I know of only a handful of pen companies offering pens with oblique nibs now, including Montblanc and Lamy.

I am not a biker, to say the least, but if I was, then a Triumph Thruxton that I spotted in the car park stood out from the crowd. Cult Pens sell Platinum converters separately in either silver or gold coloured finish but with a notice that whilst they will fit inside a Preppy or Plaisir, ink will only be drawn into the feed and not the converter and so you may need to fill the converter separately, outside the pen.They advise that the pen be kept with nib pointing up if travelling by car or aeroplane but “If you bear this little advice in mind your Aurora will be your faithful writing companion throughout your life,” a very appealing sentiment. If presented when making a purchase, you would be given an offer with your receipt, for a discount on your next purchase, subject to various conditions. When plugged into a power source, but not switched on, a blue light glows to show that it is in stand-by mode. This was no hardship and I anticipate that most fountain pen enthusiasts can find several combinations that work well from their own selections.

In the Aurora, with its large ink window, a reserve seems a bit unnecessary as you are unlikely to get caught out with no ink when you have an ink window. Whilst browsing, and after circling the racks of roller-balls and fine-liners to check out the fountain pens (mostly Lamy, Parker and Sheaffer), I ventured on to the shelves of journals. As the nib is Rhodium plated, it is hard to tell where the gold nib ends and the Iridium tipping material begins, but I hope that the nib will hold up well and last me a good long time. The insulation can be further improved by wrapping your lunchbox in a tea towel or cloth before placing in the bag. In other news, I am very much enjoying my latest gadget, namely the Puluz 23cm mini-lightbox that I reviewed in my last post.For example, unlike a one year diary, you can insert dates for a future year, or even two or three years ahead, such as car insurance renewal dates, MOT expiry dates, or maturity dates for ISAs or fixed term saving accounts. After proving that I had bought the fountain pen already, they agreed that the ball pen was mine too! A central balloon labelled “WORK” leads out to balloons each representing a different matter that I worked on. You might want to bring a bottle of ink, a notebook, a little bottle of water to clean pens that are dipped, and some paper towels.

Another more practical option for the amateur, is to try a portable “light box” with LED lights, powered by a USB cable.There are plenty of information pages at the beginning, with yearly calendars and monthly planning pages, world time zones, national holidays and dialing codes. A Slice of Green is designed and distributed by Green Pioneer Ltd who are based in the middle of beautiful countryside in Wiltshire, UK. And yet I have a dozen or so of them in all different colours, with a Vista, some AL-Stars and even a Lamy Lx. It has a steel, bicolour nib, a grip section which is of a sensible girth, no irritating facets, and no uncomfortable cap threads or step to spoil the comfort. I have noticed that with some other papers, some ink colours loose their vibrancy, as though the paper has sucked all the joy out of them.

Thin sheets of brass, in various thicknesses, used to floss the tines of a nib to clean out accumulated paper fibres and dried ink. I realise that it is not just the ink that determines whether it will bleed through papers, but how wet it is applied, which depends upon the individual pen. The choice is phenomenal and easily overwhelming, particularly if you are more used to a quick browse at the pen shelf in Rymans or WH Smiths! Unfortunately it suffers from pin-cushion distortion in the centre area, which makes you want to smooth-down a bulge in the paper which is not really there. I soon found there to be a special ink for the show, namely a bottle of Beefeater Red from KWZ Ink of Poland.There was my Lamy 2000 fountain pen for example, which will forever remind me of a day trip to Brighton in May 2014. for a bag of 50), through literally dozens of notebooks, pads of writing paper and file paper, to a few memorable pen purchases. The instructions advise letting go of three drops of ink at the end of filling, turning the pen upright and then turning the piston back to the home position to draw up any surplus ink. I am sorry, but stainless steel is a good conductor of heat, this means the heat from your curry is likely to find its way to the surface of the metal box and conducted to the next closet surface such as your bag or surface it is placed on. A short glide down on the escalator and you enter a world of Montegrappas, Graf, Caran d’Ache and other exotica.