Scrap everything.
Ink Quest has very little interest in political debate and current affairs, but an item in the budget recently unveiled by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer has caught my eye. In an attempt to boost the ailing car industry, Mr Darling announced that motorists trading in a car of more than ten years of age will receive £2000 towards a new vehicle. Similar schemes have already worked wonders elsewhere in Europe, it seems, so the British economy will be back in the fast lane within weeks, I'm sure.
But why stop there? Why not extend the scrappage scheme to other commodities? What's so special about cars? (I ask this last question as the exasperated father of a toddler who spends every waking moment playing with, and talking about, cars. He has even taken to grabbing the 'In Gear' supplement as soon as I sit down with the Sunday Times, pointing jubilantly at the ill-dressed figure on the front, and shouting 'Clarkson! Clarkson!') Why not give the economy a further boost by offering cash incentives to people who trade in their biros for fountain pens?
This brilliant idea came to me yesterday morning as we were wandering around the open-air National History Museum in St. Fagans. (Don't get me started on the monstrous lack of apostrophe. This can only be the fault of the colonizers, for the original Welsh name was simply Sain Ffagan.) One of the most striking features in the hundred-acre site is the sixteenth-century manor house (known, for some reason, as the 'castle'). I was too busy chasing Baby Ink to read the explanatory text in detail, but I believe that the house has been set out as it would have been in the nineteenth century, so visitors step back in time as soon as they cross the threshold.
I, of course, immediately started to look for vintage writing instruments and related objects. I didn't have to look far, for several of the rooms contained rather elegant writing desks, inkwells, and dip pens. Before I could take detailed notes, however, Baby Ink's friend toddled a little too close to one of the security barriers, and the warning alarm sounded throughout the house. We weren't actually asked to leave by the guard who came rushing up the stairs, but we thought it wise to make our way out before one of the marauding pair destroyed a priceless piece of the past.
Seeing the inkwells in so many of the rooms of the manor house brought home once again just how much our relationship to ink and writing instruments has changed over the years. These days, whether a fountain pen or a ballpoint is involved, we tend to take our writing instruments with us as we move around our domestic spaces. When ink, at a certain point in time, made its way inside the barrel -- when the dip pen dipped out of sight, in other words -- it suddenly became portable. Before that, by way of contrast, carrying a pen around would have made little sense, as it would, generally speaking, not have contained ink; the magical fluid would have sat in an inkwell, and the solid writing instrument would have been repeatedly dipped. Who, under such circumstances, would have wanted to risk calamitous spillages by carrying a precarious, open inkwell from room to room? Keeping a supply of ink in various places around the house would have been much more sensible.
But what does any of this have to do with my scheme for rewarding people who trade in ballpoints for fountain pens? Well, dear readers, it's perfectly simple: my idea is that every house in the land has a fountain pen in each room. And each room, moreover, will have a space set aside for inky activities. I have looked back to the nineteenth century, in other words, and I can see a way forward through the stormy waters. If every household in this green, unpleasant land is strongly encouraged to buy, say, eight fountain pens -- with financial support from the state, of course -- the economy will be thriving in no time. And if the deal is that every ballpoint pen in Britain be traded in at the same time, then we'll rid the nation of biros before the year is out. (I realize that this is starting to sound a bit like something inkvented by Mao Zedong, but I have, in my defence, just finished reading Roland Barthes' account of his bizarre trip to China in 1974.)
Yes, dear readers, the Great Ballpoint Scrappage Scheme is hereby officially inkaugurated. From the credit crunch comes the triumphant crunching of biros into a million tiny pieces. The salvation of the economy begins at home (oikos).
There is just one problem: as far as I know, Mr Darling is not a reader of this blog. I will, then, need to take a trip to Downing Street to inkform him of my plans. I will write this entry out by hand on my finest sheets and with exquisite ink, and I will gather up every ballpoint pen currently lurking beneath the roof of Ink Towers. (The Inkette likes to annoy me by buying packs of ten.) When the Chancellor answers the door of No. 11 , I will proudly hand over my obsolete biros and the text of my historic Scrap Paper.
Ink in use today: Diamine Sepia.
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