SimonWaldman.net

Have you ever thought about buying a fountain pen, but then gone: “It’s nice – but just a bit too long”?

No, nor have I.

Which makes me wonder what they nice chaps at Ohto were on when they thought up the Tasche Fountain pen . Yes, it’s one of the world’s most compact pens….but why?

I have to say such logic left me when I stumbled on a mention of it it over at DIY Planner.

A quick search led me to the utterly wonderful CultPens site (How did I not know about that??); and within 18 hours, my lovely little pen arrived in the post thanks to some freakishly efficient behaviour from Royal Mail.

I was so delighted by this, I had a quick tweet to that effect, only to be tweeted back by one of the CultPens team.

So, how is it, you ask? As you can see from the pic, it’s super short, but goes to full length for writing because of a cap that’s the same size as the pic. Most of all, it has that ‘nice object’ feel about it – and when compact sits neatly alongside a moleskine notebook.

It also writes like a dream. I still have a bit of a thing for fountain pens, even though I’m a leftie and so smudge ink everywhere if I’m not careful. This is comfy enough for every day note taking.
The handy thing about the size is you can fit it into your jeans pocket, although it’s actually so small you need to be careful. I accidentally chucked mine out with some tissues and had to spend 10 minutes rummaging around in a pub bin to get it back.

This points to my other problem. Based on empirical evidence, I will lose this pen within a week. Which is a shame – but better to have loved and lost…

In the meantime, can I recommend you head over to CultPens…these are the corner shops of cyberspace, and we need to keep them in business!!!

..but I could just about run to the £7.99 for Yael Naim’s eponymous album [iTunes] that features the soundtrack to the ad. And it’s really rather lovely, makes a change from Adele, Duffy etc. Thoroughly recommended.

For the last few months I feel I have reached gadget nirvana for the first time in my adult life. As someone whose gadget grave yard from the last decade is frankly an embarrassment in these landfill-aware times, I find myself in the rare state of not wanting for anything, thanks to my three step programme.

1. Ditch the phone, love the Curve

Three months I did something I’ve never done before – I replaced two gadgets with one. A rare act of consolidation as I got rid of my phone and blackberry in exchange for a Blackberry Curve.

This has worked for me – big time. OK, so the Curve, or possibly the sever it works from, has a tendency to randomly eat messages, but all in all putting everything onto one device has been a major strike for sanity.

Obviously, when I lose it, I lose everything. But we’ll deal with that when it happens.

2. Get your Google apps all working nicely

Google has really helped here – in particular with Google mail and Google reader that work just fine on the Curve. That means all my incoming information now lives on one device. Yippeee.

All that was lovely enough – but then Google delivered Google Sync which Syncs your Blackberry calendar with Google Calendar. This works (pretty much) perfectly, which means my assistant can edit my calendar using Lotus Notes, which syncs with my Blackberry, which now syncs with Google Calendar – which means I don’t have to use Notes to look at my calendar. This sounds phenomenally complex, but it’s actually made things much, much easier for me.

Something has gone badly wrong with Google Maps for me, though. It sends the whole device into a bluetooth tailspin. No matter, the curve’s own mapping system is actually pretty good – although I could really do with a voice driven sat nav for when I’m on my bike. But maybe that’s just being fussy.

3. Bring on the iTouch

Given our corporate set up, an iPhone was never going to be for me. But, while it’s possible to do audio and video on the Curve, it’s not really what it does best. So thank you for my Xmas present – the Touch, which is working a treat as an entertainment centre for my commuting.

Thanks to the work of sublime (but legally questionable) genius that is Handbrake, I can watch my box sets of blokish cop shows on the train home. (and there’s now quite a lot of people on the way back to Surrey each night doing exactly that…)

Now, there’s a fair bit that’s not quite right about the iTouch. You find yourself having to go back to the main menu a few too many times for the user experience to be truly elegant, and the touch-screen slider for the volume is a pain for those of us who don’t have piano player’s fingers.

In addition the battery just drains all too often.

The web browsing is great – but I never actually need it. But, for podcasts, music and video – it is frankly unbeatable.

How long can this state of nirvana last, I wonder? I’m already a bit pissed off that there’s now a 32GB Touch…but such is life.

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