Writing Implements.

It seems that the flexible fingers of my right hand have disowned most writing implements in favour of a fountain pen. I love being enswathed in the protective blanket of the satisfying scratch of the nib. I marvel at the way the fountain pen enables me to slant my glyphs toward the right. This phenomenon has yet to be acheived with a ballpoint. The fountain pen seems, however to put my very ink in awe of me. The characters I pen seem to be executing a graceful bow.

The one drawback to the faithful fountain pen, is the re-loading of the ink cartridge and cleaning of the nib. The ink can, at this time, lose it's awe of me and leap playfully out of the cartridge to shower my clothes and fingers with blue stains. Although I grumble, completely outraged at the errant liquid's impudence, I really don't mind being coated in the substance of my trade. Those things are only to be expected and taken in your stride when you're a writer.

The writing implements that I hate having to grace my grip with include the 'push-click' variety, the propeller pencil and the revolting, filthy, ill-mannered creature of all writing implements - the biro. Like most inventions that incorporate flimsy plastic, it breaks easily, showing a network of conspicuous cracks that meander around it's clear casing. Inside, the slender, black cylinder stores the ink like blood in a vein. The ridiculous nib is topped by the black, bulbous steeple of a plastic cap. The biro just has to be the physical embdoiment of a disorganised writer's brain. Oh disgusting!

What is worse is that many of these disorganised writers absent-mindedly place the wrong end into their mouths. There are few sights more pathetic than a biro with great chunks of hewn out of the end by chewing teeth, the ink vein protruding from the bitten off end and flattened by a curious molar.

For a writer, your pen is the tool of your trade, don't forget that. Of course there are laptops, memory sticks and pocket books, but these cannot be carried and operated all of the time. Pen and paper most record whatever your mind has to say before it can be ultimately typed. For the simple reason that the pen is so important to the writer, it is surely a sensible convention for the pen to be treated with respect.