Tanzubstantiation

The Private Reserve Tanzanite arrived earlier this week, and it really does flow like nothing else I've seen. (Someone over at the Pentrace message board recently described it as 'the Ex Lax of inks'.) It has a distinctly purple quality in the bottle, but it dries a little closer to blue. My Conway Stewart 75 tends to skip with some inks (it simply turns its nose up at Waterman Florida Blue, and it can go for a page at most without arguing with Diamine Prussian Blue), but it's found a friend for life in the Tanzanite.

I'm going to have to keep it well away from my new Pelikan pen, though. When filled with Tanzanite, my lovely M200 became a veritable hosepipe, and my notepad quickly turned into a lake. While making some notes during my train journey this morning, things got so out of control that I considered pulling the emergency cord. I quite literally could not stop the ink coming out of the nib, so the pen was quarantined in a carrier bag for the rest of the day. It's now empty and drying out, and I've spent most of the evening wondering what to fill it with tomorrow morning. Herbin Terre de Feu is a possibility, but I'm currently favouring the faithful Visconti brown.

A passing remark in Young and Innocent, one of Alfred Hitchcock's early films, struck me earlier in the week. One of the characters casually asks for 'a pen and some ink' at one point, and it suddenly occurred to me that this phrase reveals how the relationship between pens and ink has changed over time. For people who have grown up knowing nothing but ballpoints and rollerballs, a writing instrument and ink are essentially inseparable: the one cannot be imagined without the other. (Yes, you can easily remove the vile plastic tube from the unbeating heart of a biro, but the ink remains insulated within a second prophylactic, and who would ever attempt to buy a refill for a biro or an empty shell for a refill?) But those of us who shun such vile inventions know that things used to be different. We are the guardians of an ancient distinction between two sacred entities.

Inks in use today: Private Reserve Tanzanite (until the flood); Herbin Lie de Thé.

Archive Fever

I'm suffering from archive fever. The legendary Noodler's ink is finally available in the UK. In addition to offering a fascinating range of colours with some excellent names (who could resist a pair of reds called Widow Maker and Tiananmen?), they also make a fountain pen ink that is truly permanent. Water, bleach, and ammonia won't erase it, so it's perfect for archives, envelopes being posted in or to rainy climates, cheques, and contracts. So confident are the manufacturers of the ink's staying power that they have thrown down the following gauntlet:

"Noodler's Ink is offering a $1,000 reward/prize to the first person who can safely remove "Noodler's Black TM" ink from a security bank check (watermarks, numbered signature line, all standard security features present, standard check paper containing no gloss or polymer coatings, no plastic or wax content!). The ink must first be permitted to dry completely upon the cellulose based check paper, then the ink must be completely removed without altering the paper or its security features such as watermarks." (For more information, see http://www.noodlersink.com)

Perhaps Noodler's will bring to an end one of the curious ironies of the ink world. People often buy fountain pens to last a lifetime, to be permanent fixtures, but they have had - until now - to rely upon ink that is remarkably fragile, completely impermanent. (This became all too apparent to me when, several weeks ago, one of my cats came in from the rain and jumped straight onto my notepad. A world-changing page of deathless prose was quickly killed off.) Meanwhile, continuing the irony, the evil ballpoint offers writing that is pretty permanent (and pretty ugly, of course), but the object itself is designed to be disposable, totally impermanent. Perhaps the fountain pen can now, in its glorious Noodler's-fuelled ascent to all-round permanence, finally turn the ballpoint into a write-off.

Ink in use today: Omas grey.

(Almost) Got Those Free-flowing Blues

I've just ordered a bottle of Private Reserve's Tanzanite from those wonderful people at The Writing Desk (www.thewritingdesk.co.uk). It's going to be exclusively for my Conway Stewart 75, which I can't contemplate filling with anything other than blue. Don't ask me why this is the case - as Van Morrison once put it, 'it just is'. The Tanzanite colour is supposed to flow more copiously than other inks. Will it ever stop once it's started, though? Is the whole pen going to empty itself the moment I put nib to paper? Are we talking The Blob here?

I used to be militantly opposed to blue and black inks, simply because they dominate the market. When did this become the norm, by the way? When did people start believing that blue and black are the only truly acceptable colours for regular use? Yes, red is quite common, but it's usually reserved for those occasions when you need to make a point or make your words extra visible. (I once read, incidentally, that it is illegal in the UK to post an envelope on which the address has been written in red. I have no idea if this is true.) Why did someone whom I sat next to in a meeting yesterday put away her green biro when it came to signing the attendance sheet, quietly saying that she didn't 'want to make a statement'? Why do some companies insist that their employees use only blue or black? This petty mythology of inks must be dismantled. We have the technology - let's make the most of it. I've come around to blue inks for certain of my pens recently, though (as long as the other colours get a chance to play, of course), and I can feel the murmurings of a desire to see if Aurora black really is as black as they say it is. Maybe I've just sold out, lost my way, been beaten until I'm black and blue by black and blue.

Opening the Ink Quest

I've decided to start recording my all-consuming quest for the perfect ink. In truth, I don't think that such a thing actually exists - if it did, how empty would my fascinating life immediately become? - but the quest is what counts, what gives purpose to the days.

I think that it was Walter Benjamin who once wrote about how he had got to know different cities by wandering around them in search of rare books. Ink has done the same for me. I discovered parts of Oxford that I'd never seen while hopelessly hunting for a bottle of Omas sepia (I ended up with Visconti brown); I ventured to the mysterious outskirts of London in 90-degree heat because I knew that some Sailor ink had been specially shipped to a shop for me; I've already worked out the itinerary for a forthcoming trip to Chicago on the basis of ink, and I chose my hotel because it's near to a couple of well-stocked pen shops. (I am, though, a bit worried about how well the ink will travel back to the UK. I'll need to open the bottles as soon as I get them, of course, to smell and try out the contents, but then I'll need to make sure that they all stay upright on the journey home. How will I manage this? I've considered ringing the airline with the measurements of my hand luggage, just to see if the overhead compartments will be able to store my briefcase in an upright position. Maybe I should just pay for two seats...)

Here's why I think that the quest is endless: I'll be obsessed with getting a particular ink for months, and I'll have read everything that I can find about it. I like to prolong this period of research until I've reached a state of total hysteria, and I'll spend hours trying to decide which of my fountain pens I'll first use the ink with. But, as soon as the bottle is in my hand, a vague sense of disappointment sets in. Maybe the bottle is smaller than I expected; maybe the label isn't as bright as it looked on the internet; or maybe I can't quite put my finger on the problem. There's always something. The dissatisfaction intensifies when I first use the ink. It doesn't matter how beautiful the colour is, or how gloriously it flows - as soon as I've seen it on paper, my mind is on the next new acquisition. I've been longing to get hold of a bottle of Omas sepia for months, but it's incredibly difficult to find in the UK. Maybe it will always be the one that got away. Call me Ahab.

Inks in use today: Visconti brown; Diamine Prussian Blue.