Friday, 23 November 2007
And the burning question this week is..............
What has happened to Lulu's scottish accent in the new Christmas Morrisons TV advert? She seems to have gone all posh middle English. Answers on a post card please................
Friday, 2 November 2007
Reviving the Art
Its strange just how quickly things change, and without you noticing too. My old pal "N" who has been mentioned several times in this blog recently moved and as a result was and indeed still is without computer access. He can use his dial up method but after the experience of superfast broadband finds it frustrating to say the least; so we have reverted to the good old fashioned art of letter writing. After an exchange or two of neatly typed, spell checked and grammar corrected word processed documents I thought it about time to do the job properly, in the time honoured fashion.
I dug out my trusty 25 year old fountain pen and bottle of ink - black Quink, remember that, not the old royal blue stuff that used to smell vaguely of floral disinfectant so reminiscent of schooldays, but a proper adult job. Surprisingly after a few flushes with water, a bit of a clean up and a refill my writing implement was ready for action for the first time in at least a decade.
The real problem was finding the Basildon Bond - there is hardly a stationers now that stocks real writing paper, paper for lazer printers, inkjets, dot matrix and every other mechanical writing, but not the good old pen and ink. How times have changed.
Still I did managed to find some suitable equipment, albeit of a somewhat dubious colour - what happened to the classy cream bond, watermarked with a neat edge and that undersheet with thick lines to keep your copperplate script on the straight and narrow?
Setting about the task was, well surprising. Sit me at a keyboard and the words flow, show me a blank sheet of paper and like the ink in my pen it just dries up, not to mention the rather strange feel of the thing and the awkward scratchy way it writes. In just a few years the skills honed so neatly at school and after seemed lost and the words on the page looked as if the proverbial spider had crawled all over it.
A 2 page A4 typewritten, inkjet printed epistle would take me 1/2 hour at most to write, probably less; two sides of A5 took me 2 hours and that included 2 rewrites for spelling mistakes and one for a blot! When it was finished though, folded neatly and slipped into its matching envelope, a stamp neatly fixed to the top right hand corner - as per Hyacinth Bucket - the sense of achievement and pride in my work knew no bounds, and the ink stains on my hands and fingers a permanent reminder of my task. Probably "N" will just read it and discard it, bless him, but at least for a moment I revived the art of proper letter writing. Sometimes doing things the old fashioned way can be very therapeutic, it certainly was in this case, but in all honesty a keyboard, Office 2000 and a fast inkjet printer makes for a much easier life. Perhaps one day far into the future someone will find my letter, written to and old friend in 2007 and deduce a whole lifestyle from it, after all its doubtful if many of the emails, texts and other electronic communications we send will last - sad thought that.
So soon its off to the village pillar box to send my hand written work on its long journey, accompanied buy a myriad of junk mail, computer generated bills and pre formatted standard word processed letters, knowing my luck of late the bloody thing will get lost in the post. Such is life......
P.S. One advantage of the revival of this ancient skill is that when "N" replied to an earlier letter my dog sniffed the envelope, and then the letter and wagged her tail incessantly; seems that although she probably cant read the signature she at least knew who it was from, and in her doggy way she was pleased to hear from her old friend, she's never shown any interest in emails!
I dug out my trusty 25 year old fountain pen and bottle of ink - black Quink, remember that, not the old royal blue stuff that used to smell vaguely of floral disinfectant so reminiscent of schooldays, but a proper adult job. Surprisingly after a few flushes with water, a bit of a clean up and a refill my writing implement was ready for action for the first time in at least a decade.
The real problem was finding the Basildon Bond - there is hardly a stationers now that stocks real writing paper, paper for lazer printers, inkjets, dot matrix and every other mechanical writing, but not the good old pen and ink. How times have changed.
Still I did managed to find some suitable equipment, albeit of a somewhat dubious colour - what happened to the classy cream bond, watermarked with a neat edge and that undersheet with thick lines to keep your copperplate script on the straight and narrow?
Setting about the task was, well surprising. Sit me at a keyboard and the words flow, show me a blank sheet of paper and like the ink in my pen it just dries up, not to mention the rather strange feel of the thing and the awkward scratchy way it writes. In just a few years the skills honed so neatly at school and after seemed lost and the words on the page looked as if the proverbial spider had crawled all over it.
A 2 page A4 typewritten, inkjet printed epistle would take me 1/2 hour at most to write, probably less; two sides of A5 took me 2 hours and that included 2 rewrites for spelling mistakes and one for a blot! When it was finished though, folded neatly and slipped into its matching envelope, a stamp neatly fixed to the top right hand corner - as per Hyacinth Bucket - the sense of achievement and pride in my work knew no bounds, and the ink stains on my hands and fingers a permanent reminder of my task. Probably "N" will just read it and discard it, bless him, but at least for a moment I revived the art of proper letter writing. Sometimes doing things the old fashioned way can be very therapeutic, it certainly was in this case, but in all honesty a keyboard, Office 2000 and a fast inkjet printer makes for a much easier life. Perhaps one day far into the future someone will find my letter, written to and old friend in 2007 and deduce a whole lifestyle from it, after all its doubtful if many of the emails, texts and other electronic communications we send will last - sad thought that.
So soon its off to the village pillar box to send my hand written work on its long journey, accompanied buy a myriad of junk mail, computer generated bills and pre formatted standard word processed letters, knowing my luck of late the bloody thing will get lost in the post. Such is life......
P.S. One advantage of the revival of this ancient skill is that when "N" replied to an earlier letter my dog sniffed the envelope, and then the letter and wagged her tail incessantly; seems that although she probably cant read the signature she at least knew who it was from, and in her doggy way she was pleased to hear from her old friend, she's never shown any interest in emails!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
