Weeknotes 2026 W32: Fountain pen need

Quick bits

• I visited the Soane museum, but lack the words to describe it. Perhaps it cannot be described, and must be experienced.

• Ever since I learned that water can kill you, I’ve been a little apprehensive about hydrating. I have been drinking a lot of water, because it’s been very hot. But am I drinking too much? Will I die from H₂O poisoning? [Sigh. No, you won’t. — Ed.]

• I need a haircut. It’s becoming an emergency. Got any good hairdresser recommendations in London?

• I’ve got my first failed revenue inspection, resulting in a penalty fare of about £17. I’m not sure what happened as I’m 100% certain I tapped in. I’ve disputed the fine with Transport for London; we’ll see what comes of it.

• When I say “I’m available until 10am”, then that is supposed to mean that I am not available from 10am onwards. So why have multiple people recently interpreted “I’m available until 10am” as “it is fine to schedule a meeting starting at exactly 10am”?

• I switched my phone from 5G to 4G. I haven’t noticed a difference in latency or bandwidth, but the signal strength seems to have improved slightly.

• Earlier, I couldn’t think of the word “plaster” and used the word combination “house flesh” instead. I disgust myself.

• New shoes ordered! The Nike Air Force 1 High is probably my all-time favourite shoe. I love the look, and they’re the most comfortable, too. I had been using my current pair for over three years, which explains why they were truly falling apart.

• My old German bank, ING, had started charging me €4.90 per month for my checking account. It is a lot for an account I barely use.

  I cannot close it, because it is the reference account for my savings account. I cannot close my savings account either, because it is the reference account for my stocks and shares account. And my bank does not permit just changing the reference account for my savings account to be a non-German bank account; I’ll have to place a phone call to convince them to do it.

• I set up my printer, and bought several avocados’ worth of toner, which should keep me going for a while.

Now some bits about the weather:

• I got my first sunburn in years. I failed in my attempts to evade the sun during last week’s long coffee with Florian. I have sunscreen at home, but didn’t think it would be necessary. My crab-red right arm disagrees.

• The AC unit in my bedroom is finally repaired, right at the end of the heat wave. But not to worry — there is a very high chance of more heatwaves in the next few weeks.

• It rained. For a mere two minutes. Followed by a teeny-weeny bit of petrichor.

  We need so much more rain.

Tech bits:

• GitHub’s Stacked pull requests are a pain to work with. I tested out this new feature for about a day, and got rather frustrated with them. I’ve abandoned them now; I believe stacked PRs are far too cumbersome for day-to-day usage.

Shower thoughts

• When you hear at a train station “Please speak to a member of staph” you must not listen!!! This is how the bacteria get to you!

• My bank, Monzo, has this challenge where you can save 1p on day one, then 2p on day two, then 3p on day three, etc. That will make you end up with a nice amount of savings after a year.

  But you know what would be better? Increase the contributions by doubling them: 1p on day one, then 2p on day two, then 4p on day three. After a year, you’d be rather wealthy!

I really needed this fountain pen

I bought a Kaweco Classic Sport fountain pen. It’s not expensive and for some unexplainable reason I felt the need for more fountain pens. It seemed most sensible to go with Kaweco as they’re an established brand, and I was already using the Kaweco refills (international standard short ink cartridges) for my other pens.

This new Kaweco Classic Sport has a fine (F) nib, as opposed to my previous fountain pen which had a medium (M) nib. I tend to write small, so an F fits me better.

My previous pen, from the Online brand, has been remarkably good for the price, and I’ve used it for many years. But I have been having trouble with its performance recently. One thing I particularly liked is its weight — it’s made out of metal. But from now on, I think I’ll stick to the Kaweco Classic Sport.

Now that I have my new Kaweco pen, I’ve taken this opportunity to improve my cursive handwriting. I always write in cursive on paper, but I’ve developed some bad habits which makes some letters indistinguishable from each other. It’s like mumbling, but with ink and paper. Correcting these habits will take time and effort, but it will be worth it. There is a tiny worry that I have: I might lose my unique flair of handwriting — though I think that is unlikely.

Entertainment

• I played Kathy Rain,¹¹1 Kathy Rain (Clifftop Games, 2016), published by Raw Fury.  to completion this time. It didn’t quite click with me, even though there is a lot of potential. A problem with many point-and-click adventure games, I find, is that the puzzles are sometimes obscure and unrealistic, and Kathy Rain unfortunately is no different.

  I am keen, however, to play its sequel, Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer,²²2 Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer (Clifftop Games, 2025), published by Raw Fury.  which is now on my wishlist.

• I am currently in my second playthrough of Lamplight City³³3 Lamplight City (Grundislav Games, 2018), published by Application Systems Heidelberg.  which I am enjoying a great deal. In contrast to Kathy Rain, the puzzles are grounded; they fit in well with the world. I’m about one third through, and looking forward to continuing.

• I have grown quite dangerous in Fallen London.⁴⁴4 Fallen London (Failbetter Games, 2009), published by Failbetter Games. 

• At long last, I have seen The Silence of the Lambs.⁵⁵5 The Silence of the Lambs, directed by Jonathan Demme, written by Thomas Harris and Ted Tally (Strong Heart/Demme Production, Orion Pictures, 1991).  It holds up well, remarkably so given that the film is thirty-five years old. (Also: J—— and I agreed that this film is totally an X-Files monster-of-the-week episode.)

Links

• There Are Files Stored in This Video (Benn Jordan)

• Letter-writing is not dead! Part 1: Tips and Inspiration (Rajiv Surendra for The Morgan Library & Museum): Delightful!

• Em dashes are fucking amazing (Sasha Putilin)

• Quake: Dawn of the Machine — Launch Trailer (Bethesda Softworks): I’m into it.

• How Spielberg changed My Indie Film (Mark Freiburger)