I have an app for BBC news on my tablet and I was working my way through the daily dose of drama, incompetence and misery when I came upon an article about spying. Since computers have been so thoroughly taken over, both by Google and the authorities, many diplomats and senior civil servants have taken to using typewriters. Unfortunately they are no safer, it seems. Whole reports can be restored from a typewriter ribbon, and with concealed listening devices crafty spies can tell which part of a typewriter ball is striking the paper and thereby transcribe what is being written. In some cases customs inspectors have attached bugs to typewriters when they were imported. 
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Goodwriterspens's Blog 
Talking about the BBC I watched ??? reporting from Kabul recently having a telephone interview with the Taliban and noting down their responses with a large black pen. It looked like a Duofold centenial but had a white splodge on top of the cap and a straight lever. The nib looked like a Bock product with lots of cuts across the feed.
I wonder what pen it was.
Hi Peter,
With the white splodge on top it was either a Montblanc or a counterfeit pretending to be one.
Having seen the video now it’s a white top rather than a white splodge on top. Of course I have no idea what pen it is. You’d think John Simpson would have more sense than to write with a modern pen.
Except it looked a quality pen, was a lever fill and looked nothing like a meisterstuck, much squarer like the Duofolds with a similar clip.
Unfortunately there was never a decent shot of the pen – distant, looking down it at the paper and a profile of the nib. Like you I am pretty ignorant of modern pens. Is there a modern Conway that is lever fill which could fit the bill?
I have a feeling that the reporter was John Simpson
Have to start a targeted marketing campaign Deb!
As for the comment above, it doesn’t surprise me that John Simpson might be using a pretty decent pen. It would just seem right.
The video of Simpson with his pen can be seen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25769191
According to a post by the manufacturer on the FPN, he uses an Onoto Sir Winston Churchill Pinstripe.
Thank you Jonathan. It wasn’t the Winston Churchill as it is black, but could be the Magna
The problem is Deb that the vast majority have forgotten how to write with a pen/biro/ball point or pencil. The use of the hand and arm to make logical words flow from a pen is an ancient art that few remember.
Coherent sentences are also increasingly difficult to construct, if U C wat I mean lol. On another site I find it very difficult to decipher what one of the contributor’s is saying, never mind about what he means. Even I am increasingly dependant upon wordcheck for my spelling. I wish we had kept old English, that was almost entirely regular in its sounds.
Oh dear, I think I have entered the grumpy old man stage.
I believe you have, Peter, but that’s okay, we’re all grumpy here. I could show you comments made within an online game I play. They would make you despair. The worst are from a sixty-year-old woman.