Pen66

"How many pens do you possess?" It seemed like a slightly quirky but innocent enough question ironically delivered amongst friends around a restaurant table in The Hague a couple of weeks ago. Once we'd scratched around and actually unearthed one between us to help calculate the bill, the original question elicited a whole range of responses from, 'Only ever one at a time' to, 'None - I believe in the collective and universal ownership of all writing materials'. From,'I have at least one special one from every decade I've lived in' to, 'I'm probably in the top one percentile globally' and, 'I couldn't possibly count - the things seem to stick to me like flies'. This last response was mine and led me up a fascinating little cul de sac. This one.

Back home I got out the large shoebox where I have carelessly deposited the sort of pens that I seem to inherit routinely from conferences and corporate workshops, trade shows and training courses, hotel rooms and car hire firms, airport lounges and sponsors' tents. I was amazed not so much by their quantity (660 by a rough count for my more competitive readers) as by their essential similarity despite their apparent diversity from jet black to irridescent party sparkly mauve, from slimline executive silver to orange gel-bloated clown, from click-top Bic to slide and twirl Pentium, from Wal-Mart check-out to Louis Vuitton gift case. I began to wonder just how big the complimentary pen market must be world-wide. Are there any major corporations who have not branded and distributed the humble ball-point pen at some phase in their marketing cycle? Are there conventions for pen designers and if so what on earth do they use as freebie giveaways?

What to do with this accidental and faintly ignominious collection? Thank you for keeping some of your more outrageous suggestions to yourselves. As it happens, an old friend is organising a school trip from the UK to Malawi later this year. Suffice to say their party will be carrying with them bundles of ball-points sufficient for them to be classed as commercial importers although actually intended for distribution amongst rural schoolchildren and households.

Many of 'my' pens will be used long and laboriously for school assignments, marking attendance registers, completing fee records, writing appeal letters. Others will find their way into bakeries, garages, furniture workshops and bottle stores as indispensable tools tucked behind ears or tossed into cash registers. Some will be used meticulously to record anti-retroviral drug taking regimes, some audaciously to bet on football scores. Some may save lives, others witness their disintegration; all will inevitably expire themselves.

If only those pens could write.