Inkvasion of Privacy

Make room for the camera.

British newspapers have been filled in recent days with reports about the arrival of Google's 'Street View' function upon this septic isle. There have, it seems, be numerous outcries about its 'invasion of privacy', and I have just read on the BBC News website that dozens of images have, in the light of complaints, been removed since the facility was launched.

As one who values privacy and invisibility, I was rather shocked to discover that Ink Towers appears in technicolor glory on Street View. Google's camera car must have sneaked past last summer, for the window boxes are shown in full bloom, and there is no sign of the Velux window installed in the roof towards the end of 2008 as part of the epic Ink Towers loft-conversion project. I have given thanks to the great ink bottle in the sky that I was not standing in the doorway when the images were captured. I remain inkvisible ... for now.

When I had finished being outraged, I decided to put UK Street View to good use by virtually revisiting some of my favourite British pen shops. They have featured here by name in previous posts, but never in images. And so I present you, dear readers, with a brief gallery of inky haunts frequented at various moments by the Penquod. (I have had to exclude Cardiff's Pen and Paper, as it is hidden away within an arcade. I cannot even show you the entrance to the passage in question, as the Google vehicle must have been forced to obey the 'No public traffic on St. Mary Street' rule.)



First up is Pens Plus, Oxford. This is perhaps my favourite British pen shop (although I should add that I have yet to visit Nottingham's legendary Pen Sense). I seriously considered stabbing myself with a ballpoint when, one Saturday a couple of years ago, we drove all the way to Oxford from Ink Towers ... only to find that the shop was closed for the week.



Webster's in Petts Wood, near Orpington. I believe that I have described in earlier posts my insane journey during 2005's blistering heatwave from the centre of London (where I was staying for a couple of days) out to Petts Wood, where the UK office of Sailor Pens had kindly sent a couple of 1911 fountain pens for me to try. I came away with the burgundy model. And sunstroke.



Ah, the luxurious entrance to the Burlington Arcade, London. Many expensive delights await within, among them the mouth-watering vintage fountain pens of Pen Friend. Some protest about the prices in the shop, but how much must the rent be in the Burlington Arcade? No trip to London is complete without a longing peep through the window of this charming little shop. And a second mortgage.

More inky images from UK Street View will appear here in time, no doubt, but for now, at the end of a day spent running around after Baby Ink, who has generously decided to develop chickenpox this weekend, I am going to retire to a camera obscura.

Ink in use today: Aurora Blue.

The Soles of Ink Folk

My kind of town.

New York, though, not Chicago. I love the Windy City, yes, and one of the early Ink Quest posts sang its praises, but I have always felt that I should have been born a New Yorker, even though I've never actually visited the city in question. I blame this on a steady diet of Woody Allen films, Seinfeld, and a line in Don DeLillo's White Noise about how 'the art of getting ahead in New York [is] based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way'. (Isn't that what Ink Quest is really all about?)

I have, therefore, always had a grudge against the universe for deciding to have me born in small-town South Wales. The last part of R.S. Thomas' bitter 'Welsh Landscape' sums my feelings up rather nicely, ink fact:

There is no present in Wales,
And no future;
There is only the past,
Brittle with relics,
Wind-bitten towers and castles
With sham ghosts;
Mouldering quarries and mines;
And an impotent people,
Sick with inbreeding,
Worrying the carcase of an old song.

And it was while I sat surrounded by 'sham ghosts' and 'an impotent people' last weekend, dear readers, that I truly cursed my non-New-York-ness. I was reading the Sunday Times, and I happened across an extract from the autobiography of Stanley Johnson, father of Boris Johnson, the somewhat idiosyncratic Mayor of London. I have no interest in either figure, but the headline caught my eye: 'Baby Boris: All Blond Hair and Dipped in Ink'. I was compelled to read on.

The ink in question formed part of a remarkable tale about the author seeing his now-famous son for the first time in the maternity ward (which was, we're told, in a hospital 'situated by the river around East 70th Street'):

I was told that the new baby was already safely wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the nursery in a cot, along with half a dozen other new arrivals. As I peered through the glass, I found it difficult to determine which our child was. The babies were lined up so that all I could see was the soles of their feet, which were uniformly black. Just for a moment I thought there had been a mix-up and somehow Charlotte had given birth to an African–American or Puerto Rican child. I asked a passing nurse for guidance.

“We dip the feet in ink to take their footprints as soon as they are born,” she explained. “We want to avoid mix-ups. You can’t use the babies’ fingerprints. Not when they’re newborn. They’re too soft.”

I have no idea if this inky ritual was standard practice in the hospitals of New York in the 1960s; for all I know, it may still be ink operation. But I do know this: British hospitals did not welcome children into the world with a dip in ink when I was born (less than a decade after Baby Boris). And dipping certainly doesn't happen now, for Baby Ink's identity was marked in the maternity ward in 2007 with a seemingly indestructible electronic device that was strapped around his ankle. Impossible to remove without a special key, this object would set off alarms and cause all doors to lock shut if anyone attempted to take the new arrival past the sensor positioned near the door to the ward. I think we have the device in his 'baby box', but, while I have a clear memory of the nurse removing it from his leg, I have no idea how we then got out of the hospital without the alarms activating. The mystery of the modern world deepens.

If I had been born in New York, then, I would probably have had my tiny, wrinkled feet dipped in ink not long after taking my first breath. While I have spent many of my adult years worshipping at the feet of ink, that is to say, I was deprived of the chance to get my foot in the door at the very beginnink of my life. I got off on the wrong foot. This, no doubt, is why it took me a while to find my feet with writing instruments, why I used ballpoint pens without objection in school, why I did not buy a bottle of ink until I was in my thirties. Because I was not born in New York, it took me years to get my feet wet. (This is surely why I am, like poor Marcel, always ink search of lost time.)

I am going to put my foot down and put my best foot forward: my sole mission from now on will be to convince British maternity wards to dip the soles of babies into ink. The National Health Service will, in time, come to toe the line. Ink will be there at the beginning of every life, and every child will naturally gravitate towards fountain pens. The ballpoint will die as people start to vote with their feet. The soul of ink will survive. Some feat.

Ink underfoot today: Aurora Blue; Herbin Café des Îles.

PS (21 March): Honorary Penquod crew member Ike has been in touch to inkform me that I am clearly onto something. He was, he notes, born in Atlanta, Georgia, some years before Boris Johnson popped into the world, and he still has a card from the hospital that displays his mother's fingerprints and the prints of both of his feet. (The practice was clearly not confined to New York, then.) A decade later, he adds, he received his first bottle of ink and a green Esterbrook J fountain pen. This latter development can only have been because, as he puts it, ink has been in his blood from the very beginning.

Comink Relief

I have been laughed out of court.

Today, dear readers, is Comic Relief Day in the United Kingdom. As those of you who are not based in this green, unpleasant land may not know, once a year we are all invited to 'do something funny for money'. All funds raised are then used in various campaigns to take a few steps closer towards, as the charity's slogan puts it, 'a just world free from poverty'.

One very common way of raising money for the cause is wearing 'silly' clothes to work. This, then, is the day on which a simple trip to the bank becomes an encounter with the cast of Toy Story ('Your overdraft has just plunged to infinity and beyond!'), or buying a train ticket takes twice as long because every transaction must be accompanied by a song from the cast of The Sound of Music ('The hills are alive ... with the sound of an overpriced ticket that is the result of Thatcher's criminal privatization of the railways!')

While I have nothing against raising money for the cause in question, I do find this yearly ritual rather unsettling (and not just because I instinctively recoil from any injunction to have fun and be wacky). I autistically like things to be the same as they usually are, so suddenly having to buy my predictable lunch from someone dressed as an armadillo is deeply disturbing to me. Ink fact, I try not to go out at all on Comic Relief Day. Stay in the bunker. All this will pass, just like Christmas, royal weddings, and the Olympics.

This year, however, there is no escape. I normally work at home on Fridays, but today I have to go into the office. Worse still, we were informed earlier in the week that Baby Ink is expected to wear 'silly clothing' to nursery today, ideally in the colour of red (to match Comic Relief's famous 'red nose'). At 7.15am, then, he sat downstairs and ate his breakfast while wearing a (red) Welsh rugby shirt (because sport and nationalism are silly), a pair of trousers that are too short for his legs, and several Comic Relief stickers.

As I studied his strange appearance, I suddenly had a brilliant idea. 'Why', I said to the Inkette, 'don't we hang a biro around his neck? That would make him look really silly.'

The Inkette took a sip of her coffee, sighed, and said, 'There's no need. He's your son, so people will automatically know that he's an idiot to be laughed at.'

And thus I made my own special contribution to Comic Relief.

Inks in non-zany use today: Conway Stewart Blue; Sailor Brown.

Book-end?

'What are you doing?'

The Inkette has just entered the living room, and I've spotted her slipping The Book of Ink into her handbag. (The Book of Ink, for those new to Ink Quest, is the small Clairefontaine notebook in which I keep a record of every ink that passes through my hands. The photograph displayed above shows the first page of the section devoted to blues. Obsessively curious inkthusiasts may wish to know that I have divided the book into 'Browns', 'Blues', and 'Other'.)

'I'm putting this notebook into my bag', comes the reply.

'But that's the Book of Ink. What are you doing with it?'

'I've been making some notes in it, and I'm taking it into work tomorrow morning.'

'But that's the Book of Ink!'

'The what?'

'The Book of Ink. It has all of my ink samples in it.'

'Oh, I did see some scribbling, but I thought it was just scrap paper. It was by the side of the computer, and I couldn't find anything else to write on.'

'Just scrap paper? But it's the Book of Ink!'

'So I gather. I'm still taking it into work with me.'

'But you can't! It's the Book of Ink! It has all of my ink samples in it.'

'So I gather. I'm still taking it into work with me.'

'But what have you done to it? Have you scribbled all over my samples?'

'No, I've just used a page at the very back of the book to jot down some points.'

I decide that I need to see the damage for myself, so I cross the room and take the notebook out of the Inkette's bag. My precious samples are still inktact at the front of the book, but, sure enough, the final page is now covered with the Inkette's writing. In a cruel irony, she's used one of my fountain pens to make the notes.

'Well, it's ruined now', I say. 'Years of work have gone down the drain. I'll have to start all over again in a new book.'

'But it's just ink', the Inkette wearily replies.

I'm about to open the telephone directory to the section marked 'Marriage Guidance Counselling' ('Hello. Yes, I think my wife and I are suffering from inkreconcilable differences...') when I have an idea.

'Fine. I'll tear out the final page, and you can then take just that to work', I suggest.

'But that will make the front page fall out. You'll lose your valuable ink samples'. The Inkette now seems to be enjoying herself.

'Okay, well, I'll get a Stanley knife and slice out the last page, leaving just a thin margin in place.'

'What a good idea.'

And so, dear readers, this is precisely what I did.



The Book of Ink will live to see another day, but I don't think that I can claim to have brought the Inkette to book. As far as she's concerned, it's still just a collection of pointless scribbles.

I offer this tale of horror and salvation because I know that many inkthusiasts who read this blog are in relationships with signifinkcant others who mock our obsession with ink. (The Inkette is very fond of calling us 'inkoids', for inkstance.) Should you ever find yourself in a situation such as the one described above, dear readers, you can simply take a leaf out of my book.

Inks in use today: Conway Stewart Blue; Herbin Cacao du Brésil.

PS (12 March, 6pm): The Inkette has just read today's entry and has informed me that I have completely misrepresented her. She was, she insists, much ruder than I have suggested.

An Ointment

'I am writing on a table with a green cloth, lit by two candles, and taking my ink from an ointment jar'.

I have just stumbled across these words in a letter written by Gustave Flaubert to Louis Bouilhet on 1 December 1849. The young Flaubert, who had yet to make his name with Madame Bovary, was in Cairo; his infamous travels in Egypt had just begun, and he had recently sent his mother a note in which he likened the sand of the desert at sunset to ink.

I have suspected for some time that Flaubert was an inkthusiast. A previous Ink Quest entry recalled, for instance, some of the inky moments in Madame Bovary, such as the heroine's noting that arsenic tastes like ink. The hilarious Bouvard and Pécuchet, meanwhile, inkorporates a spillage of ink and revolves around two copyists who have fine handwriting. And the author himself only appears to become emotional about his impending departure for Egypt when he has to pack away his pens and papers. (See the travel notes relating to his journey from Croisset to Cairo for this latter inkident.)

The image of Flaubert dipping his pen into an ink-filled ointment jar that sits in front of him on a well-catalogued table is a wonderful one, partly because it has reminded me that inkthusiasts devoted to fine fountain pens and elegant colours always know precisely where their ink is coming from, simply because they probably spent hours considering which shade to use, and then filled the pen with care and patience. To love writing instruments, in other words, is to be aware of originks. Users of ballpoint pens and other pre-filled, disposal atrocities, by way of complete contrast, know nothing about where their ink (I use the term loosely) has come from and how it found its way into the pen. Their role in proceedings is minimal. They're writing blind, with history scribbled out.

For once, I know how they feel: one of my pens currently contains an ink without a name, without a past, without a source. How on earth have I allowed myself to wander inkto such terrible territory? I shall enlighten you, dear readers.

I was rather traumatized to learn last week that honorary Penquod crew member Arty had lost his Parker fountain pen. Perhaps in an attempt to negate the trauma, Arty reported that he was going to take the opportunity to upgrade to a better model. He identified a budget and asked my advice. I pointed him in the direction of the Pelikan M200, which is, in my opinion, the finest fountain pen available for less than £50. But poor Arty immediately found himself facing a problem: finding a nearby pen shop with a decent selection of Pelikans for careful trial is impossible.

I decided to break the golden rule of nibbery. Yes, dear readers, I lent him my M200 for several days. I can't say that I slept a wink during this time, but the anxiety was worth it, for Arty soon reported back that he was now ready to purchase a Pelikan. (He's actually going for the M215.) By the end of the week, my M200 was safely back in my hands and the world, thanks to my selfless action, contained a new Pelikfan.

My pen came back to me without a scratch, but Arty had refilled it. I'd invited him to do this if the existing Caran d'Ache Grand Canyon ran out, so I wasn't remotely troubled by his actions, but what did take me by surprise was the colour of ink chosen by the new Pelikfan. I very rarely use black -- ink fact, I believe that I have no more than a small sample or two of this shade in my collection -- so the sight of the colour coming from the nib of my M200 was most unusual. Beyond that, I soon became obsessed by figuring out the identity of the ink. Brown inks I can usually name at fifty paces, but blacks are unknown territory for me. I suspect that Arty used Parker Quink Black, but I might be wrong. Cross? Waterman? Diamine? (All of these brands are available in the pen shop that lies not too far from Arty's house.)

Not knowing the source of the ink in my pen -- or even its name -- threw my entire life into disarray. Yes, I could have emailed or texted Arty to discover the truth, but I don't think that being inkformed would have entirely restored the order of things. I am normally in obsessive, autistic control of as many parts of my life as possible, and I am accustomed to being inkvolved in virtually every part of the writing process that occupies so much of my time. Suddenly finding that one of my favourite pens contained an unknown ink, and simultaneously realizing that I had not been involved in its selection or insertion, catapulted me into the realm of the unknown and the uncontrolled. The origink was unclear. The 'I' in ink had become a little smudged. An exinkstential crisis, all in all.

From now on, then, I'll be keeping a close eye on the origin of my inks. 'Origink, therefore I am' will be my mantra. If I have to follow Flaubert and dip into an ointment pot every few lines, so be it. (But how will the flow bear up?) Ink fact, I'm going to take to carrying such an item with me wherever I go. And so ends the fable of the anointment of an ointment.

Inks in ointment pot today: Herbin Cacao du Brésil; Sailor Brown; Aurora Blue.

PS (3 March, 9.20am): A new honorary Penquod crew member who shall go by the pseudonym 'Ken' has been in touch with some crucial questions relating to the mysterious ink in my Pelikan M200:

What if Arty matched manufacturer of ink to manufacturer of pen and used Pelikan 4001 Black?

This is possible, of course, but I can think of nowhere in the city that sells Pelikan ink, and I don't believe that Arty has yet been drawn into the all-consuming world of inkternet purchases.

What if Arty used - the horror! -- india ink?

Again, this is possible, but I can see no signs of catastrophic clogging in the pen, so I'm pretty certain that Arty filled it with fountain-pen-friendly ink?

What if I cannot ask Arty to be sure of anything?

Ah, the postmodern condition. To be sure, I cannot be sure that Arty is sure of anything. If anything, anything is sure to be anything but sure.

What does it take to become an honorary crew member of the Penquod?

What are the thirty-nine steps? What is the speed of dark? Did you sleep well? ('No, I made a couple of mistakes.') I'm afraid that I cannot reveal the answer to this question. I think that there's a moment in an old Philip K. Dick novel, possibly A Maze of Death, where a character is able to ask any question he wants, with the promise that a truthful answer will be given. He chooses to ask if God exists. He's told that he can't be given a reply because wouldn't believe the answer.