“Low Tech Cool”

Continuing with yesterday’s theme, I thought I would publish a blog post I found a few years ago written by a young lawyer who decided to start using a fountain pen at work and documented his observations about it. I stumbled across it quite by chance yet found it funny and intriguing and saved it for some reason. I then re-discovered it just a few weeks ago when I was sifting through some old back-ups.

I’ve searched the net high and low for traces of this post and have sadly concluded that it’s disappeared without trace. I didn’t make a note of the blog name or URL at the time so only have the title of the post and the content.

 

Monday, August 08, 2005

low tech cool

A couple of months ago I made a decision which has led to me being really cool. I have always hated biros, having been taught in school to use fountain pens. But a couple of years ago, they changed the shape of the standard refill and I could no longer get refills for the lovely pen that my sister bought me some time ago. Finally, fed up by blotchy biros (and being unable to deal with general office paranoia about stationery which unavoidably leads to me being accused of pen theft several times a day - get over it, work pays for the pens!) I decided to reenter the fountain pen world. I bought a cheap but chic pen from Officeworks and went to work. I love writing with a real pen purely for my own reasons. What I didn't realise was how cool it would make me in the eyes of virtually everyone I have come into contact with since. Since I switched back to fountain pen, I have experienced the following:   - People I barely know asking to have a look at my pen while sitting in court waiting for a case to be heard - a client asked me the "history" of my pen (hmmm, I bought it at officeworks last week)   - same client rushing to his office so that he could show me his pen, which was over 50 years old and was a gift from his father different client inquiring after my pen when he came in to swear an affidavit   - office clerk asking me what pen I used to sign the mail as it looked really good   - same office clerk communicating to other clerks that I had witnessed service affidavits with my special pen   - group of clients at a mediation taking it in turns to try out my pen (seriously, hard-nosed commercial business people amused at making the ink come out Fountain pens are such a novelty these days that my simply owning and using one has made me something of a cult hero (well, almost). My pen could help me to pick up in pubs. It gives me street cred. And class. In a way that typing out an entry on this blog never has.