Weekly Update – Sketches, Film Photography and a 10K Race

A hectic week but an interesting one.

I went to see a local production of Singer, a play by Peter Flannery. It was phenomenal but it kept me up at night, which meant that the following morning I headed straight to my local cafe. I sketched the barista but something didn’t work in terms of getting her face right – she turned out sadder than she is. Sketching tired is rough.

Here’s the rather messy pencil and pen sketch. I can tell just by the line quality that I was very, very tired.

A day later I went to sketch at the nearby park and you can see the difference in the line quality in this sketch:

Initial sketch:

Later that week the film photographs that I’d had developed were returned to me. Here are a few of my favourites:

The local community cat that I feed twice a day coming to say hi

I love the atmosphere that the film gives this simple photo:

All of these photos are unedited. I’ll likely clean them up later on.

Bridge over water at a nature reserve near Haifa

There was a fire on the roof of a nearby hotel. I took this photo a day after the fire, and you can see the damage:

Cat failing to hunt a crow:

A stall at the local farmer’s market:

A stall at the local farmer’s market. You can see the see in the background.

I was supposed to run at a 10k night race on Wednesday, but I wasn’t feeling too good and I was apprehensive about dealing with the crowds so I ran the distance by myself a few hours before the official race start. It was a good decision as I was really struggling during the first 3k – but I did manage to finish, and finish strong.

I finished reading “Helmet for My Pillow” by Robert Leckie (a powerful narrative, but not as punchy as “With the Old Breed”), read “Death of a Nurse” by M.C. Beaton as a palate cleanser, and I’ve now started “The Shattering Peace”, John Scalzi’s long awaited sequel to his Old Man’s War series.

I’ve been overwhelmed with the responses to my Pelikan Hubs post. Thank you all for your kindness and for the thought and effort you put into your comments. I read them all, I just wasn’t able to respond to all of them this week.

Speaking of the Hubs, all of my pre-hubs inked pens have been written dry, which means that I currently have a 100% Pelikan rotation, plus some Platinum Preppy’s that I use for sketching.

Have a great week!

Currently Inked Fountain Pens – Pelikan Hubs Edition

Tomorrow is the Pelikan Hubs 2025 event, and to prepare I have inked up a whole flock of Pelikan fountain pens.

Here’s my current lineup of fountain pens and ink:

The top four have been inked way back in the beginning of August, but because of my travel schedule I’ve yet to write all of them dry. You can read about the Radius 1934 and the Pelikan M205 here as well.

Leonardo Momento Zero Grande 2.0 Galattica Universe – F nib – Montblanc The Beatles Psychedelic Purple – great pen and ink combination. I wrote this pen dry just after writing the sample above.

Parker 51 Plum – F nib – Sailor Jentle Peche – all vintage Parker 51 fountain pens are fabulous and this one is no different. The plum colour is very rare, but I decided to “use the good China”. The ink is a long discontinued Sailor Jentle Peche, a beautiful pink with great shading and outlining. Sailor used to make fantastic inks at great prices – in terrible bottles. It was a struggle to fill this pen, even with their internal ink reservoir dingus.

Pelikan M205 Petrol Marbled – EF nib – Pilot Iroshizuku Sui-gyoku – I was hoping that Sui-gyoku would be the green ink that I was looking for, but it’s more of a teal than a green. The Pelikan M2xx series is a solid workhorse kind of pen, and I highly recommend it.

Radius 1934 Settimo Cielo – F nib – Diamine 150th Anniversary Regency Blue – the ink has grown darker with time, to the point where it’s almost black. This isn’t surprising as it was a very saturated dark blue ink to begin with, and it’s had some time in the pen. I will likely write this pen dry today or tomorrow. The new Radius pens by Leonardo feel very much like Leonardo Momento Zeroes but with a slightly different design. That’s not a bad thing – they are gorgeous pens, and for now they’re slightly cheaper than the Momento Zeroes.

Last week I inked up a new Platinum Preppy 03 nib with De Atramentis Document Ink Black as part of a post that I am working on. It’s the first time I’ve used a Preppy with a converter and not the Platinum cartridge it comes with – and it works well.

I inked these pens today for the Pelikan Hubs event tomorrow:

Pelikan M605 Stresemann – M nib – Sailor Ink Studio 123 – a classic and elegant pen and ink combination. The Sailor 123 is really that good, and the generous medium nib shows off its dual shading properties.

Pelikan M320 Pearl – M nib – Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Brown – my rarest Pelikan, always a crowd pleaser at the hubs. This tiny pen came with a tiny brilliant brown bottle and so far I’ve filled it only with that. I bought it about a decade ago in Berlin on a whim, and I’m so glad that I did.

Pelikan M800 Blue O Blue – F nib – KWZ Exclusive for epiora.pl Błękit Warty Poznania – this pen was a very expensive birthday gift and my first M800 Pelikan. I bought it at a local pen store that no longer exists. The ink is even more special – it’s my first KWZ ink, gifted to me from the store that it was exclusively made for. I had purchase my M600 Glauco Cambon there just before they were closing for the day on the last day of the USK Symposium in Poznan. The name means Poznan Warta Blue – and it’s tied to the unique blue of the city and the Warta river. It’s a gorgeous blue and it reminds of Poznan, the store, the lovely seller and the nice symposium volunteers that saw me in the store and helped me out with my purchase.

Pelikan M400 White Tortoise – M nib – Sailor Ink Studio 767 – This is the green I was looking for! I purchased this ink last month at Choosing Keeping in London, and it’s the perfect bright and cheerful green that I was looking for, with some great shading to boot. The Pelikan Tortoise pens are gorgeous, and this one is a particularly nice one.

Pelikan M805 Ocean Swirl – F nib – Montblanc Maya Blue – I have been priced out of Montblanc inks (there’s only so much I’m willing to pay for ink) but this ink was heavily discounted at the Montblanc boutique in Heathrow. It’s a lovely bright turquoise with great shading, and it works well coupled with this pen.

Pelikan M600 Art Collection Glauco Cambon – F nib – Pilot Iroshizuku Ajisai – this is the pen that I purchased at Epiora in Poznan, and while I saw it online and loved the concept, I never thought that I’d buy it because of the price. Seeing it in person changed my mind because no photos can do this pen justice – the pattern on it glows! It’s beyond vibrant, and the pen body itself feels different than other Pelikans – heavier and cooler to the touch. The ink is also a Choosing Keeping purchase, and I love the colour very much.

Pelikan M620 Place De La Concorde – M nib – Sailor Ink Studio 162 – this is one of my rarer Pelikans, one that I bought a year or two after the series had been complete and no longer for sale. If ever there was a series of pens that I wish that I owned it was the Pelikan M620 City series, and for years I searched for an Athens pen before giving up – it was just too expensive.

The Pelikans left to right – Place de la Concorde, Glauco Cambon, Ocean Swirl, White Tortoise, Blue O Blue, Pearl

Apart from my inked Pelikans, I’m also taking three uninked Pelikans with me – one to fill with the ink that we’ll be getting, and the others just to share.

Pelikan Flock – left to right – Stresemann, M215 Rectangle (uninked), vintage M400 Tortoise (uninked), Stormtrooper (uninked)

Left to right: Parker 61 Plum, M205 Petrol Marbled, Radius 1934 Settimo Cielo, Platinum Preppy

Are you going to a Pelikan Hub? If so, what pens did you bring with you?

Weekly Update – Baristas and Cats and Plays, Oh My

Long time no update so this one contains multitudes.

I have started taking a small sketching kit with me on my long runs. I take my Pith Kabosu, Aquarius Urban Sketchers watercolour palette, a fineliner of some sort, a waterbrush and a Pentel P209 mechanical pencil. I finish my runs at my local cafe and sketch there over a sandwich and coffee.

Here’s the preliminary sketch, done in pencil and a 0.5 fineliner:

I am really enjoying my Pith sketchbook, and I’ve been taking it with me almost every day and sketching a lot more. My brother’s cat:

Another sketch at the cafe, this time of a customer:

While I’ve been sketching a lot more since the Urban Sketcher’s Poznan symposium, my journaling has taken a big hit. This oftentimes happens to me after traveling, as I rarely have time for regular journaling during a trip, and I often replace writing with sketching when traveling. The issue is that this time I’ve been struggling to return to the habit, mostly because I’ve picked up a few bad habits during the last two months of travel and chaos.

As many in the Urban Sketchers community use Instagram I started using the app before the symposium (I didn’t have it installed on my phone beforehand), and I got into the unfortunate habit of using it. Earlier this week I deleted it and logged out of YouTube on my phone, as I’ve been wasting time on there too. It’s been a relief – I’m not posting my sketches there, but I realized that I don’t really have an audience there – I’m just unpaid labour for billionaires. It’s bad enough that AI bots are scraping my site for content, but I don’t see a reason why I should allow my brain to be addicted to the slot machine tactics of an ecosystem that relies on me spending as much time as possible there to make its money.

My planning also took a hit due to travel, but I’ve gradually gotten things on track. My Q4 planning was about two weeks late, but as these were holiday weeks it wasn’t a big deal. I’ve also scaled down my plans to better accommodate holidays and travel.

Lest you think that I only go to plays when I’m abroad, I did catch two plays during the past two weeks. One was a wonderful community theatre staging of “Twisted”, performed during the local “comicon” – a sci-fi, fantasy and roleplaying game convention that happens once a year.

Twisted is a StarKid musical that is a funny, profanity full take of Aladdin from Jafar’s point of view. One of the striking things about it is that it highlights the actual problem points with the original plot.

Speaking of that convention, I also got to give a lecture, run a tabletop RPG (a Dungeon World adventure that I wrote and ran), help master a LARP and meet a lot of cool friends. Oh, and sell a good amount of books that I no longer needed. Yay to more room on my overcrowded shelves!

This week I got to see a play at the local theatre, “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem”. The play is based on a bestseller by the same name, and there has already been a TV series on the saga of the Ermoza family. While the actors were good, I thought that the play lacked depth, likely because the story needed more time to unfold.

The cast of The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

This morning I went on a walk before my usual swim. This sketch was made using a combination of Aquarius watercolours, Caran d’Ache neocolor II crayons, a Tombow brush pen and a 0.5 fineliner, all on a Pith Kabosu sketchbook.

We’ve been having some stunning sunsets lately. Have a great and peaceful week!

Paris London 2025 Trip Part 1

I recently returned from a pretty long trip to Paris and London with my family. I ended up sketching a lot more than I normally do during trips, largely thanks to things that I learned during the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Poznan (more on that in a later post). Here is part 1 of some highlights from my trip.

Quick sketch in a Stillman & Birn pocket beta while I was waiting for my flight

Centre Pompidou, my favourite museum in the world, was closing down until 2030 (!) so I went to pay it a last visit. Already parts of the colourful outside facade have been repainted white, and I’ve never seen the area around the museum so deserted.

The library was the only area still accessible, and it had been turned into a giant project playground for German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans to work with. It was something that only Pompidou could do, and it was breathtaking, thought provoking, fun, interesting, and unique. I wish I could have spent hours there, but at this point in my trip I became badly ill and for the entire Paris leg of the trip I was struggling.

I ended up largely not eating in Paris, but this was my first meal there – in the fantastic Patisserie Viennoise in the Latin Quarter.

Stillman and Birn pocket alpha watercolour sketch

We also went to a new museum, the Bourse de Commerce and I saw this great artwork on the way there:

The museum was in between putting up exhibitions, so while a large part of it was closed we managed to view some great and moving art pieces with relatively few crowds and at a discounted price. I did a VERY quick sketch while I was there:

This is the artwork that I was sketching.

And this little fellow is also part of the art exhibits there:

We then took the Eurostar to London. This is where I switched sketchbooks – this sketch of a boy and his father having lunch at a table across from me at Wagamama is the last sketch I created in my Stillman and Birn pocket beta. The beta has decent watercolour paper but it’s not half as good as the paper in my Etchr labs watercolour sketchbook, and the glued in pages make it a struggle to create full page spread sketches, as you can see here:

Last trip sketch in the Stillman and Birn pocket beta.

I created my first sketch in an Etchr lab cold pressed watercolour notebook while in the Greenwich Park herb garden and the paper is astonishingly good. Here’s the ink sketch (my tree sketches have gotten so much better thanks to a workshop I took in Poznan):

And here is the watercolour:

The paper not only makes the colours pop, it actually allowed me ample time and space to work with the washes, adding layers of well blended colours that gave depth and life to the scene. Never have I ever seen the importance of good quality watercolour paper demonstrated so well. I have about half a dozen sketches of this garden throughout the years and this is by far the best one.

That’s it for part 1, I’ll try and upload part 2 later this week.

Edit: part 2 can be found here.

Weekly Update: New Journal and 10 Years of Writing at Large

It’s been a while, mostly because life has been hectic, not because I don’t have things to write about. Here’s to trying to get more posts in, even if they aren’t perfect or particularly long.

I’ve just finished another journal (the yellow one on the left in the photo below) and have set up my new one. Both are Stalogy 365 B6 notebooks, and both have a similar initial setup:

1.I flip the notebooks upside down so that the header with the dates is on the bottom and out of the way, as I don’t use it.

2. I use the front endpaper to write an “in case of loss” message (my name, email, phone number and a request for the finder to do the right thing).

New journal on the right, old journal on the left.

3. I use the back endpaper as a sort of “dashboard”. One side gets stickers on it, the other gets a post it with some journaling and review prompts.

My new journal’s cover was damaged in transit, so I covered the worst of the damage with washi tape. It adds some character to the black cover, and if it gets too grimy or peels off I can always replace it.

My old journal lasted me for 5 months, which is about what these notebooks last for. My Moleskine journals lasted for 3-4 months because they had fewer paged and I used them for scrapbooking as well.

In other news “Writing at Large” is 10 years old. I never thought that I’d be publishing it for so long, but I’m glad that I started it way back in July of 2015, and I hope to keep it going for many years more. I’ve been through a lot over the past decade, and this site reflects a tiny part of that. If I can recommend something it’s to invest your time in your own site and your own work instead of on social media. If you persist, it pays dividends.

Reading

Finished The Day of the Jackal by Fredrick Forsyth and found it fascinating. I’m planning on reviewing it here.

Started on We Solve Murders by Richard Osman and I’m working on some Ulysses posts.

Health and Fitness

It’s getting hard to run outside, harder than it ever was, in this heat and humidity. Global warming is making treadmill runs more attractive. I’ve started using the NRC app‘s guided treadmill runs and they are pretty good and making treadmill running more bearable.

Have a great week and be kind to each other.

June’s Currently Inked Fountain Pens

A new month means a new set of inked pens. From my previous rotation I still have the Lamy 2000 inked with Diamine Silver Fox, the TWSBI ECO Saffron inked with R&K Helianthus (and just about to run dry) and the Manufactus Cappuccino Brown filled with a Diamine Bilberry cartridge, also just about to run dry.

This time I chose the ink hues and inks before I matched them with pens (I usually do it the other way around). I wanted a blue-black, an orange, a pink, a teal and a bright green. The only ink that was completely unknown to me was the green – Diamine Ultra Green in a cartridge. It was also the only ink that I’m unhappy with, and one that I had issues with, but more on that later.

This is the lineup:

Writing sample with all of the inks and pens. The notes were written using a Platinum Preppy 02 with black ink. The paper is a Rhodia dot pad.

Parker 51 Aerometric Teal with a Lustraloy cap and generous fine-medium nib filled with Diamine Denim – vintage Parker 51s are my absolute favourite fountain pens, both for their look and feel and for the way they make my handwriting look. I haven’t used this specific one in years, and I like the pen body colour but I specifically chose to fill it with the blue-black and not the teal, to mix things up a bit. Diamine Denim is one of my favourite go to blue-black inks, and I love it because it’s well behaved, dark and offers some shading.

Kaweco AC Sport Carbon fine nib Diamine Ultra Green cartridge – I wanted to try Diamine Ultra Green as I thought that it would fit the bill as the bright green that I wanted, but it didn’t. Two things happened – I flipped the pen upside down for a few minutes to get the cartridge going and I left it that way for too long, which meant that I got a mess. You can see it in the first writing sample and you can see it in the green ink splotch on the left of the page above. That would have been OK if the ink colour was to my taste, but it isn’t. Diamine Ultra Green is a viridian green, which is an unnatural shade of green that isn’t what I was looking for. In retrospect it looks like Diamine Kelly Green (which I don’t have) is closer to what I was looking for. The Kaweco AC Sport is nice but overpriced and I wouldn’t recommend it over an other Kaweco Sport. I got mine at a steep discount when an art supply store was closing down and looking to liquidate its stock.

Sailor 1911 Pro Gear Slim Maroon music nib filled with Sailor Jentle Apricot – kids these days will turn up their nose on this pen body colour, but at the time it was the only Sailor that you could get that wasn’t black. I was into fountain pen nibs and didn’t really care what the pen body looked like, so long as I got to try the fabled Sailor music nib – a rare music nib that had only one slit and two tines instead of the usual two slits and three tines that other brand’s music nibs had. It still is a gorgeous nib that works very well with the long discontinued Sailor Jentle Apricot. You really see the shading with this pen and ink combination.

The magical Sailor music nib (yes, the ink flow is fantastic even with one slit):

Franklin-Christoph Model 66 Antique Glass medium nib filled with Diamine Yuletide – this pen is now unavailable through Franklin-Christoph and only through second-hand resellers. It was one of my first Franklin-Christoph pens and one that I couldn’t wait to eyedropper (it’s built for that). The pen has a body that isn’t completely clear – beyond the slight fogging in the material (which is to be expected) the antique glass finish means that it has a blue-green tint, like a vintage coke bottle. It works exceptionally well with teal and turquoise inks, which is why I have only ever filled it up with teal and turquoise inks. In this case the ink of choice was Diamine Yuletide from the 2021 Diamine Inkvent calendar. I like this ink, but I’m still on the fence about buying a full bottle of it as I have a few other inks in a similar tone, some of them even Diamine inks. If you’re wondering how I eyedroppered this pen, it came with an o-ring and I have a tiny vial of silicone grease which I applied generously to the threads when filling it. So far no leaks, though as always with an eyedroppered pen, be careful with how you store it.

Sailor Pro Gear Slim Manyo Cherry Blossom Medium-Fine nib filled with Pilot Iroshizuku Kosumosu – I was planning on using an orange OR a pink ink, but eventually decided to use both. The Sailor Manyo Cherry Blossom is my nicest looking Sailor pen, one that I bought a few years ago at Choosing Keeping in London mostly because it had an MF nib and I wanted to try one of those. Sailor has been dazzling the fountain pen community with a plethora of mix and match pen body colours, but I remember the brand as an innovator and artisan in fountain pen nibs (which is why I rarely buy Sailors these days and most of my Sailor pens are black). The nib is, of course, perfect, and the ink works well with it. Kosumosu is practically bubblegum coloured, very bright, very cheerful and surprisingly readable.

Which fountain pen and ink in this rotation caught your eye? What are you using this month?

Big Celebratory Birthday Update Part 4

The final post of this series, you can find part one here, part two here, and part three here. Grab a cup of tea or coffee and settle in – this one is long but there’s a lot going on here that’s worth your time.

32. I have been tracking my memory recall issues (a chemotherapy side effect) using the Tally app, which I’m hesitant to recommend. On the one hand it does work as a quick tracking app for a handful of things, but on the other hand it has a scammy pricing model – a fair price for the first year (and free if you just track up to three things, like I do), but then the subscription jumps to about $5 a month. That may be justified for apps that have a lot of features and utility, but Tally is not one of those apps. Day One, a magnificent journaling app for those who prefer to digitally journal, does much more and costs much less.

33. If you haven’t heard of KT tape and you’re a runner or athlete of any kind (or just injury prone) I highly recommend it (and no, I’m not getting paid for this). It’s a roll of pre-cut elastic fabric tape strips that you use in various configurations and levels of tension to relieve the pain and take some of the load off of injured muscles, tendons or joints. It eases recovery and it’s worth having a roll of it in your house and travelling with a few strips when you go abroad. There are YouTube videos that show you how to apply the tape- just search for the area or injury you want to address and “KT tape” and you’ll find official videos and ones made by physical therapists that will guide you. I recommend going for the Pro or Pro Extreme – they cost a bit more but last longer as their adhesive is stronger so you can keep them on for a few days. The tape leaves no residue and is easy to apply by yourself, although there are areas where another pair of hands does help. If you don’t want to buy the tape online, you can find it at your friendly local running store or in certain sporting goods stores.

34. If you are planning on travelling abroad with older relatives or people with a mobility disability, here are some tips that may help:

Ask for special assistance when you book the flights (there’s an option there). It helps with the long distances and long lines in the airport. Arrive early and wait patiently for the assistance – it’s worth it.
Book hotels and not Airbnbs. You want a place, preferably a well established chain, that you can rely on in terms of catering for your accessibility needs. I can’t tell you how many times we arrived at an Airbnb only to discover that the promised elevator has been broken for weeks, or the place has stairs to the elevator, stairs in the apartment and a bath instead of the promised shower. You want a hotel and not a boutique one because they’ll have an elevator bank, accessible rooms, and someone you can talk to if you run into issues. Chains are good because if there’s an issue with your room there’s a possibility of being catered in another hotel in the network. Contact the hotel ahead of time in writing and reconfirm your needs – elevator, shower with no lip or step, mini-fridge for medication, etc.
Use taxis (or rideshares) and buses, not the metro/underground/subway. There’s less walking involved, there’s less stairs involved, and it’s worth the additional time and money.
Check the parks you plan to visit – some have motorized tours for disabled patrons.
Talk to the staff at museums and exhibitions, preferably ahead of time. There may be an accessible route in that Dior special exhibition that isn’t advertised (there is), or they may tell you that it’s better to arrive at a certain entrance.
Theatres oftentimes have special accommodation and pricing for disabled people and their companions. If it’s not on their official site, email or call them and they will likely be able to help.
Don’t pack your days full, but rather plan or returning to the hotel for an afternoon nap before the evening’s activities.
Plan ahead as much as possible. You are less flexible in your needs so this is not the time to be spontaneous.
I can’t stress this enough: spend time, effort and money when selecting travel insurance. Don’t go for the cheapest option because it’s likely to leave you hanging when you need it. Pay a premium for insurance that pays back upfront and doesn’t have you chasing after it if possible. Take the time to read the small print and talk to them if possible.

35. I have gotten several questions about rucking, so here’s a good article describing what it is and the benefits and risks involved. I will add that you need a good pair of shoes with decent ankle support, you need moisture wicking socks to help avoid blisters (I just use my running socks), and you don’t need to buy a GoRuck bag. In fact I don’t recommend them – they’re heavy, overpriced and don’t provide the back support you want. Instead buy a good hiking day pack (I use the Osprey Manta 24) for about half the price and twice the support. My Osprey Manta comes with a hydration system (2.5 litres, which is a good chunk of the weight in my bag), wide padded straps, load lifters, a great hip belt and sternum strap, plus a mesh that is fantastic for the hot climates I ruck in. Also weigh your bag with useful things – water, food, first aid, extra layers, flashlights, sunscreen, etc. – and not with useless weight plates. Put the heaviest things on top, as close as possible to your shoulder blades and upper back. I use a waterproof Rumpl travel blanket at the bottom of my bag, and 80% of my weight is water. The rest is books, which I don’t mind using as weights as I’m rucking in a city park really close to home. If I was hiking in the great outdoors, I wouldn’t carry anything that wasn’t useful if I somehow got stuck on the way.

36. Do you have to generate QR codes and are tired of the spammy, ad filled sites that provide the service when you Google for it? As Cory Doctorow puts it:

“Just a QR Code” is a new site that generates QR codes, operating entirely in your browser, without transmitting any data to a server or trying to cram ads into your eyeballs. The fact that it runs entirely in-browser means you can save this webpage and work with an offline copy to generate QR codes forever – even if the site goes down:

https://justaqrcode.com/

37. My journal is at that delicious phase where it’s passed the 3/4 full mark but hasn’t reached the “only a handful of pages left” mark. I recommend making it a goal to reach that phase in every notebook you use – it’s the best.

38. These little fans are a lifesaver. I’ve used them on trips, on buses with fault ACs, when I’m outdoors waiting in the sweltering heat, etc. Again, not an affiliate link and this isn’t a paid anything – it’s purely a recommendation of a product that I’ve been using and enjoying for a few years.

39. Journaling Tip #4: Did you have weird, overblown reaction to something or someone recently? Take the time to journal about the experience. Write down what happened (facts only), what was your reaction/feeling (be honest), why it’s surprising under the circumstances and finally why do you think that you reacted the way that you did? Does it reveal something about how you view yourself, your insecurities or fears?

40. Lightening Book Review #7: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, by Raymond Carver. This is a collection of 17 short stories set in rural American in the 70’s first published in 1981 and it hasn’t aged well. The protagonists drink a LOT, they are violent, sexist, despairing and desperate. It’s like watching a series of car crashes – you become numb to the experience after the third or fourth. Carver can write, and there are a few gems here, but it’s all so very miserable and depressing – like hosting an alcoholic for a week. Their stories may be intriguing, but they’re also all so very terrible and tragic that there’s only so much of it that you can take.

41. I opened a new Moleskine notebook – after not having opened a new one in over a year. This is the one will be used for some writing projects, and it’s one of my favourite limited editions, the Blue Note Hub Tones edition. I’ll maybe post a review of it later, but for now, this is a reminder to use the good china.

42. Journaling Tip #5: look at someone close to you, someone you admire for having a skill or approach to life that you don’t have, and write down what you can do over the next few days, week, month to be more like what you like them. That’s what got me to go to more plays, concerts, shows and exhibitions now instead of just waiting until I’m on holiday abroad.

43. Great advice from Adam Savage’s latest Tested livestream – Q-Tip: Quit Taking It Personally. More often than not other people’s behaviour and choices has nothing do with you and everything to do with them.

That’s it – 43 points for 43 years. Have a great week!

Big Celebratory Birthday Update Part 2

A smorgasbord of stuff for your delectation. You can read part 1 here.

13. Big bold announcement: next month is Bloomsday, and after much hemming and hawing i’ve decided to reread James Joyce’s Ulysses and blog about it as I go along.
I’ve read Ulysses three or four times between 2009-2013 but I haven’t touched it since. While I still have some of my notes on this book, my goal isn’t to reconstruct them or to lecture on the topic, but to enjoy a very good book, and see how my memory of it fairs post-chemotherapy (which has affected my memory).
Why should you join along? Because Ulysses is a phenomenally good book that is enjoyable to re-read (but very challenging to read for the first time). It’s funny and touching, profound and full of adventure. It’s just built on very well crafted layers of language, meaning and context, and it’s paradoxically a book that is meant to be re-read, not read. Hopefully I will make it a bit easier and less scary to read for the first time for those brave enough to join me.

14. I have been switching my podcast listening queue around lately, which means that I got to listen to this wonderful two part episode of Alie Ward’s “Ologies”: Salugenology (Why humans require hobbies). Guest Julia Hotz talks about the things that we need to be happy as humans, and the conversation is fun to listen to and enlightening. I highly recommend it, and the “Ologies” podcast in general.

15. I’ve stopped buying eBooks from Amazon after they stopped allowing customers to download the books that they purchased (so you basically don’t own the book that you paid for if you buy in from Amazon now). I still use my Kindle Paperwhite, but I’m buying books from Kobo. I buy them DRM free where possible, and if not I use Calibre to strip them of DRM and then this site to transfer them to my Kindle (if they are DRM free you just use the sendtokindle site to upload them to your Kindle). It took me 30 minutes to get the setup working the first time, and it now adds 1-2 minutes tops to every book purchase, which is plus for me. It means that I don’t mindlessly purchase books that I don’t intend to read, and I actually think through each book purchase. I also noticed that the books I’m interested in are priced slightly cheaper on Kobo, which is a nice little bonus.

16. Using yellow ink (Rohrer and Klingner Helianthus) has been a challenge but also an education. Helianthus is readable enough to be used for my daily todo list, but thanks to this ink I’ve been learning to enjoy using a fountain pen for highlighting purposes. It’s more subtle and better behaved than traditional highlighters, and the colour pops on the page without resorting to neon shades.

17.I am thinking about the next inks to put into rotation, which is a bit unusual for me as I normally start with the pens that I want to fill, and then go find inks that go well with them. I want a blue-black for practical reasons, a cheerful green, a pink or orange, and a turquoise or teal. How do you select which pens and inks you use?

18. A bit of behind the scenes: I draft these posts longhand in a Dingbats notebook and a fountain pen. I think better on paper and it’s a way to use the pens and inks that I have. There are no AI/LLM agents/bots involved in this blog, and that’s the way it will remain. I enjoy writing, I created this blog as a hobby because I enjoy writing, and while I use AI agents as part of my job, I have no intention of letting them take away any part of the creation of this site.

19. Journaling tip #1: If you’ve been feeling down lately, take the time at the end of each day to review your day and score it. It doesn’t matter what scoring system you choose, but I recommend that you keep it simple and not too granular: -1, 0, +1 or 1, 2, 3, or “great”, “OK”, “meh”, “terrible”. You just want a quick way to know if the day was a good day, an average day, or a bad day.
At the end of every day for a week or two think back on what happened throughout the entire day, give it a score, and explain the score in no more than a sentence or two. So for me today was: “OK – was super tired at the start, but I managed to get two naps in and recovered enough to get most of what I planned done”.
At the end of the week, when you do your weekly review and plan ahead what you want to stop doing, start doing and keep doing, use these scores as an input for your decisions.
Repeat this whenever you feel the need to recalibrate.

20. Journaling tip #2: if you’ve stopped journaling and want to restart, don’t attempt to backlog the days that you missed. Forgive yourself the journaling “debt” and start fresh. This is easier to do if you switch something up in your journaling routine – use a new pen, pencil or ink, a new notebook, or write in a new location.

21. A dear friend and colleague has moved to a new job in a different company. While I’m happy for him and I wish him the best of luck, I already miss working alongside him. This brings me to the following journaling tip:

22. Journaling tip #3: Take a journal, either your usual one or a new one for a special journaling “events” and write down a list of names of people that have inspired or taught you something that you are grateful for, and write down what it is they taught you. Start with those that affected you by their positive actions (kindness, encouragement, setting good examples), and then challenge yourself to journal about those that taught you by being negative presences in your life. Did an office bully teach you to be kind? Did the talentless brown-nose teach you about how much you value your integrity?
You can write about both people you personally know and those in the public sphere, and you can return and edit or add on to this list whenever you want. It’s a good reference in troubled times to remind you of who you are, what you stand for, and where you want to be.

Manufactus notebook that I plan on using for journaling tip #3

Big Celebratory Birthday Update Part 1

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted a weekly update, and it’s my birthday week, so to celebrate I decided to write 43 points (split up to several posts to make them more manageable), in no practical order:

After a bit of drama I have managed to enrol to the 2025 Urban Sketchers’ Symposium in Poznan, Poland. I will be posting about my sketchbook and art supplies packing list later on, but do let me know in the comments if you’ll be there.
Rising tariffs and shipping costs have made online pen, ink and paper purchases prohibitively expensive for me. This may not be a bad thing, as it should encourage me to use the large stash of “stuff” that I already have.
I have been gifting people nice notebooks and pens lately, and it’s been a surprisingly heartwarming success. Giving people a notebook that matches their style and needs, coupled with a pen that suites them and an encouragement to start journaling about their lives has been one of the joys of my life in recent months.
Moleskine came out with a cool Peanuts collection of notebooks and Blackwing pencils (plus a backpack and set of pins). It’s refreshing to see them use the XL cahiers for a limited edition, as I don’t think they’ve done that since the Art collection about a decade ago.
Lightening Book Review #1 (I have a huge pile of books to review and not enough time to write a dedicated post for all of them): When the Moon Hits Your Eye, John Scalzi. Scalzi is normally very good at humorous sci-fi, but this book is not one of his successes. It’s an overtly silly, very lightweight book that is not on par with the other books he groups in this loosely thematic trilogy, The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain. It really suffers from the constant jumping around amongst a giant cast – the plot loses momentum, and you find it hard to connect to any set of characters. While it was not great hardship reading it and it’s a decent light read, feel free to skip this one and wait for the next instalment of his “Old Man’s War” series.
It’s OK to splurge and buy yourself flowers every once in a while, if you enjoy flowers.
I’ve started rucking, which is basically walking at a brisk pace outside with weight on your back. I use an Osprey hiking daypack weighed down mostly with water, but also with a giant cookbook, my journal and kindle, which brings it to around 10kg of weight. I take a break about 15 minutes into my session to sit outside and journal or meditate. If you’re curious, start with a bag that has a waist belt and not too much weight for too long, and skip the $400 overhyped specialized bags and weight plates.
Go see a play (not a musical or comedy) at your local theatre. It’s a great way to open yourself to new ideas and perspectives – especially those that you don’t agree with.
Lightening Book Review #2: Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus. I really wanted to like this book, but the combination of graphic, repetitive and unrelenting “period piece” misogyny and sexual assault coupled with a frankly unbelievable, non-relatable and largely unlikable heroine made it impossible. Couple this with an even less believable daughter and dog (though the dog is cute), lots of didactic and condescending lecturing that is so blatantly not period true and can at times be needlessly offensive (was the vegetarian bashing necessary?) and this was a book that I didn’t really enjoy. The cooking show, dog and rowing bits were nice, though.
Marvel’s Thunderbolts*/New Avengerts is a delightful, touching, thrilling and generally great movie. It’s well worth the cinema visit, and I plan to rewatch it once it lands on Disney+.
Please don’t do things just so that you can post about them on social media. That’s no way to live your life. It’s the equivalent of voluntarily turning yourself into one of the Matrix human batteries – for AI training models’ and advertisers' use.
Here’s a recent sketch that I did:

Have a great week and see you in part 2.

April-May’s Currently Inked Fountain Pens

In the middle of April I inked up a bunch of new fountain pens, and at the end of the month I added two new fountain pens to this rotation. At the rate I’m writing with them I assume that this pen rotation will be with me until around the end of May, when I’ll be putting more “summery” inks into use.

This is a rather eclectic group of pens and inks, but I was mostly looking for inks that I haven’t used for a long time or I haven’t used at all. Here they all are (I was in a rush when I created the writing samples so they’re messy, but life isn’t Instagram, so messy it is):

Mabie Todd Swan “The Swan Pen” 2 nib with Waterman South Sea Blue – a vintage gold plated lever filler pen, this is one of two vintage gold plated pens that I bought in Paris in Mora Stylos years ago. I don’t usually like the bling of gold plated pens, but I was drawn by the fantastic, very wet, flexible swan gold nib, and by the engraving on the pen body.

Normally engravings lower the value of a vintage fountain pen, but this one added value for me – I find it endlessly intriguing. This was clearly a Christmas gift, in 1929, and it was likely a lady’s pen, given its size and general level of decoration. I can stare at this pen and spin dozens of stories from that engraving, and this is one of the main reasons I prefer vintage pens. This one is “use grade” – the engraving, the dings on the body, the brassing on the clip, and the multitude of microscratches on it make it so – but I don’t care. It’s a treasure of a pen with a fantastic nib that I got at a very good price and gives me much joy. What else does one need?

I chose a Waterman ink for it because they’re the best inks for vintage fountain pens – very gentle, very easy to clean out of a pen, non-staining, and on the dry side (though not as dry as Pelikan 4001 inks) which works well with this very generous nib.

Swan 2 nib with heart shaped breather hole

Leonardo Mother of Pearl fine elastic nib with Kyoto TAG Kyo No Oto 03 Kokeiro ink – I wanted a Leonardo pen in rotation (I love them) and I wanted to try this new ink, and compare it to the Rohrer and Klingner Alt-Goldrün ink that I still had going at the time from March’s rotation. The inks are practically identical, with Alt-Goldrün being perhaps a shade lighter than the 03.

Leonardo Momento Mother of Pearl fountain pen

The Leondardo’s elastic or “flex” nib has cutouts in the nib shoulders to provide it a bit of give. It’s a nice nib that offers some line variation, but is nowhere near what you can get in vintage flex or super-flex nibs (particularly Swan and Waterman).

Closeup of the elastic nib with the cutouts in nib shoulders

Lamy 2000 fine nib with Diamine 150 anniversary Silver Fox ink – this is one of two Lamy 2000s that I have, and I really like this pens as workhorses. Silver Fox was part of the original collection of 150 anniversary inks that Diamine issued and it’s a nice mid grey that is very readable.

Franklin Christoph Model 46 Polar Ice extra fine nib with Bungunox June Bride Something Blue – I filled this pen about a week after the others since I wanted a teal ink that wasn’t in as wet a nib as the Swan. I got this ink as a gift from the Pen Addict Membership back in 2016.

Franklin Christoph Model 45L Turqish Crush extra fine nib with Diamine 150 anniversary Blue Velvet – another original 150 anniversary ink (Diamine later issued a second and perhaps also a third line of inks in this series, I don’t remember). This one is a nice royal blue, and another ink that I had used in years.

From left to right: Lamy 2000, Franklin Christoph Model 46 Polar Ice, Franklin Christoph Model 45L Turqish Crush

Oldwin Art Deco red and black striped ebonite, 18k medium nib with Diamine Writer’s Blood – as I’m writing this I have written this pen dry, mostly because it has a very wet and hungry nib and a standard sized converter. I bought this Oldwin from Mr Mora at Mora Stylos in Paris, and it’s a huge and surprisingly light pen.

The nib is also a very large nib (size 8 and not size 6), and the pen is surprisingly not smelly for an ebonite pen. The feel of the material is fantastic – ebonite is such a warm material – and I like it enough to consider refilling it instead of cleaning it out. Diamine Writer’s Blood has been in rotation recently, but it’s a new ink to me and I’m still trying to figure it out. Having it in this pen made me appreciate it more, as it really showed off its unique colour properties and shading plus sheen.

Manufactus Cappuccino Brown medium nib with Diamine Bilberry cartridge – this was a gift that I received from a dear friend who was just back from Italy and bought this (and a wonderful leather bound personalized journal) in the Manufactus store in Rome. The photo doesn’t do justice to the richness of the resin on this pen.

The Manufactus has some heft to it, due to the metal body and trim, and while it states that it’s a medium nib, it runs closer to a fine nib in terms of line width. Diamine Bilberry is an interesting ink that I had in cartridge form, and I wanted a more unique ink than the standard black cartridge that came with this pen. Bilberry is saturated enough to pass as black at a cursory glance, but it’s a gorgeous rich purple with gold sheen that works well in this pen.

Apart from these pens I still have about a quarter fill of ink in my TWSBI ECO T Saffron fine nib with Rohrer and Klingner Helianthus going from March’s ink rotation.

Which of these pens interest you the most?

Writing at Large

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