The Underwood 5 that never was...

Now as anyone who knows me will tell you, I'm not the kind of fella who takes his obsessions lightly. In fact I have an intense and almost primitive distrust of anyone who doesn't harbour at least one teeny weeny obsession.

It doesn't matter how quaint or warped it is. It may be right out there in the open for all to see, or hidden safely away in the dark, damp recesses of a fragile personality. But it's there and whoever it belongs to I'll love them for it.

One of my heaviest obsessions is around 80 years old, black and about 30lbs in weight. It is mechanically breathtaking and beautiful in its iconic design. It is the Underwood number 5 manual typewriter and even the thought of caressing its glass-top keys is enough to make my pulse move into fifth gear and my fingertips salivate.

I can see it now. Sitting like a queen on her throne smack dab in the middle of my leathertop pedestal desk. Commanding me to approach with anything that even remotely resembles a blank sheet of paper and a thought that deserves to see the light of day.

But I blink...and she disappears from view. My Underwood 5 is, unfortunately, still an unrealised possession. A blank space. An unfulfilled dream. A missed opportunity.

It's one thing to obsess about something you own and treasure and display proudly. It's a whole new twisted breed of damned obsession that forces you to do so POST-possession! It may even be a sickness. A medical condition worthy of an article in The Lancet.

The other day, I was almost able to reach out and touch my holy grail. Almost.

I could see it in front of me. There on eBay in all its glory and photographed in various poses. It was a semi-colon away from being pornographic.

"Bid for me" it whispered, and my finger did its bidding before my brain had even excited enough synapses to prod the keys of my accursed laptop.

I bid and I bid all the way up from 99p right up to £35 (plus £15.99 p&p), each time told that my bid was the highest bid so far.

I was 20 seconds away from possessing the noble creature. TWENTY SECONDS, I swear, when she was cruelly and for ever wrenched away from my waiting arms, by the devil called technology and a damned failed internet connection!

By the time I had reconnected to the 'wicked world web', the auction had ended and MY Underwood 5 was on its way to sit on someone else's desk. Someone else whose internet connection hadn't failed. Someone else whose ONE POUND higher bid had won the day!!

So now here I am, the victim of cruel fate and heartless circumstance. Underwoodless.

But my obsession is built of strong stuff. It does not weaken easily, fear rejection or run from unfeeling misfortune.

My Underwood 5 that never was has sisters out there, somewhere. And some of them have owners who will one day put aside their own Underwood love affairs and seek divorce in the high court of eBay.

And I shall be waiting......

Gravity has a lot to answer for

There is a cruel yet sweet irony in the knowledge that what prompted me to give birth to the TypeNighter blog is my enduring love of manual, low-tech, analogue typewriters. Yet here I am talking about them via my cute, hi-tech Mac laptop.

Of course I love what my Mac does for me. But I also hate what it's done TO me. It's made me lazy and shoved all the addictive power of the world wide damned web so far up my cerebral rectum that it's hard to write anything worth a damn.

Do I love automatic spellcheckers and grammatical slaps on the wrist. Absolutely. Do I revel in the freedom to throw my stream of consciousness down on the gently glowing screen in front of me, to mess with at my leasure? Hell yes! I'd be lying through my diminishing set of upper teeth if I said otherwise.

But...and this is a mountainous BUT...what it has given me has been stupifyingly overshadowed by what it has taken away, namely, the ability to switch my brain on before putting my fingers in gear.

So I'm doing something I should have done years ago. I'm going back to the joys of pounding away on the keys of a manual typewriter. Just as soon as I can fix myself up with something that has a soul at the beginning of every sentence and a 'ding' at the end.

I say "going back" because I am rediscovering rather than merely discovering the delights of going "unplugged".

My first foray into the world of "real" writing machines came about over 30 years ago, when a magnificent Royal 10 spoke to me from the window of a local second hand shop. One glance from its shiny, black, chunky body and I was instantly smitten.

Not for me the lightweight, tinny clacking of the plastic brigade. This was a world of cast metal with bodies you needed real muscles to lift and keys that punched the living daylights out of the English language with a clatter you could hear halfway down the street.

Alas, gravity and my Royal 10 were enemies right from the get go. And after a few slippery fingered near misses moving from one desk top to another, she eventually took a long tumble down a short flight of stairs, coming to rest on the bottom step, physically and emotionally broken beyond all repair.

I tried to replace her, but the magic just wasn't there any more. The power of the PC and the magic of the Mac beckoned and I ran towards them like a lamb to the slaughter.

Until now...