The Cult of Apple is now the Cult of Moleskine

The first stationary was, appropriately, immobile.  Early Man used cave walls and ceilings to record pictures of Woolly Mammoth hunts and other cardio activities.  The first cave painting was probably followed by the first scathing review, possibly followed by the first critic being chased from the cave, and being trampled to death by a Woolly Mammoth.

Fast forward a few thousand years to dawn on the Nile, where Pharaoh has gathered his architects for the latest tomb project management meeting.  Folk are still putting stuff on walls, although this being a more modern society they carve as well as paint.  That’s progress.  Papyrus is the latest thing but wait, one of the younger architects has papyrus that is somehow thicker, creamier and of a heavier weight than the sheets of papyrus used by the other architects.  Surely, this fellow must be cleverer.  He gets to speak first and suggests that if they cut costs by making the tomb pointy instead of a cube as was originally suggested, Pharaoh can afford to take another two dozen handmaidens with him into the afterlife.  Good help is hard to find and so Pharaoh agrees, meeting adjourned, Pharaoh goes off to stand in profile for the rest of the day for his official portrait, and the rest of the architects know two things, that they too must get this papyrus of authority, and that this cocky kid will be crocodile fodder by sundown.

Vegetable matter continues to be pulped for paper to this very day.  There have, of course, been a couple of diversions along the way.  Velum is the writing surface of choice if you want to record something for posterity and really, really, don’t like goats.

Today, despite technological advances such as the Apple Newton, stationary and paper is more popular than ever.

Indeed, it’s reached cult status.  When Apple were opening up their new stores all over the planet, they were likened to temples, with all the staff dressed like members of a religious order and Apple users showing a devotion to the company’s products that is surely more faith based than reasoned.  Like the Church, Apple continues to rely on the devotion of its followers to get it through scandals or, as Apple prefers to call them, iOS updates.  I’m not saying that changing the interface on my iPhone is as bad as diddling choirboys, I’m just saying that at least the Church has acknowledged that that kind of behaviour is a problem.

The analogue equivalent of the Cult of Apple is the Cult of Moleskine, or stationaryphelia.

Over the last few years, the Moleskine has made something of a comeback.  For all I know, or care, the brand was invented in 2005 but the thing looks as though it has been in the pocket of the combat jacket of war correspondents everywhere from the Normandy landings to the bars of Saigon.  It is, it has to be said, a fabulous product, having a cover thick enough to act as a reasonable writing surface on its own, and bearing paper that can take the ink of a fountain pen without blotching like a teen in a titty bar.  I don’t think it could stop a bullet, blade or broken bottle but I do think it’s sturdy enough to beat off an enraged artist who has read your piece on her latest exhibition and is trying to pummel you screaming, unaccountably, ‘to the mammoths with you!’.

The value in a decent notebook is twofold.  The first is that even if you are writing ‘eggs, milk, foot cream’ during a meeting, it looks like you are the sort of person who is writing ‘synergy’.  A good notebook is, in business or art or recreation, a commitment to a serious attempt to do something.  Once it’s in there, it’s there forever.  This is not thermal fax paper, this is a cave wall.

The second is an extension of the first.  If you treat yourself to a decent notebook, you make a commitment to yourself to be worthy of those who the advertisers would have you think used this brand before you.

Or choose a new brand, and be the one others will follow.