PENS

Monday 28th August 2006.

Since I was a small child I have loved pens, and for many years now I have had a particular passion for fountain pens. Over the years I have furnished myself with a range of them, and on each occasion have had change from a £20 note!

Parkers are the ones I use the most. One in Particular, which cost me £12.99 when I was at university, I find especially pleasant to use, but despite this I do not have any real affection for it as an individual, and I am only moderately ashamed to admit I suspect this is because it was cheap and is primarily made of plastic. Sinfully I covet expensive and beautiful fountain pens. I drift off to sleep thinking of the elegant design of the Cross Townsend Tuxedo, or of the Pelikan Toledo M700 with it’s heavenly green barrel, art nouveau silver engraving and two tone solid gold nib, each pen lovingly hand made. I conveniently forget that to buy one of these would mean only having a small amount of change from £1000.

I hang around department stores, silently peering into the Mont Blanc cabinets, admiring them through the glass in a way which I fear is worryingly similar to the behaviour of a stalker outside the bedroom window of her ex-lover. I don’t even like the Mont Blanc pens one tends to find in department stores! I cannot stand the black barrel and the gold thick and thin lines which punctuate it, but even though it does not float my aesthetic boat, I know - I just absolutely know - that if I were to write with it and feel the ink flowing through the 18ct gold nib via my imperfect human hand, I know I would love it, adore it, and forsake all other writing instruments for the rest of my days. They are the relations of the Mont Blanc pens that have actually taken my breath away when I have seen them: the White Metals range, the Starwalker, the Boheme and the unspeakably beautifully designed Greta Garbo fountain pen in their range are other worldly - they are the Aston Martin DB9s where Parker are the Ford Fiestas. There’s nothing wrong with a Ford Fiesta of course; it’s reliable and does what it’s supposed to, but you’re never going to be astounded by its beauty or standard of finish and it’s not going to last you for the rest of your life. As with my £12.99 pen, I know if I lose it I can just meander down to the High Street and buy another one, which will look exactly the same, do exactly the same job, in exactly the same, utterly souless and unremarkable way. I’ve got six Ford Fiestas on my desk!

I have been married for six years. What is my first thought when I remember our honeymoon? Do I reminisce about all the time the two of us had together wondering around Rouen? Do I daydream fondly of time spent driving through the gorgeous French countryside? Do I think of the little cafe opposite our hotel where I had the best profiteroles I have ever had in my life? OR, is my first thought about the small and exquisite solid silver fountain pen I looked at in a little stationery shop just off the main square? The pen whose weight in my hand I can still feel if I close my eyes? The one with sensitive and feminine engraving on its silver nib? The one I now think a bargain (albeit still unaffordable!) at £215? I’ll let you work that one out for yourselves!