The passing of a pocket notebook and the beginning of
another is a ceremonial occasion. The old book is laid gently in the bottom
drawer with its predecessors. A slight tear is allowable before turning to its
successor.
But what successor? Choosing a notebook is not a simple
matter. It has to be slim, small enough for the pocket but not so small that it
can’t be used to write complete lines. Or lost. It needs to be hard backed,
there’s nothing worse in a notebook than creases on a page. It needs another
requirement which will be touched upon later.
I have a basket full of notebooks untouched. Bought in a
surge of excitement in a bookshop or stationers and which on return home prove
to be totally, or frustratingly almost, unusable for any variety of reasons.
Over the years I have come to treat with disdain some of
those offered in even well known stores. What, on earth, is the point of those
pocket notebooks with spiral metal hoops that are guaranteed to get tangled
with normal stuff found in your pocket and dragged out to fall over the floor just
as you need to jot something down.
The colour of the notebook is totally irrelevant to whether
they are fit for purpose. I’ve had blue, green, black. If it glowed in the
dark, I wouldn’t care.
The best notebook I’ve ever had was from a shop in
Windermere. A small second hand bookshop whose owner’s mother made them as a
sideline. Just that one notebook. I’ve ordered another since but it wasn’t the
same.
Obviously, I have Moleskin that goes in the rucksack. The
one with the blank pages, elastic band and opens front ways not side. But,
surprisingly, it is just too big to fit in a pocket. And for all its virtues
that too has one major design fault, one that it shares with every other
notebook I have bought or considered buying.
And this is the other requirement mentioned above. Consider
what you need a notebook for. It’s not for looking at or for tearing its pages
out for bookmarks. You need it for making notes. But no notebook has a slot for
a pencil or pen. It’s absurd. The one from Windermere had a space between the
spine and the pages into which I could slip a small pen, but that was by
accident.
As an aside – the best small pen I’ve found is by Zebra. It’s
telescopic and slim. When the case is pushed into itself it is perfect for
positioning into the makeshift holder I’ve made on the spine of a notebook. I
got it from the bookshop in Carnforth.
The makeshift spine looks awful but it works. Glue a
suitable material across the spine of your notebook and it becomes part of the
book rather than sticking out.
Joy of joys. I’ve just found a Moleskin that’s small enough.
No place for pen. Yet.
