Path: ...!feeds.phibee-telecom.net!2.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Aidan Kehoe Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: Re: National Pencil Day (30 March) Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2024 17:09:28 +0100 Lines: 25 Message-ID: <87bk6qqvgn.fsf@parhasard.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net XVuGCqZ3gl6kc0BfCH5qpgN984zdSusdoY6ZTnUe5/InvixSfY Cancel-Lock: sha1:QZqHiORxNut9fSo37PtX3e8AqjQ= sha1:G10gRoIbYYc6IrjfuK7+o0rxjd4= sha256:NxsiFEsUa84kx0smIkGS+1zQzF9mHDHOyQZzaEr/aYY= User-Agent: Gnus/5.101 (Gnus v5.10.10) XEmacs/21.5-b35 (Linux-aarch64) Bytes: 2080 Ar an triú lá de mí Aibreán, scríobh Athel Cornish-Bowden: > On 2024-04-02 20:23:53 +0000, Ross Clark said: > > > [...] (1) I like pencils. I rejoice when I find one, among the heaps of > > dead and dying ballpoint pens, > > I'm the reverse. We have masses of pencils that I never want to use, but if > I want a ballpoint that works I can't find one. From time to time I buy a > set of four at the supermarket and within a short time they all go wherever > ballpoints go. I have a fountain pen that I used during the early days of > Covid, but I haven't used it for a long time -- getting too old, 81 today. I enthusiastically recommend gel pens. Less force needed to write than with the usual ballpoint, less messy than fountain pens. I tend to buy 100 Pentel Energel pens and three times that many refills at a time, but then they’re a legitimate business expense, you may not need to be that ridiculous. And when they die, it’s a short lived affair, so the motivation to swap out the refill immediately is fairly immediate and strong. -- ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out / How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’ (C. Moore)