Globalisation

Every picture tells a story.

This one shows what happened in the hour or so before midnight (GMT) after PC World and Laughing Squid shared a story about Type-O-Matic.

I'm not sure to whom I'm indebted for the traffic but if you are reading, thank you. And thanks again to everyone who's finding space in their side bar for a Type-O-Matic badge. I now have customers on both seaboards of the USA, Romania, the south of France and somewhere in Brazil.

First to benefit is Typewriter Movie - now I'm a backer!

PS: Will update if or when Type-O-Matic turnover hits three digits.

Keycomb + guestblog

Anyone nervous about taking the cover off a Remington Rand Model 1? I was, until I lifted the top plate (the four bushes crumbled to dust at this point) and unscrewed the congealed tarry feet and the four screws at the back holding the pressed steel to the aluminium backbone. The cover slips off very easily so you can get a better look at things. 

A previous owner had used a liberal dose of oil to free the keys in their comb* from the 'fudge' but that's as far as it goes. The action is otherwise pretty clean. Now I have a Chinese puzzle: how on Earth do I get the comb out if the keys go through it, without removing keytops? Maybe it is two pieces. I'll loosen a few likely-looking screws, wiggle it, see what happens and let you know.

I think the guest blog idea got a reasonably warm reception - and it has been done before. How to make it work? I have a couple of people's e-mail address so I'll start there. I don't imagine there's any obligation to post, or to reciprocate. Should be fun to: 

1. think of what to say 
2. potentially reach a new readership.

 *Thanks Martin for the disambiguation!

Orwell's long shadow

A neighbour of mine was helping out at The Orwell Prize awards evening in London on Tuesday this week (17 May 2011). Here's an author who was not featured in the LIFE gallery a month or so ago: George Orwell (Eric Blair) at work on an unspecified typewriter. He's reported to have owned a Remington Portable...any ideas?

His work lives on through The Prize, and in his still-popular political novels, for example The Road to Wigan Pier. His books were certainly part of my political education. Although he died in 1950, you can subscribe to his 70 year-old blog (which he wrote longhand) of world events during WW2. And as you do, take note of how his reporting resonates to this day.

He's buried just upstream in All Saint's churchyard in the village of Sutton Courtenay.

© Unknown. Possibly The Manchester Guardian

[we]'b-log

Is there any virtue in rigorously blogging daily? The word 'journal' implies daily, but web-log? The measurement from a trailing ship's log would have been measured at least twice daily - the original rolling news? No log - no way of knowing how fast you are travelling. Unimportant in itself, but essential to know your whereabouts. Yikes, 2 minutes to go...

Many boats have something like this screwed to the bottom - even carbon-fibre racing shells. This one would have been thrown over the side several times a day.