Discomfort Zone

'We're out of our comfort zone now.'

The woman behind me in the queue at Ikea has struck up conversation. I can't see the emergency exit anywhere.

'Sorry?', I reply, turning around to check that the comment is indeed directed at me. It clearly is. I vaguely recognize the speaker, but I don't know from where.

'We're out of our comfort zone now. The station platform. You catch the same train to work as I do'.'

Of course. Now the face fits. One of the strange things about commuting, I find, is that you get to recognize a series of people over a period of time. Their names tend to remain unknown, as do the professions, interests, accounts, and dark secrets. A choice of book or overhead mobile phone conversation might offer brief glimpses into those other lives, but all that we ever know for sure in our 'migratory vastness', to borrow a lovely phrase from the journals of John Cheever, is the time at which we collectively travel to work.

I don't quite know how to respond to my fellow commuter's comment. I consider telling her that, as someone who lives permanently in a discomfort zone, the very concept of a comfort zone is alien to me. Realizing that this is probably not an appropriate reply, I mumble something about not recognizing her 'out of context'. (Isn't this what every woman secretly longs to hear: Sorry, you're just a miscellaneous face in the queue at Ikea if you're not climbing into a dirty diesel train?)

As soon as I've replied, though, it occurs to me that this could be the end of peaceful, solitary commuting. I have the train journey firmly under control at the moment: no one to talk to (I've worked out which services colleagues catch, and I avoid these like the plague), no one to sit by; just me, my book, my freshly filled pens, and, if I'm not in the mood to read, my iPod. While I've come to hate the time spent in the office, I savour the calm of the train journey that bookends the day. It's my route-ine.

Is all of this now in peril? Will I, come Monday morning, have to engage in chit-chat in the carriage? Have I been catapulted into the 'Kiss Hello' Seinfeld episode? Should I start taking a different service? (I'll need to check the red crosses on my pocket timetable to see if there are any colleague-free ones left.) Do I need a new career in a new town? Can't we have rules for commuting? No talking, no friendships, no eye contact, no bodily contact. Keep your distance. Objects in this mirror are more miserable than they appear.

What really unsettled me about the encounter, I think, was something that my co-commuter went on to say. As she looked down at my groaning trolley (I had nearly killed myself trying to get two six-drawer Malm units onto the flatbed unaided), she said, 'Buying things for your lovely baby's nursery?' When I, somewhat startled, asked how she knew I had a baby, she assured me that she isn't a stalker (I kept my hand on the Swiss Army penknife in my pocket, however), but merely that she has seen me lifting Baby Ink out of his pram when the Inkette brings him to the station to meet me from the train in the evenings.

I value my privacy. I guard the details of my personal life as if they were bottles of ink. (This is precisely why Ink Quest is a constant case of smoke and mirrors. 'Trust me -- I'm telling you stories', as one of Jeanette Winterson's characters has it.) I felt as if a line had been crossed as I stood in line in Ikea. I paid for my flatpacks, rushed to the lift, loaded up the Ink Wagon, and fled from the scene. I took an exceedingly complex route home through the maze-like streets of Grangetown, then switched cars in a multi-storey in Butetown, just in case I was being tailed.

But perhaps I'm worrying too much, for Baby Ink is soon to be transformed into an entirely different character. He will be unrecognizable to the world, not just my co-commuters, for the children's book that I mentioned in my previous post, The Ink Drinker, is on its way to Ink Towers from Amazon.co.uk. Actually, to be more precise, two copies are en route, for when I came home yesterday evening and announced my purchase to the Inkette, she confessed that she had just placed an order for the same text. I tried to cancel mine, but it was too late: the item was in the process of being dispatched.

I'm still not quite sure why the Inkette has taken an interest in the book. There must be a hidden agenda, a conspiracy against me. Does she think that she can negate my copy with hers? Does she believe that her edition will act as some kind of vaccinkation that will bolster Baby Ink's stubborn resistance to fountain pens? (If he comes over to my side, after all, she'll be outnumbered.) Is inkmunity the goal? Or is it simply that great minds ink alike?

Inks in use today: Noodler's Aircorp Blue-Black; Noodler's Nightshade; Diamine Saddle Brown.

'Get off your horse and drink your ink'

I’ve been in the saddle for days.

My bottle of Diamine Saddle Brown arrived from The Writing Desk towards the end of last week. Always thrilled to have lassoed a new brown, I immediately filled my Sailor Sapporo and put pen to paper. I was instantly relieved to see that Diamine has finally developed a proper dark brown; what currently masquerades beneath the label ‘Diamine Dark Brown’ is comically pale. Saddle Brown, on the other hand, is similar in shade to Conway Stewart Brown, but has the added luxury of offering incredible shading. Every line is a surprise. Who knew such nuance was possible?

But while I’ve been writing quite happily with the colour since it trotted to my door, it’s not The One, not the brown that will bring the ink quest to an end. I’m still in the saddle when it comes to Saddle Brown, but I’m getting a little restless, a little browned off, a little anxious to corral a new colour. I need another steed instead. I’m ready to dismount.

None of John Wayne’s many films features a moment at which he says ‘Get off your horse and drink your milk’, but the line has somehow become his catchphrase. And this misquotation – or, to be more precise, fabricated quotation – has been on my mind for the last few days, dear readers. This is not merely because I’m preparing to get off a horse named Saddle Brown.

I received over the weekend a message from an inkhorn-owning member of The Fountain Pen Network, in which a curious series of books by Éric Sanvoisin was brought to my attention. None of my local bookshops stocks these texts, but it would seem that the first volume is entitled The Ink Drinker and concerns a boy who discovers an ink-drinking vampire in his father’s bookshop. Other offerings by Sanvoisin include The Little Red Ink Drinker, The City of Ink Drinkers, and A Straw for Two (The Companion to The Ink Drinker).

I instantly thought of enlisting these volumes in my ongoing struggle to persuade the seven-month-old Baby Ink to take an interest in fountain pens and ink. While he cannot yet read, he does seem to enjoy having a story read to him before he goes to sleep. My devious plan, then, is to replace his current favourite, That’s Not My Kitten!, with The Ink Drinker. And I may even add a few drops of ink to the bottle of milk that he usually devours while listening to his bedtime tale. To the alluring sounds of The Ink Drinker, he would unwittingly become an actual ink drinker.

I admit that there’s something a little vampiric about this plot, but I have exhausted every possible avenue of parental influence. It’s time for confluence. (It also occurs to me that Bram Stoker has Jonathan Harker, in the opening paragraph of Dracula, leave Munich for Transylvania on Baby Ink’s birthday.) Under cloak of darkness I will begin the process of conversion. His resistance to ink will crumble drop by drop, sip by sip. His unhappiness in the presence of nibs will dissolve. Ink will revamp ire.

Inks in use today: Diamine Saddle Brown; Herbin Poussière de Lune.

Sentenced and Saddled

I was sentenced some time ago to search for the perfect ink. Now I'm saddled with the quest for a sentence about ink.

Daphne, the fountain-pen-using colleague whose office is next to mine, informed me yesterday that there is a moment in Bad Blood where Lorna Sage reports that her grandfather, while writing his diary, 'breaks out the green ink to celebrate' at a moment of great excitement. Daphne was kind enough to photocopy the relevant page from Sage's memoir, a book which I've never got around to reading, and I immediately retired to my office, redirected the phone to my secretary, affixed a large 'DO NOT DISTURB -- URGENT WORK IN PROGRESS' to my door, and pored over the text. But one page was not enough to satisfy my boundless appetite for inky moments, so I called into Borders on the way back from work and picked up a copy of the book itself. I managed to get to page 9 on the train home, but the inkident doesn't occur until page 52, so I write these words, dear readers, in a state of frantic suspense: I just want to get to the sentence about ink.

Is it a touch obsessive to read an entire book simply because it contains a line about green ink? I accept that I'm sententious at times, but have I now also become sentence-ious? Will I even bother to carry on reading the book once I've reached page 52? What could possibly happen in the remaining 229 pages that will be more exciting than the appearance of green ink in Chapter IV? And do I now need to reread the entire Western canon solely to look for references to ink? It's clear that I'm up against a 'dark, hard sentence' -- a phrase that, I've just discovered while dipping into the complete Oxford English Dictionary, means 'a difficult problem'.

I must say that I admire Lorna Sage's grandfather's decision to celebrate by 'break[ing] out the green ink to celebrate'. It's about time that someone burst champagne's bubble with an elegant nib. (And it's about time that someone wrote a cultural history of champagne. When it did become the drink with which to celebrate? When did the feral popping of a cork and the gushing forth of froth become signs of joy?)

If I believed in festivities (Humbug!), I'd be breaking out the green ink today, for I have just received an email from The Writing Desk to inform me that the new Diamine colours are now ink stock. Washable Blue, Amaranth, and Burnt Sienna all look rather attractive, but it's Saddle Brown that has been on my mind ever since I saw a sample online a month or so ago. I am always searching for the perfect dark brown ink, and many contenders have come and gone, so I'm curious to see if this could be The One.

'Saddle', it transpires, is a noun saddled with a rather complicated history. Here, for instance, is what the OED says about its etymology:

[Com. Teut.: OE. sadol, -ul masc. = MDu. sadel (mod.Du. zadel, zaal), OHG. satal, -ul (MHG. satel, mod.G. sattel), ON. sull (Sw., Da. sadel):OTeut. *saulo-z. Possibly adopted in OTeut. from some other Indogermanic language, and if so perh. a derivative of the root *sod-, ablaut-var. of *sed- (see SIT v.), whence the synonymous L. sella (:*sedl), OSl. sedlo (Russian siedlo, Pol. siodlo). No known language, however, has a corresponding derivative from the o grade of the root.]

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, for the subsequent list of possible meanings of 'saddle' is remarkably long and diverse, and there are some wonderful idiomatic uses. Entry 2c in the OED, for example, reads as follows:

(I will) either win the saddle or lose the horse (or vice versa): said by one engaging in an adventure of which the issue will be either highly profitable or ruinous. Hence in various similar phrases.

I'm hoping, then, that I'm in for a thrilling ride with Saddle Brown. If its name has such a rich history and range of meanings, shouldn't the colour itself be nuanced, enigmatic, and complex? Or have I put my money on the wrong horse? Is disappointment yet again cantering towards me. Will every 'L' that I write with Saddle Brown be a brown, sad 'L'? Keep reading to find out if I win the saddle (and am thus forced to break out the green ink) or lose the horse.

Inks in use today: Herbin Poussière de Lune; Private Reserve Tanzanite.

Odour; or, Ardour

'Pen and ink'.

These magical words were sent to me in the form of a text message yesterday evening. What, friend Arty was wondering, does 'pen and ink' mean in Cockney rhyming slang?

Because Ink Towers lies in a strange zone to which mobile phone signals rarely travel, I did not actually receive Arty's message until I was on the train going to work this morning. I spent the entire journey trying to work out the answer to his question. Sink? Think? Pink? Drink? (Readers unfamiliar with the strange phenomenon of Cockney rhyming slang may wish to consult this website for more information. I am not, I should perhaps add, a Cockney, but it's hard to live in this green, unpleasant land and not be exposed to certain phrases.)

Before I could search out colleagues from London to ask them about the meaning of 'pen and ink', I happened to bump into Arty himself, who told me that he'd sent the text message while struggling with a question in a pub quiz. 'It means "stink"', he informed me. That dog of yours pen and inks, as the aforementioned website says by way of example. At first I was grossly offended. The whole thing really got up my nose. How dare those cheeky Cockney types use the phrase 'pen and ink' to refer to a bad smell! How much more prejudice must we inkthusiasts suffer? How many more times must our noses be put out of joint?

But before I could organize an angry march to London to pour thousands of bottles of ink into the Thames (well, it worked with tea in Boston), I started to realize that one of the things I actually like about ink is its stink, its odour. I've commented in the past on how my inkthusiasm revolves around the look of ink and the way that it feels when it spills over my fingers, but I've somehow neglected to discuss its smell. How could I have ignored something that's been right under my nose all along? Heaven only nose.

When I buy a new bottle and open its lid for the very first time, I actually sniff the contents before I dip my pen. In the beginning was the whiff. I find that Noodler's inks are particularly pleasing to my nostrils, and I believe that the characteristic bouquet is the fungicide used to keep the liquid pure. I now understand why I've never acquired a shade that's explicitly marketed as scented ink (although I have been tempted by the Mont Blanc Christmas-smelling colour on several occasions). For me there's no need to sniff out the scent: it's always already there.

But my nosiness doesn't end with the opening of the bottle. When I'm writing with a particularly wet ink (Private Reserve Tanzanite, say), I have constantly to resist the temptation to lower my nose to the page before the lines dry. Philip Roth's The Anatomy Lesson, inkidentally, has some lovely observations about Nathan Zuckerman being a left-handed user of a pen 'in the era of the inkwell' and having to adopt a 'contortionist technique' to 'overcome the impediment of wet ink'. But why could Zuckerman see no further than his nose? Why could he not learn to see things in a less sinister manner, lift his left hand from the page, and lower his nostrils to take in the sweet smell of the shade? There really was no need to kick up such a 'pen and ink'.

In fact, another writer sniffed out the link between pen and nose several decades ago. Carlos, my disapproving colleague (I would call him an honorary member of the Penquod, but he's so sceptical about the entire enterprise that life on the deck with his raised eyebrow and exasperated sighs would simply be unbearable for the rest of the faithful crew), recently brought to my attention a wonderful quotation from J.R.R. Tolkien: 'A pen is to me as beak is to a hen'. Such words are not to be sniffed at (and certainly not when they are spoken by someone whose surname is an anagram of 'O, Let Ink!') We must learn to stop turning up our noses. Ink is heaven scent.

Inks sniffed today: Diamine Royal Blue; Herbin Lie de Thé.

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle

Could I finally be getting the upper hand?

Regular readers of Ink Quest will know that the deck of the Penquod has been the site of an Oedipal power struggle for the last six months, as I have tried again and again to persuade Baby Ink, who was born in May, that he should take an interest in ink and fountain pens. He has put up fierce resistance every step of the way, but I think that I have at last broken through his stubborn defences.

This weekend saw the birthdays of his grandfather and aunt, so I decided to let him address his own cards to them. After the Inkette had dipped his hands in child-friendly paint and left an imprint inside each card, I checked that his palms were clean, briefed him on the qualities of a Sailor Music nib and Waterman Blue-Black ink, and passed the pen to him. His eager little hand grasped the shiny object and, once I'd guided it away from his mouth and towards the waiting surface, started to scribble what I assume he takes to be his signature. I couldn't quite tell when he'd finished writing his name, so I let him carry on until it looked as if my beloved Sapporo was once again destined for his gums. (Anxious parents please note that my hand was resting lightly on his throughout, so there was no risk of an eye -- his or mine -- being speared.) Photographic evidence of his handiwork is displayed above. Quite a flamboyant signature, I think you'll agree.

The history of Western education is filled with tales of oppressed people suffering at the hands of teachers intent on converting their pupils to a different way of life. Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera, for instance, relates how its author was given 'three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler' when she was caught speaking Spanish in an American school, and my own grandfather was made to sit in the corner wearing a dunce's hat when he used Welsh in an English-language classroom. I don't think that Baby Ink suffered, though. Sometimes education has to involve, quite literally, a little gentle manipulation. (I'm reminded of the moment in Don DeLillo's White Noise, the greatest novel ever written, where Jack Gladney reports on how the teacher who is helping him to learn German once reached into his pupil's mouth to adjust the position of his tongue. 'No one had ever handled my tongue before', he notes.)

In fact, Baby Ink seemed quite happy to be using a nib and real ink for the first time: he smiled, he cooed, he kicked his legs. He even sat patiently and watched as the Waterman Blue-Black turned slowly from dark blue to teal. (I had warned him, in my briefing, that this would happen, that it was nothing to worry about, and that there's actually nothing remotely Blue-Black about Waterman Blue-Black. The sooner he knows not to trust the signifiers, the better.)

I am now wondering how far I can push things, of course. Has he really accepted my unquestionable paternal authority and given up his resistance to ink? Should I welcome him on board the Penquod as part of some kind of inkprenticeship? Is he now ready to join the search for the perfect ink? (I can't wait to get my hands on the new Diamine Saddle Brown, for instance, so perhaps he should be invited to study with me the online scans of this new shade yet again.) Are we poised to become the Kirk and Michael Douglas of the world of fountain pens? Or is he just pretending that he's now an inkthusiast so that I will leave him alone to dribble, pull off his socks with his gums, and suck his own feet? Was holding out his slight hand actually a sleight of hand?

Inks in use today: Waterman Blue-Black; Herbin Lie de Thé.

Hampered

It's coming.

Christmas, that is. Longtime readers of Ink Quest will know that I refuse, on grounds of miserly misanthropy, to celebrate this particular event. But so that I still have an excuse to gorge myself and be flooded with luxury gifts, I choose instead to partake in Festivus, the day created 'for the rest of us' by Frank Costanza, on 23 December. If I may be forgiven for reproducing a passage from Ink Quest's Festivus 2006 address, there are certain rituals to be followed on the special day:

In place of a traditional Christmas tree, a bare metal pole is erected. Decorations are to be avoided: 'I find tinsel distracting', reports Frank at one point. The Festivus dinner is accompanied by the 'Airing of Grievances', in which the guests at the table are given the chance to tell the others present exactly how they have disappointed them in the last twelve months. Then, after the meal, the 'Feats of Strength' begin. Festivus comes to an end only when the head of the household has been pinned to the floor by one of the other members of the family.

I found myself thinking of Festivus yesterday afternoon, dear readers, when a stroll around Cardiff city centre exposed me to far too much seasonal cheer. It's barely November, but the feeling of good will was definitely in the air. 'Hide your eyes and cover your ears, child', I cried to Baby Ink, worried that he might soak up too much merriment. To counter any possible contamination, I quickly wheeled his pram to a bookshop and bought a Philip Roth novel. (I have now finished Exit Ghost and am in the mood for more misery.) We will be reading a page a day together between now and 26 December, when the coast will have started to clear. And I have contacted Roth's publisher to ask if the author would be interested in launching an alternative to the traditional advent calendar called the 'rage-vent calendar', upon which children would open a window a day to watch Nathan Zuckerman move closer and closer towards death. Underneath the flap marked 25 December they would merely find the words 'Exit Ghost'.

If the Festivus dinner table is to groan and buckle, though, it is probably worth my looking into buying a Christmas hamper, which would, of course, be rechristened, so to speak, a Festivus damper. (I love the fact that 'hamper' can mean both a container of food and drink for Christmas and, in its verb form, 'to hinder' or 'to impede'. It seems that the etymology is different, however: while the roots of the verb are unclear, the noun can be traced back to 'hanaper', the name for a case in which to store a goblet. Why hasn't anyone thought of launching a Hanukhah hanaper, inkidentally?) And I think that I've found the ultimate hamper with which to work.

Because the Inkette once used the Harrods mail order service to send someone a bottle of champagne, we receive the store's catalogues in the post from time to time. As the festive season is approaching, the 'Christmas Hampers 2007' brochure arrived a few days ago. I couldn't resist a peek at how the other half lives, and my eye was quickly caught by 'The Chairman's Choice', the top-of-the-range Harrods hamper that retails for a mere £5000 (with free -- yes, free -- UK delivery). I've tried to capture this mighty beast in the picture displayed above, but my humble Olympus lens couldn't cope with the scale of the food and drink sprawled across two sizeable pages. I couldn't possibly list everything that you get for your £5000, but honourable mentions should probably go to the bottle of Monte Real Gran Reserva 1964, the La Mission Haut Brion 1979, the Beluga caviar, the Dom Pérignon 1999 champagne, and the Glemorangie 1977 whisky.

I doubt very much that Ink Towers will actually end up choosing the Chairman's Choice for its Festivus damper. For starters, if I'm going to have to drink Monte Real Gran Reserva, I'll take the infinitely superior 1962 vintage instead. While the search goes on for the perfect food and drink hamper/damper, though, I've been wondering why pen and ink companies don't make a special hamper/damper for inkthusiasts. I believe that it is a custom during the festive season to send cards to friends, so ink lovers who celebrate Christmas will find themselves writing more than usual in the coming weeks. Why, then, aren't pen shops filled with festooned boxes that contain a selection of fine inks, a range of pens with nibs of different sizes, and reams of elegant paper and notecards? And why hasn't Harrods, which has a fairly extensive and impressive pen department, thought to lead the way here? Forget the Chairman's Choice; where's the 'Pride of the Penquod'?

Perhaps Festivus -- the festival 'for the rest of us' -- is still too exclusive. What about we inkthusiasts of the world who find no bountiful boxes set aside especially us? Does no one speak ink our name? Must our slow march towards happiness and inklusion remain eternally hampered?

Inks in use today: Mont Blanc Racing Green; Noodler's Eternal Luxury Blue.