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...