Re: National Pencil Day (30 March)

 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)