Latest Update: Added a link to a history of yellow legal pads, and a link to Notebooksim. We may be doing a bit more on notebooks soon – we’ve got a few more to play with here.

There’s lots of different types of paper out there. At the moment, though, our Moleskine obsession is colouring our judgement badly. We’ll try to get through it, but until we do, it’s mostly about the black books…

Moleskine Notebooks

They’re just little black notebooks, so why are they so popular? Why have they reached the hallowed status of Interweb Meme? Well, there’s a few things to love…

• Quality: Despite some reports of falling quality, they’re still much better than your average notebooks.
• Looks: There’s nothing flashy about a Moleskine, but there’s a certain classy simplicity to the styling. And everything goes with black.
• Elastic Closure: We all need closure on things. Notebooks are no exception. If you drop it, it stays neatly together. Even if you drop it down the stairs. If you’ve shoved some loose bits of paper in there, they’ll stay in place.
• Bookmark: There are those who disagree, and just become irritated by them, and there’s even those who cut them off (ouch!), but the bookmark can be very handy for letting you get to the first blank page, or jump back to where you were adding notes.
• Back Pocket: They have an expandable pocket in the back. You won’t be able to keep a couple of novels in there, but it’s a safe place to keep tickets, a couple of sheets of money, and maybe even your cards so you can leave the wallet behind.

Articles

• Moleskine Notebooks: A bit more about these little black books.
• Moleskine Hacks: tricks to pimp your Moleskine.
• New Moleskine Performance Anxiety: Some sad, sad people actually feel bad about starting a new Moleskine, in case they mess it up. Yes, me.
• PigPogPDA: A way of hacking a Moleskine into a complete system. Could be done with any notebook, but the Moleskine Pocket Reporter works really well for this.

Other Notebooks

• Asda Notebooks: Trying to find cheaper alternatives, we picked up a whole bunch of notebooks from a local supermarket. Most weren’t great, but there were some real suede covered notebooks for very little money.
• Yellow Legal Pads – very popular in the US, but I’ve never seen one over here in the UK. Legal Affairs has a history of the legal pad which is an interesting read, if a bit inconclusive (found via Notebookism.)

Comparisons

• Filofax Sizes and Styles: A bit of an introduction to the types of Filofaxes you can get. I’ve spent hours obsessing over these things, so I might as well write about it and try to pretend it was work.
• Moleskine Notebooks v Filofax – Cost Comparison: Which works out cheaper in the long run? Moleskines are cheaper, but you have to buy a new one each time you fill one up. A Filofax (or Day Runner, or similar binder) will set you back more to buy, but the paper can be cheap.

Paper

• The Paper Test: Our group test of various types of paper, with various different mediums. See which performed best with which tools.

Related

• You might also like Pens, or Mechanical Pencils. We do.

Elsewhere

• If ring binder style organisers are your thing, you’ll love D*I*Y Planner – they make PDF files you can download, and print out exactly the forms you want – cheaper than buying them pre-printed, and you get what you need.
• Ninth Wave Designs are actually an online shop who sell Moleskines, but they also have a blog where they share their love of the little books, and it makes a great read.
• Moleskinerie is the place for the latest news about Moleskines. New products, sightings in the ‘wild’, and featured artists.
• If it’s not just Moleskines that fascinate you, their sister site Notebookism should have you covered.

I’ve just realised something disturbing… my “carry just about everywhere, cannot be without” kit contains four fountain pens.

And when Michael did a “look at me pretending to be Slash on the cover of Kerrang!” gag last week, I must confess that part of me was drooling over the pen (the pen was in lieu of the omnipresent cigarette)… eek!

I think I might have a squink problem. I wonder if the fountain pen network has a thread called “Inkaholics Anonymous”?

Ah well, better to embrace it than deny it. I’m off for a drool round the museum, then I think I’ll give my Parker Arrow a polish.

This museum exhibit belongs to my dad, and belonged to his dad before him – a Soho Cadet 120 film camera dating back to the 1930s – back in the days when switching on meant extending the bellows.

He’ll take you through its story himself – over to Tim…

This Soho Cadet camera was owned by my father and in use until the 1950s. I believe that he bought it, new, in the early 1930s.

It has the original two-part sliding lid box.

There is a snug-fitting canvas and leather case. The case is not believed to be a standard part of the product since the camera does not fit in the box when in the case. The case is, however, assumed to be contemporaneous with the camera.

The camera takes 8 pictures on 120 size roll film, giving contact prints of 3 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches (9 x 6 cm).

The case of the camera is made of Bakelite in a dark red colour with metal fittings; some chrome plated and some painted.

The case is opened by pressing a release button adjacent to the film winding key and pulling gently on the unfolded front leg.

The bellows is extended to the operating position by pulling on the looped metal tag just below the lens.

The bellows has to be extended until a chrome lever, to the right of the lens, engages with a slot marked with a distance in feet. Altering the extension of the bellows is the method of adjusting the focus. I am sure that I remember the bellows being replaced, probably during the 1950s. A similar model, seen on the Internet, appeared to have a bellows which was dark red.

It is at this point that my investigation of the camera on the Internet, reached an impasse. All Soho Cadet cameras found so far have a very simple control system. Those cameras appear to have a simple shutter with T and I settings (Time and Instantaneous?).

This particular camera has three speeds from 25th to 100th second plus T and B on the Vaio shutter. The aperture is also adjustable from f6.3 to f32. The shutter assembly is labelled ‘Original Gauthier’ and the lens as a ‘Kershaw Astigmat’. A screw fitting allows a cable release to be fitted.

The viewfinder is the reflection type, familiar to all who have ever used a box camera. The viewfinder rotates through 90 degrees to allow both portrait and landscape formats to be used. The photographer must contain the subject within the correct portion of the cross shaped viewing window.

The film compartment is opened by sliding a spring-loaded metal plate.

Many years ago, my father dropped the camera whist visiting the Swallow Falls (near Betws-y-Coed, Wales). The camera bounced off rocks and into the water. Despite this, it was successfully dried out and used for many years afterwards. The accident resulted in minor damage to the Bakelite where the camera body meets the lid of the film compartment.

When the catch is released, the whole rear half of the case can be removed to fit or remove a film.

This camera appears to be a development from the basic Soho Cadet, using a Gauthier shutter, mated to a Kershaw (in-house) lens.

If anyone can shed and further light on this version of the Soho Cadet, I would love to hear from you.

So, if you know any more about my grandad’s camera, do let us know in the comments below…

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This is way off topic, but under the circumstances, I don’t care.

On behalf of us all at GuitarPr0n, I would like to send wishes of a comfortable and speedy recovery to Richard Hammond.

Richard was rescued from the accident by Air Ambulance. Visit the Yorkshire Air Ambulance page on Justgiving to leave a donation for the charity and a get well message for The Hamster.

Thank you. I now return you to the scheduled programming.

The first Squee of the Day award goes to our very own LadyM for this jewel of a squee:

I just wanna tuck him into a handbasket and take him home with me.

Ian at Cathedral Pens has sent me a rather spendid thing – a reprint of the original brochure from Sheaffer for the PFM (Pen For Men) and Snorkel pens.

It’s from 1959, and unfortunately doesn’t feature my Saratoga, but it makes fascinating reading. Definitely a marketing style they’d have a bit more trouble with now…

“Introducing the pen designed exclusively for men!”

“…the complete pen for today’s active man.”

They even named the product the PFM – Pen For Men.

Apparantly, the range my Saratoga is in is the one that “…fill the entire family’s writing needs”. I feel so much less masculine now I know. My pen may be a little on the girly side. No “man-sized grip” for me.

If you’re a fan of the old Sheaffers, and you’re in the UK, you can get your own from Cathedral Pens – there are also reasonably good-sized pictures of the first two pages there. The only problem is deciding which way round to put it on the wall – maybe buying two would be a good plan

Got to do something with all these pens. Here’s an excellent site on learning italic handwriting. It’s mainly based around the idea of teaching it to children, but still makes a useful resource for those like me whose handwriting was never good, and has become worse with years of using computers…

• Gunnlaugur SE Briem’s site: see How to teach italic, and within each section, the navigation is at the top left.

Found in a discussion on FPN.

Some handy information on Pelikan pens on FPN. I’d gathered that Pelikans generally got smaller as the numbers got smaller, but I hadn’t realised that the rule only holds within the Souveran range. The Tradition range is different again. The M200 is part of the Tradition range, and is the same size as the M400, in the Souveran range. The difference is in the plastic used, and the M200 has a steel nib.

Looks like the M200 is a decent value pen. Nicer looking than the Go!, but still not too expensive, assuming you’re looking for a nice fountain pen rather than a cheap one. The Anthracite Transparent finish is rather nice – see pics at Andy’s Pens.

• Sanrio Guitars and Accessories

Including the Hello Kitty Strat, and HK picks and straps. Cute meets R4wk.