Seen in the wild

Boring dysfunction

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Dysfunction

Staedtler’s Noris is near-daily occurrence on UK TV. Thanks to its ubiquitousness in schools it is sure to make an appearance in stock footage about primary schools. There is however a new place where you can admire the Noris on UK TV: during the day and in the evenings: in TV advertising for an erectile dysfunction blood test. Yes, I was also surprised they show this during the day. You can see a Noris triplus in two shots. First the lead is intact, then the lead is broken off. Subtle?

Image © Numan

You can watch the whole advertising below. I’m surprised that at the time of posting this blog post it only has 100 views. You always think that companies that pay for nation-wide TV advertising must be quite big, but maybe the company behind this is rather small or just doesn’t promote their videos online.

Boring

Image © BBC

On to the next topic: A buyer from one of my eBay auctions mentioned the Pencil episode of The Boring Podcast to me. I listened to this Podcast (or the radio show version) when it was new and I enjoyed it, but somehow stopped listening, even though it still is still in my podcast app. That was a mistake. This show originally caught my eye because the presenter is James Ward, the author of the Adventures in Stationery book. By the way, I never got a reply to my question what his favourite pencil is, but I might try again in another six years. The pencil episode‘s main contributor is Brian Mackenwells. He’s talking about many pencils, including the Tombow Mono 100, the real Blacking and the CalCedar Blackwing, the Noris, the Columbus and many more. Have a listen – and also have a look at Brian Mackenwells’ cool typewriter products!

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Peter Gabriel’s Staedtler Tradition

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Continuing the Staedtler Tradition theme from the previous blog posts: Gunther let me know about a photo one of his readers mentioned to him. On this photo you can see Peter Gabriel using a Staedtler Tradition. I would love to know whether the pencil was Peter Gabriel’s choice or whether the art gallery gave him this pencil.

Thanks to Gunther for letting me know about this.

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Julia Donaldson’s Staedtler Tradition

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Julia Donaldson (Image © The Documentary Unit Scotland / BBC Studios)

This is a quick follow up linked to the previous blog post about Sara Ogilvie’s Staedtler Tradition.

Julia Donaldson wrote the text for the previously mentioned book ‘The Detective Dog’ and is world-famous for her Gruffalo book(s). It’s great to know that she is also partial to good pencils …and like Sara Ogilvie she is also using Staedtler’s Tradition.

Julia Donaldson writing with a Staedtler Tradition (Image © The Documentary Unit Scotland / BBC Studios)

The screenshots of Julia Donaldson using a Staedtler Tradition have been taken from the documentary ‘The Magical World of Julia Donaldson’. I believe that the use of these images falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

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Sara Ogilvie’s Staedtler Tradition

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My son has accumulated quite a few picture books over the years. They are mainly used as good night stories. When it comes to the beauty of the drawings there is one firm favourite for me: The Detective Dog.

(Image © Macmillan Children’s Books)

In the past I tried to find out more about the artist behind this book’s drawings, but wasn’t very successful – so you can imagine my surprise when not only was she being mentioned on TV, you could even see her using a Staedtler Tradition for her drawings.

Sara Ogilvie drawing with a Staedtler Tradition (Image © The Documentary Unit Scotland / BBC Studios)

She’s certainly not the first British artist using the Staedtler Tradition that is being mentioned in this blog and I am quite sure she won’t be the last.

Sara Ogilvie sharpening her Staedtler Tradition (Image © The Documentary Unit Scotland / BBC Studios)

Some of the drawings characteristics made me think the book’s drawings were produced on a computer, so seeing they were made with pencil and paper ..and a with Staedtler made this Staedtler fanboy very happy.

The screenshots of Sara Ogilvie using a Staedtler Tradition have been taken from the documentary ‘The Magical World of Julia Donaldson’. I believe that the use of these images falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

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In praise of the pencil

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Yesterday’s edition of the Financial Times featured an article by Tim Harford about our beloved pencil.

Tim Harford is a journalist (‘the Financial Times’ undercover economist’) and is also the man behind my favourite radio show: More or Less.

He is certainly non stranger to pencils as they feature in his work every now and then. In his radio show he even managed to sneak in a definition of ‘ferrule’.

His pencil work got him several mentions here at Bleistift.blog so far. Last year, this blog mentioned his pencil article for the BBC and a few years earlier Bleistift.blog ‘campaigned’ to get the pencil added as the 51st thing to his series ’50 Things That Made the Modern Economy’.

His latest book, How To Make The World Add Up, is currently Radio 4’s book of the week. If you not only like stationery, but also statistics or numbers, then please have a listen.

You won’t be surprised to read that a signed copy of his book is on top of my Christmas wish list. A signed copy must be expensive, I hear you say. Well, you’d think, but actually it’s much cheaper than what a pack of copies of Eberhard Faber’s Blackwing sells for in the UK.

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