Soichiro Honda famously said that if perfection were attainable, it wouldn’t be worth having

Clearly, this is absolute cobblers. He ‘d probably been drinking.

So this got me thinking, not least because I had one of these in my hand at the time, are some things just perfect? Or as close as you’re ever likely to get? We’re always moaning about stuff being a bit crap but rarely mention the good stuff.

So I’m nominating these…. Rotring drawing pens…

It’s not the big things in life, it’s the little stuff that you use all the time. The stuff you don’t even think about, but it needs to be right.

Rotring drawing pens are just perfect! I won’t draw or write with anything else. They come in packs of 3 different weights that cover pretty much everything, they last for ages, they are an absolute joy to use giving the perfect constant line weight, and they cost two quid each. The only way I think they could be improved is if there were some way to stop light-fingered gits casually walking off with them

Your nominations for ‘stuff wot is just perfect’ please people…..

Ping Anser putter – Sketched on the sleeve of a 78RPM record in 1966 and manufactured in a garage.

It’s been copied a thousand times but it is just perfect.

Pah, proper rotrings look like this:

y’know – all jammed ink, fiddly needles, mess on your hands etc.

It just works ..

Of course they’re good. they’re German!

I nominate Chapman Bags. They’re entirely made in Cumbria; they have history; they’re guaranteed for, like, ever; and they do exactly what they are meant to do, and look good while they’re doing it.

It just works ..

Except for when it doesn’t and you have to go see the annoying f***ers at the ‘genius’ bar

If food is allowed, then:

It just works ..

hahahahahahaha, oooooo, hahahahahahahaha

Those sos rolls look anemic and flaccid. Perfection is surely in the eye of the beholder. When i were a lad it was home-baking that stole the show, not these fatty-fast-franchise things. Good baking took time and tradition, not cost-cutting and additives. It didn’t always happen at home. Good home- baking may not have come from one’s own home but someone else’s.

So I nominate:

My mother’s scones
My other mother’s ham hock and pea soup

And the Batavus Personal Bike. It really does just work and keeps working no matter how much abuse.

And the

And this bike, on this trail, on a still September day:

Perfection is what most people settle for.

@Yak – yes that’s the Rotring experience I remember.

I remember the old Rotring experience very well too. The new ones are all the good bits without all that nonsense 😀

I was more of a Staedtler man myself – but the mere thought of them brings the ‘tap, tap, tappity tap’ of trying to get a 0.18 to flow back as a strong memory 🙂

le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWhkbDMISl8[/video]

but the mere thought of them brings the ‘tap, tap, tappity tap’ of trying to get a 0.18 to flow back as a strong memory

Very much this.

Which, in turn , evokes the even stronger memory of getting so frustrated with the bloody pens that we would abandon our efforts at architectural draughtsmanship and instead make huge paper aeroplanes from the ready supply of A0 paper which was to hand in the drawing rooms on the top floor of the Glasgow College of Building and Printing (the tall building pictured on the right)

We would then launch them out of the windows in an often successful attempt to reach the internal courtyard of Ernst and Young on George Square. (pictured on the left)

Happy days.

Oi PP! You can’t go making statements like that without then providing instructions on how to make the perfect huge paper plane? 😀

Rotring drawing pens

failed at the first attempt. dreadful for left handers….

instructions on how to make the perfect huge paper plane?

It’s just like making a little one.

Except much more biggerer….and a bit more train crashier if you hit the front window of a train coming into Queen Street Station ( pictured top)

On the subject of making marks – was frustrated by my ruining brushes in transit. Last year (after some research) I found a range of synthetic-sable travel-brushes so decided to stump up a measly £12 and try one.

Since buying this I now have spring, bounce, superb loading and an always-fine point. There’s even a perfectly-drilled hole in the cap so it dries when closed. It also feels bomb-proof (ie you could probably stand on it). Olé!

On the subject of PP’s paper-planes, we found that the updraft from Montrose Street was the perfect aid to soaring said projectiles from the windows from the University of Strathclyde school of Engineering – heavy cartridge paper being the preferred medium of choice

Vintage brass Zippo. A personal favourite ‘Perfect thing’.
Still carry it, even though I quit smoking ages ago.

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El Capitan

current pair have just about broke in.

I was given one of these for my shed.
It’s a lovely thing to use for detailed fettling 🙂

The Hadrill Horstmann Pluslite.

My old 9ft Shakespeare #6 fly rod. That I shut in boot of my dad’s car.

Well I bought a pack of those pens today Binners. More like £4 each than £2 and I still can’t draw like Picasso.

I did manage to scribe a nice piece of architrave using the 3mm one though so there’s hope yet.

Going out tomorrow night to quote for a bedroom so let’s see if my sketch wins the business, like my Lamy ballpoint usually does.