Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Perforated stationery hell
It has recently come to my attention that it is virtually no longer possible to go into WHSmith or Woolworths or Rymans or even Paperchase anymore and buy a nice notebook which does not have perforated pages.
It may seem a small and trivial gripe, but anyone who's ever wanted a notebook to be a notebook, as opposed to a notebook crossed with a pad of A4 rip-put paper, must sympathise with the level of my affront.
Message to stationery buyers: we do not want too-clever-by-half notebooks with pages which tear off by themselves when you turn them. We just want normal notebooks!
I spent about two hours last weekend searching for a nice unperforated notebook in all the shops on Finchley Road and South End Green, with increasing disbelief at the impossibility of the task. Of course, I eventually found what I was looking for: a beautiful selection of A4 hard and softcovered books with ruled pages and NO PERFORATED HOLES. Which shop was this beacon of wonder? The art shop, of course. The sweet little art shop on Finchley Road, with its shelves stacked with classic, well bound, European-made stationery. It is quite simply the last outpost of traditional stationery in Hampstead.
It may seem a small and trivial gripe, but anyone who's ever wanted a notebook to be a notebook, as opposed to a notebook crossed with a pad of A4 rip-put paper, must sympathise with the level of my affront.
Message to stationery buyers: we do not want too-clever-by-half notebooks with pages which tear off by themselves when you turn them. We just want normal notebooks!
I spent about two hours last weekend searching for a nice unperforated notebook in all the shops on Finchley Road and South End Green, with increasing disbelief at the impossibility of the task. Of course, I eventually found what I was looking for: a beautiful selection of A4 hard and softcovered books with ruled pages and NO PERFORATED HOLES. Which shop was this beacon of wonder? The art shop, of course. The sweet little art shop on Finchley Road, with its shelves stacked with classic, well bound, European-made stationery. It is quite simply the last outpost of traditional stationery in Hampstead.
# posted by Olivia @ 7:33 pm 
