The Moleskine

As a writer I tend to carry a notebook around in case a brilliant idea strikes me. Looking back over my scruffy old cheapo notebooks, they are full of creative strokes of genius such as 'remember dry cleaning' 'get thing' and 'lice?'

But now my thoughts will be of the intellectual kind because I've treated myself to a moleskine notebook. I saw them in a bookshop, pinkly pretty and thought - just for once, I'm going to get a really good looking notebook that I'd feel proud to pull out of my bag and write 'haddock' in. What I didn't realise is these moleskines have a history. I opened one and a piece of paper fell out telling me all about these wonderful little notebooks:

"Moleskine is the legendary notebook used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso. This trusty pocket size travel companion held sketches, notes, stories and ideas before they were turned into famous images or pages of beloved books . . . .the adventure of Moleskine continues, and its still blank pages will tell the rest".

I didn't know whether to be charmed or snort with laughter at such pretentiousness. And I thought of the week I'd spent at the Arvon Foundation, (incidentally one of the most rewarding weeks of my life). One of the things I came away with was that once the daily routine of domesticity was removed, I had acres of time to write. Just like a man in fact. It was nothing to do with innate genius and it still isn't. It's about having a little space - and possibly a room of one's own to do it in.

Still, the Moleskine is rather lovely. I wrote something in it this morning. 'Take gammon steak out of fridge'. And 'finish script'.