A Different Register

Allow me to register my excitement.

This morning involved a trip to the local Register Office formally to record the birth of Baby Ink. I'm sure that this is a significant event in the life of any parent, but I've spent the last few days in a state of near hysteria at the thought of being able to use genuine British Registrars' ink for the very first time. I've seen it used on one previous occasion -- a civil wedding ceremony at a stately home where the Registrar turned up with a rather large plastic bottle of the precious liquid -- but I've never actually been called upon to sign my name with it. (The Inkette and I were married in the USA, and I don't remember special ink being used there. I think we were handed a ballpoint, actually.)

As soon as we entered the office, I spotted a Parker Penman bottle on the desk. While the Registrar talked us through the official details, I kept eyeing up the glass object, wondering if it contained the mystical fluid or if the state official was merely a collector of discontinued inks. Eventually, when the forms had been checked and double-checked, he filled a fountain pen from the Penman bottle and asked me to sign the papers. This, I thought, is what it's all about: an employee of the state is handing me a fountain pen asking me to write with it. I cannot remember another occasion on which I have been handed a fountain pen in a public place, in fact. A million cheap ballpoints have been thrust into my disapproving hand, but never a real pen. Let me never forget this glorious inky moment, I thought to myself.

A small belch from Baby Ink reminded me why I was in the Register Office, and so I quickly signed my name, marvelling at the blue-black ink that emerged from the nib. The Registrar took the form from me and, with an elegant sweep of his hand, blotted the writing. The time had come to ask.

'Is that Registrars' ink?', I enquired. 'Yes', he said, and then added that the fluid is not used a great deal in Register Offices these days. Just several weeks ago, he explained, Registrars stopped writing everything out by hand, and switched instead to computerized forms. Only certain key items -- signatures, for instance -- are still written in ink. I then asked where the ink is acquired, and the kindly gentleman informed me that it is bought from 'regular stationery suppliers'. 'It comes in these plastic bottles', he said, reaching into the drawer of his desk and holding up a black container for me to inspect.

When I explained that my questions were motivated by a love of ink, the Inkette brazenly asked if it would be possible to take a photograph of the bottle for displaying on Ink Quest. 'You can keep this one, if you want', said the Registrar. 'There's only a little bit of ink left in the bottom'.

And so Ink Quest proudly registers in the photograph above a genuine bottle of Registrars' ink. I'm eager to try it out, but I feel that I should keep it for posterity. I have, after all, used this very batch of ink to leave my mark for eternity in the archives. I have written below the name of Baby Ink, who cannot yet write, lines that will no doubt outlive me. (It's a shame that 'infant' etymologically announces one without a voice, not one without writing, but I've read enough early Derrida to know why this is the case.) This must be why births and deaths are officially noted in the same room, by the same person. In recording the one, I have an inkling of the other. In order to notify the state of a birth, I must leave a mark whose permanence underscores my own mortality. Life in a different register.

Ink in use today: Registrars' Blue-Black ink; Diamine Sepia.

PS (10 May): It occurred to me today that yesterday's story might have seemed to good to be true. Sceptics may have wondered if I'd used a stock photograph of the bottle of ink and made up the entire inkident, for instance. To prove the authenticity of the tale, I've added a new picture at the top of this post, in which you can clearly see the bottle resting on a copy of today's Guardian newspaper. Ink Quest: all the news that's fit to print.