I have also started filling the book from the front too, where I had the idea of inserting the date at the top and writing a page about the events of the day, using a different pen and ink each time. A Slice of Green containers are made from high quality, food grade 201 stainless steel and have folded, smooth edges. I spoke to William Shakour who showed me his impressive Titan fountain pen, made by 3D printing (which I do not understand). Another of Millingtons’ achievements was that in 1905 they acquired the UK rights in “window envelopes” and were their only manufacturers.

The only issue which stood in the way of my total happiness, was that the titanium nib, when seated as deep as it would go into the section, still managed to touch the end of the cap in the final twists of the four-and-a-quarter turns to cap the pen (not for the impatient). I was reminded of happy times spent in the London Fountain Pen Club meets, but guessed that my latest pen and ink combination might not have been of much interest to these leather-clad gents (and a few ladies).I spent the day at a school reunion lunch in Reading, where I enjoyed catching up with several of my near contemporaries, some of whom I had not seen in 44 years.

The cap pulls off, needing a very determined effort, made more difficult by the hard-to-grip finish of the barrel and cap. The pen is light, at around 15g uncapped (including about half a tank of ink in my case), plus 7g for the cap or 22g in total. Whilst my needs are more than satisfied by what I have on the table right now, I expect to be there and will probably be tempted by something.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. I remember discovering the little chunky black A6 journals with a staggering 600 pages of squared, fountain pen friendly paper. I felt that this was a bit odd at first given that the rest of the body is clear, but actually I have grown to like it and it looks better in macro! It turned out to be a very pleasing one, a rich dark beetroot tone which strangely reminded me of my favourite wax crayon in the colouring box at primary school.

A central balloon labelled “WORK” leads out to balloons each representing a different matter that I worked on. In my last year’s new diary post, I ended with the following words: “Flicking through the blank pages of my next year’s diary it is hard to imagine what I might be doing in the months to come.There are three more buttons: the middle one alternates between the three colour temperature options, which, in simple terms, give you a lighting which is white, orange or blue (or which can be expressed as cool or warm tones). When compared with other pens, it is interesting to see that that the uncapped length is not so different from a Montblanc 146 or a Montegrappa Fortuna, and these are not usually accused of being short pens. It may be disappointing if you have a particular ink that you want to use in the notebook and then find that you cannot, or at least that you cannot use both sides of the page.