Cuneiform and pens

What is the connection between: Room 101, a pictogram of beer, Eadfrith of Lindisfarne and capillary motion?

Got it? They were all subjects discussed at a small conference organised this weekend by the Writing Equipment Society and held in Senate House (the original for Orwell's Ministry of Information in 1984 - and incidentally, intended by a certain Mr A Hitler for housing his secret police head-quarters once the invasion of England had been completed).

Dr Finkel, of the British Museum, lectured with gusto on the origins of cuneiform writing and what became of it. Apart from showing the derivation of some of the symbols from their origins as pictograms (for example, the pictogram of beer evolved to have an alternative meaning as 'its'), he outlined the grammar of the verb 'to fart' in cuneiform - used by at least one teacher to catch the attention of his class.

Professor Michelle Brown, whose energy is a fine match for Dr Finkel's, explained some of the intricacies of the Lindisfarne gospel, and why she is convinced that the book was produced by one man, the abbot Eadfrith, whose illness or death prevented its completion.

Two acts hard to follow, but Dr Geoff Roe managed it with a forensic explanation of the development of pens, fountain (whose flow relies on capillary motion) and biro during the 20th century. He finished with the cheering news that whilst sales of ball pens have in real terms struggled to hold their own in recent years, sales of fountain pens have been roughly constant over the same period.