An ode owed

Another day, another missive from Doctor Doorknob of Chichester. He didn't say whether he wrote this poem himself or found it elsewhere on the internet, but anyway here it is:

There was an old man, a bookbinder
Who went out with a friend on a blinder.
She invited him in
For a night of pure sin,
But I'm glad to record he declined 'er.

Thanks, Doc. Thanks too to LM and M for their great blog-comments: keep 'em rolling girls.

Sneak preview and competition update

As well as selling the fabulous marbled paper produced by 'Marbled Arts' of Florence, Libre Livre makes a small range of handmade cards.

The card shown here is from our new Seahorse range, which will be featured on our website in coming weeks, but is available now in packs of 4 for £10.

We have already received a number of entries for our Punctuation Competition, some right, some wrong and one or two downright wacky. There's still time to enter - the draw is not until 31 October. Entries can be submitted by email, snail mail or blog-comment.

Strange places, familiar faces

London may be a big city, but although I don't venture up as often as I used to, it is surprising how often I bump into people I know. A day or two ago I spotted our correspondent, Ed C of Cambridge, and the HM partaking of a drop of "marbler's delight" in a wine-bar not far from Covent Garden. Naturally, I joined them, and before long the conversation had turned to...punctuation.

Ed, dab hand at letter writing as he is, is an efficient and enthusiastic exponent of the art. The HM and I do our best, but we do not always see comma-to-comma. I believe that the goal of punctuation is to improve 'readability'; which, incidentally, is not at all the same thing as legibility. The HM sometimes seems to think that the goal is to pack in as many commas as possible.

Years ago I came across a little brain-teaser on this subject which I am delighted to pass on: punctuate the following words to create a meaningful sentence: Tom where John had had had had had had had had had had had the examiner's approval. Any reader who can manage it, let me know and you will be entered into a prize draw (to be held on the date of our year end, 31 October).

If anybody can beat the above example for a sentence with the same word repeated consecutively (ie I am looking for runs of 12 or more) let me know, and a small reward might be winging its way.

That's it. Full stop.

Eastern European monasteries

For those reader interested in Moldavian and Rumanian monasteries, here are some more pictures: Monasteries

Moldovian Illustrated Document

I recently attended a fascinating talk by Dr Georgi Parlupov about the first (ever) illustrated book produced in Moldovia. Given the long history of insular illuminated works, it is notable that the book was produced is 1429; and equally remarkable that it is is now held by the Bodleian library in Oxford. Moldovia, one of the more obscure Eastern European countries, covered roughly territory now occupied by north east Rumania and present day Moldova, and had a complex linguistic history encompassing both latin and slavic tongues.

The gospel book was glossed, probably around the end of the 18th century, in Greek, and has a large colophon at the end of each gospel, from which the name of the scribe and the monastery at which he worked can be derived. Each gosepl starts with an illumination, tipped in, but painted on parchment of the same superb quality as the rest of the book. The frames of these illuminations may have been marked out by the same tool as used for marking the lines on the pages, as they appear almost embossed.

Sadly the book was re-bound in the nineteenth century, probably quite shortly after its arrival in Oxford.

click here to see some pictures of Moldovan monastries

Marbles

Although Libre Livre is primarily focused on book arts, we simply could not resist adding the fabulous traditional marbles create by Marbled Arts of Florence to our range. Visit our website to find out more about these and our other products.

The shame of it

At Libre Livre we try to develop the potential of all the team, and this weekend it was the Head Marbler's turn. A Conference on 19th Century psychology and aesthetics seemed just the thing. It grieves me to relate that when, after the first talk, the chairman asked for any questions the HM's hand went straight up: "what time's coffee?" she asked.

How crass you can you get: it's always 11 - 11.30, isn;t it?

A word in your ear

Dr D Doorknob, of Chichester, has suggested a few 'amusing' anagrams for "marble":

Ambler
Ramble

and my own favourite:

Mr Able,

Thanks, Doc

L is for....

Some folks have recently suggested to us that the Libre Livre logo looks rather like a 'Learner' sign, and added that maybe we should consider changing it. No way.

At Libre Livre we believe that we can always learn. We think our products are pretty good, and our customers tell us they think so too, but we continually strive to improve them.

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.