It was about people who use modern tech but feel that all these very clever gadgets are seriously deficient in satisfying physicality. They don't want to look at a mere simulation on a screen or inside a headset: they want to see and touch and smell and hear the real thing. And enjoy the sensory and emotional reward of the analogue, as opposed to the sterile perfection offered by the digital.
These are the people who have been buying vinyl records, and turntables to play them on - who are fascinated to see the grooves on those records, and like the careful procedure of taking a record out of its sleeve, placing it on the turntable, gently lowering the arm onto the vinyl, and listening to the distinctively smooth sound of an analogue recording, as opposed to the sharply-defined sound decoded from a granular digital stream.
These are the people who have rediscovered a better way of gaming, using boxed board games with wooden or metal pieces - and the social pleasure of being in the same room as the other players, rather than participating remotely online.
These are the people who are trying out the creative activities of a past era, among them the art of handwriting, with a nibbed pen.
A nibbed pen? A fountain pen, for instance?
I thought such things had long ago had their day. I was a big fan of fountain pens right up to the year 2000. I wrote a lot with them at work. And there was always much to write at home. But in the year 2000 it became essential to use a keyboard and screen at the office, much more than ever before. And at home, I bought my first PC, and there was the novelty of emails, and digital photography. The photo captions were now typed out with a keyboard - no longer handwritten on the back of a print. I also became an early user of electronic organisers, and went out of my way to get the most out of them. If I could make an electronic note, rather than a handwritten one, I did.
Soon the only remaining reasons to get out the fountain pen were when sending a card to somebody for their birthday or at Christmas; or when making a shopping list; or when signing letters. And the number of letters to be signed fell away drastically after I retired in 2005.
Filling a fountain pen up from an ink bottle - once an every-other-day ritual that I rather liked - now became an irregular event tinged with some inconvenience, because the pen would have run dry on me - it had become impossible to predict when it might run out of ink.
So I put my fountain pen away, and just used a disposable rollerball pen for everything.
And so matters remained for thirteen years. But now, after hearing that podcast, my interest in using a fountain pen has been reawakened.
I still have the pen I was using until my retirement in 2005. Actually, it wasn't originally my own pen. It had belonged to Dad, a gift to him when leaving Southampton 3 Tax Office on promotion to District Inspector (at Portsmouth 4, I think) in 1970. He used it a lot until he retired in 1980. Then he gave it to me. It was one of Parker's finest: the Parker 51.
By 1980, ten years of hard use in and out of the office had taken its toll. The nib had worn a bit. The top of the barrel had broken off. But otherwise it was still a very nice writing instrument. I had many more years' use out of it, though not at first. In the 1980s I owned a Mont Blanc pen - very posh, very expensive, but troublesome: it tended to leak. I kept faith with that Mont Blanc pen for a long time, too long really. Eventually I did get fed up with the mess it made. Inky fingers are not a good look! After trying other pens in my personal collection, I eventually got out Dad's old Parker 51 and never used anything else until the rollerballs took over.
Here's Dad's pen now, in 2018 (propped up on a bit of tissue to stop it rolling around):
It's a pity that the barrel has lost its top - Dad must have dropped the pen at some point - but nevertheless the pen functions perfectly, is lovely to hold, and glides effortlessly over paper. There's nothing to dislike except the nib, which as I mentioned is a bit worn. This makes my writing look over-thick and over-assertive for my personal taste. You can see this on the sheet of notepaper above. (I was recording how many times today I'd needed to pick up a pen and write something: five times up to that point; one of those was to send a birthday card to my niece)
Here are some examples from 1998 and 1999 of how thickly Dad's pen will typically write:
Well, I've looked online at what's available. As expected, the really posh fountain pens have never gone away. And the very cheapest are still available. But the mid-range pens (and their retailers) have all but vanished. I dare say Harrods in London has a fine range of ostentatious gold-nibbed Mont Blancs to show. And I'm sure W H Smith has a small range of humble, plasticky steel-nibbed school pens. But the pen counters in department stores and stationers have all gone. There are still some specialist pen shops scattered around the country, mostly in big cities, but they are very few and they are mostly far away from me.
Second-hand dealers exist. There's one in Eastbourne. But I'd prefer a new pen, with a nib nobody else has messed up.
Wherever I might buy, a new mid-range fountain pen - or a good used pen - wouldn't be cheap. I'm thinking around £100. Would it really be worth it? Even if I were desperately keen to use a 'proper' pen again for my shopping lists, odd jottings, and birthday cards?
It is of course true that electronic gadgets aren't always the most practical. That's why I prepare a handwritten shopping list. I could use a ready-to-go electronic shopping list I set up on my phone, in Google's Keep Notes app. It's tailored for use in Waitrose in Burgess Hill, and the order of entries reflects the layout of that store and my usual route through it. Here's the first two pages:
I've set up every food and household item I might want to buy. I blank out (by ticking the box) anything I won't need on my next visit, which leaves only the things I do want. As I shop, I tick those off too. The list is reusable: I just untick every item I might need next time.
It seems highly workable. But actually, I'd never want to push a supermarket trolley around one-handed, with my other hand clutching the phone. And to examine (and bag up) things like loose fruit and vegetables, I need both hands free. Also, it's a bind to scroll up and down a long shopping list on a small screen.
Whereas a sheet of notepaper doesn't need to be in the hand all the time, and can easily be thrust into a bag or basket, with no worries about crumpling it up. It's no disaster if I drop it, either. And everything I want to buy is visible on the same side of the paper.
So old-fashioned paper wins! And, at least for this purpose, tech is simply less convenient.
Given that paper shopping lists are the most practical, it would of course be incredibly stylish to whizz around Waitrose with a beautifully-written shopping list, penned with a fountain pen. Even if nobody noticed, I would still have the sensual (and artistic) pleasure of writing that list and then using it.
Worth £100 for the experience?
Well, there are other things I'm going to need this spring. Next post, I think.
