• Handwritten Chalkboard from Borough Market and memorial stone inscription from Southwark Cathedral
    Handwritten Chalkboard from Borough Market and memorial stone inscription from Southwark Cathedral

    My eye was taken by these two examples of lettering over the weekend, while wandering around Southwark Cathedral and the nearby Borough Market. The market lettering is designed to look quick and cheerful, to be rubbed out at the end of the day and replaced with tomorrow’s new bargains. Except that Borogh market isn’t like that. What’s there today is likely to be there tomorrow, not like it was in the old days, people bringing their wares to sell. The stalls are really shops made to look like market stalls.

    This sign is not likely to be written by anyone in the shop. It shows a well practised hand writing a lovely,, clear flowing script. It is drawn with a chalk pen, that dries waterproof and dust free. It is designed to last. I only found one person advertising this craft and they are in Australia. There must be a way of describing the service I’ve not thought of.

    The memorial stone was designed to last for ever. It is shallowly engraved and filled with paint. The longer the inscription survives the harder it is to read. Words and meanings change, but we are still able to appreciate the beautiful letter forms. I love the superscripts. Look at the difference between the 5th and the 25th. The latter is in capitals and has been flowed together as a logotype. Why should, “ye” have the e as a superscript?

    Half way down you will see a different style capital “A”. Some of the ‘s’ have swashes and flourishes. It looks like it is painted with a brush. Chiselled letters would look different, but there is definitely chiselling under the paint work. I like it.

  • When I first went on Skype, I used to marvel that there were half a million or so people online at anyone time. Then I kind of stopped using it because everyone else that I convinced should try it out, didn’t use it either. Most of them didn’t have a microphone, when it came down to it. Some didn’t have speakers!

    I knew a tipping pint had been reached, when my 83 year old father in law emailed me to check he’d installed Skype properly. He had and we had a chat.

    I then went and set my wife’s machine up with Skype and plugged in my son’s old toy Lego camera for a webcam. She thought I was being stupid. Why would she want video conferencing?

    I then called up my father in law and they had a chat. She was amazed and told her old friend Sue who is already on Skype. Yesterday they were chatting away quite happily, having forgotten that that she ever pooh-poohed the idea. I now have Skype on so I can call her up from my studio at the bottom of the garden. Yes, we use Skype as an intercom!

    I now see that 14 million people are online. That’s a lot! With built in webcams and microphones, more and more people have the necessary to begin Skyping. In fact I can now Skype from my iPhone. I never thought Apple would allow that. Maybe my wife and father in law’s acceptance of the concept and the well-developed ease of the software have come together and we have reached the tipping point for Skype. How fast will those numbers rise in the coming year? Should I have shares in Skype?

  • A noise woke me in the night. I thought it was one of our cats, who frequently scratches the airing cupboard door, in the hope that someone will let him in. Fuzzy-headed, I crept out of bed too sort him out. But he was not there. In fact the house was totally silent. Had I imagined it?

    I waited – maybe it was an intruder? Maybe they were waiting for me to make the first move?

    My head began to clear. In the gloom I saw that my son’s bedroom door was closed. Quietly, I opened it and the said cat danced out on the landing as if to say, ‘You took your time!”

    Did I get back to sleep? Not immediately, but that fuzzy dozing state is quite a good time to review creative ideas. I’m planning my new series, called Axel Storm, at the moment. I’m trying to find the way in. A series really needs to tell you the back story, make you familiar with the set up and get going with the story in as short a time as possible. So getting that comfortable, simple introductory sequence is very important. Once that is right the rest follows.

    Well, and I don’t know where the idea came from as I nodded off to sleep again, the image of my hero stuffed inside a huge advertising sausage on top of a hot dog van came to mind. This morning it seems like a really good idea and I’m going to run with it.

    Lying awake at night meant that I woke up an hour later, but hey, when you’ve been working through the night, it’s okay. And anyway, the only reason I ever started this job was so that I could get up when ever I liked in the morning. I wonder whatever happened to all those lovely, lazy lie-ins?