Blog: Quest For Stationery

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The EXCITING IDEA for the next Validators album that I mentioned yesterday has moved on APACE, and we are now looking at DATES for a meeting with the other PARTY who would be involved. I would love to tell you about the heady whirlwind of SUPER EFFICIENT ADMIN on BOTH sides that has brought this about so quickly, but alas I must hold my tongue until it is properly sorted out so instead I will speak to you of STATIONERY.

Thus every year around about this time I go and get myself a new diary, and for the past decade or so I have been making my purchase in Paperchase. I use an A6 week-to-view diary, and Paperchase have always done really nice ones with bright flowery covers. I do like a bright flowery cover on my diaries, also on my NOTEBOOKS, because a bright flowery cover is much harder to lose. Years and years ago I used to buy plain ones with dark green or BLACK covers and I was forever losing them in the bottom of my bag/dark venues, or getting them confused with ones belonging to other people, but if your diary is BRIGHT PINK with PRETTY FLOWERS on it like what my current one is then it is hard to mislay.

Imagine my DISTRESS then when I went to Paperchase to find that they only had ONE (1) A6 week-to-view diary, and that it was a DULL BROWN colour. All right it did still have some flowers on it, but otherwise it was very plain. I wondered if it might just be the FIRST diary they were issuing, with more to come as we got closer to the end of year, but I checked online and that seemed to be IT!

I did actually find this quite upsetting, as I like being able to get the same diary (with a different cover design OBVS) every year, but it looked like I would have to venture further afield this time. So it was that I set off on my QUEST, first visiting WH Smiths and, as with every time I go into WH Smiths, finding myself wondering how on EARTH it is still running as a going concern. I used to LOVE going to WH Smiths as a child (you could look at all the BOOKS and COMICS!), but now it is HORRIBLE. I couldn't even FIND the diaries because they were hidden under massive signs saying "30% OFF OTHER THINGS", piles of vouchers, unwanted toblerones, and the general LITTER which seems to cover the floors of all WH Smiths. I can only guess it is overpriced crisps at train stations that keep them afloat, for the actual diaries they had were RUBBISH.

As I was in The Big Westfield near my house I had other stationery options, but as I went from shop to shop all I found were cardboard items covered in GLITTER and non-humorous "humorous" cards. I ended up, as I so often do, in JOHN LEWIS where I finally reached my goal, stumbling upon Paperblanks Diaries which made me want to SQUEAL and say "OMG!" because they are SO BRILLO. Small! Week to a day! On sustainably sourced paper! SHINY! I eventually chose a Flutterbies diary because it is FLOURESCENT and has BUTTERFLIES and FLOWERS on it - there is no way THIS diary is going to get mislaid by accident!

It also has all that stuff about currency rates, time zones, international holidays etc that diaries USED to have. I RUDDY LOVE it, basically, and cannot WAIT for New Year's Day so I can start using it EVERY DAY.

As I say, I also did a load of ROCK ARRANGING, but I'll tell you about that another time!

posted 25/10/2017 by MJ Hibbett

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