Ten years ago I was looking forward to the Axminster Show. Sigh. Good times. Mind you, back then I'd go online and be inspired to get into the workshop. These days I'm more likely to be inspired to throttle someone... On which anger-management-challenged note, having finally crawled to the nice round figure of ten, I go no further and will be moth-balling this blog. The decision was up in the

I believe I've mentioned this before, but you can't do this with a ballpoint. Put the fount (and the ain) back into your life and pick up a fountain pen. Heck, a disposable one will do - they're really very good and zero maintenance. Look for Pilot V-Pens (or Varsities, if you're in 'Murrica). Right, I'm away to drool over some inks and try not to give in and buy any. Good luck with that, I

In celebration of Friday's Fountain Pen Day, a brief return for Monday Stinkage. (Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the inkwell...) Evidently I still haven't got to grips with the best way to capture ink colour. Ah well. J Herbin Café des Îles is not a remarkable ink, but a pleasant one, and it looks great on cream paper. It seems to go well in a Bedrock Flake Edison

You know your blog posting is sporadic when the layout of the post composition page seems to have changed every time you log in... I should put that on a t-shirt. By necessity, it'll have to be quite a large t-shirt. So October was fairly disastrous; technology failed me, and me failed me. As always seems to be the case, despite having a social diary to rival an Olympic-grade hermit, I

My brother and sister-in-law just had a holiday in Cyprus, and brought back the folks a box of Cyprus Delight. They haven't opened it yet, but I am agog to know what Cypriots delight in as opposed to what delights a Turk. What delights me is unexpected bench spotting, and Cyprus turned up this one, apparently doing duty as the breakfast sideboard.  The board with the circular

I was all set to be a good little blogger this month. i.e. Actually posting something. Unfortunately we had a little collapsing in the garden drama, ambulance action, and hospital visiting, which resulted in the Old Man getting unexpectedly equipped with a pacemaker. Someone explain to me how its battery will last years without the need to recharge by plugging him in at night until his nose

Hey, amazing news! I bought a tool. I know what you're thinking. Swarovski crystal handle, hand-hewn from the crystal mines of... No? You weren't thinking that? Oh. You were thinking "What have you gone and done now, Alf"? Ah. Well, yes, fair enough. As it happens this elegant example of the screwdriver manufacturers' art was not the primary goal. It was the 30-odd pieces of black

Zoicks! How can it already be the fourth of the month? Is it me, or has 2014 flown by on wingéd feet? As you may gather from my helpfully numerically-equipped little plastic pals, some of that time has involved sorting through a very old box of Lego. (Sorry, not "old", but "classic", apparently.) It wasn't actually as horrific an experience as I'd feared, and I was mildly amused that my Lego

In this brave new world where Big Brother doesn't just watch us but offers us recommendations on what to do next, it's true that my somewhat eclectic approach to Google can lead to some unusual suggestions. This recent one, though, I found just a tiny bit disturbing... Inevitably, aside from the "Hang on, why are you recommending this to me?!" reaction, I find myself wondering what he/she did

It's not good when a software update takes near 24 hours to download and install - not so happy memories of Windoze there, thanks, Apple. It's also slightly aggravating that apparently I now have to learn to switch from a horizontal email inbox layout to a vertical one. However, I can reach deep inside myself, forgive that ridiculously unnecessary change, and merely philosophically remark that I

For years I've admired a kerbstone in the city of Truro. I can't honestly say that's normal, but there it is. Yesterday, I finally managed to get myself, the kerbstone, the camera, and some sunshine all in the same place at once. Look at that shape. (I dunno, would we call that an ovolo with quirk?)  It's granite, for the love of Mike. How ever long did it take some unknown artisan to

Lack of blogging confession? Ack, take that as read. (Hello to anyone still out there, by the way. Clearly I still aten't dead.) No, this is something that's been weighing on my mind since November, and now that September is nearly here, I feel the need to unburden. It's simple really, and goes something like this: Old catalogue covers make great fodder for homemade custom made notebook covers.

Now I don't want to shock you or anything, but just for fun, some tool-related musing. Two things caught my eye that amused me, and there's a remote chance they might amuse someone else. First up, I thought Amazon surprisingly frank in their product description when they describe this Am-Tech duo as a "double blister". Then, as we head towards kick-off, this Official England Toolkit caught my

Tool purists may want to look away now. Pen purists ditto. So-called "upcyclers" might like it though. Yes, it starts out pen-related, but woodworking happens. Just a little bit. A few months ago I fell across a Parker GB "Slimfold" sans cap, but with a rather nice gold nib. I figured I might be unbelievably lucky and find a cap, or at least find another home for the nib, so divvied up the

"Oh no," I hear you cry. "She's going nuts for pencils now. Where will it all end?!" Well, no, this is actually more of a woodworking post. Although... okay, so I may have been looking at pencils with more than passing interest. Just looking. So, if everyone would please turn to page 62 of their copy of “De Rerum Fossilium Lapidum et Gemmarum Maxime, Figuris et Similitudinibus Liber” and look

No, it's not Monday. I do know that. However, as I left them out in the Big Ink Up before, I thought I'd toss in a one-off: Wednesday Quinks! I can hear your little hearts going pitty-patter in sheer excitement. Try and contain yourselves. I should add the Vector is of UK manufacture and for some reason it's giving me more trouble getting comfortable with its italic nib than any

So I knew all about Ancient Copper's reported occasional forays into crustiness, but my first experience of The Thing From Beyond The Inkwell is, in fact, Rohrer and Klingner's lovely golden Helianthus. Eeek! It's Alive! Well, no. Despite appearances I don't think it's actually eating the pen; it wipes off readily enough. But then this is the advantage of the Cheap Pen; it's not a disaster if

Fairly sure, as I splashed on the bleach, that this poor piece of paper (Clairefontaine 90gsm) was starting to wonder what it ever did to make me hate it so... Waaaaay, too saturated. Seriously, I have no idea why it looks so dark once it's been uploaded; most aggravating. Anyway... Both Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black and Rohrer & Klingner Salix have kissed goodbye to what remained of

So I have a page with an example of all my inks on, right? Does this, or does this not, appear to be an unrivalled opportunity to find out which ones are water resistant and which are not? I believe it does. Behold! The Catastrophic Beverage Spillage Reenactment Experiment: And in the Water? What Water? Category, the winner is... Well, a totally unsurprising four-way split between:

It's Bank Holiday Monday and it's raining. Must the weather be so clichéd? Ah well, can't mow grass in the rain (Yay!), so instead I bring you a cautionary example of what happens when a) You have way too many different inks, and b) You have a crazy fondness for insanely cheap pens. Yes, you get an idea to put every ink into as many cheap, not-the-end-of-the-world-if-it-dies pens as you can. The