog post.

✏︎ ✏︎ ✏︎ ✏︎ ✏︎

On a different note: a former colleague1 sent me a link to this article from The New York Times Magazine today:

Inside One of America’s Last Pencil Factories

The pictures are droolworthily excellent. Have a look.

  1. Thanks, Mark. [↩]