Spaceware from the 50's

What you see in the photo above is my boring flatware from the Swedish pride IKEA. They are super plain looking and I have been in the hunt for new cutlery for quite some time. I want something that stands out and not only looks nicer then the above mentioned knifes and forks, but that has been really hard to find. One trend right now is to have black cutlery but I do not like that at all, because it makes the table setting look way to dark.

But then I found this amazing set and now know what I will be getting as soon as I can to replace the IKEA cutlery with. 

This set of flatware are from the Danish design house Georg Jensen and they are designed by the legendary designer Arne Jacobsen. I'm completely in love with the design and I wanted them as soon as I laid my eyes on them, but after some research I do not only want them, I NEED them!

Even though they look a bit hard to actually eat with hehe.

Now to the cool part

Arne Jacobsen design designed this set of flatware in 1957, and still they look very modern, almost futuristic. So futuristic in fact, that Stanley Kubrick used these as the cutlery in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, in 1968. That is 50 years ago and they still look as cool and futuristic today. Now that is a sign of good design.

Also, if that wasn't enough to make me want them, they also appeared in Star Trek Voyager AND Enterprise. So as the big Sci-Fi fan I am, I can't not buy these. Right?

My first vintage pen

A while after I started to get into fountain pens I turned to the Swedish version of eBay, Tradera, to see what could be found there. I found a bunch of cheap pens from brands I hadn't heard about, and brands I had heard about, so I started to bid. I really wanted to try out some cheap old pens to try different filling systems and learn more about how the pens functioned so I could fix them if I needed to. I also wanted more pens to be able to try out more inks.

The first pen that I got in the mail after a winning bid of about 17$ was this blue Esterbrook J and after I got a some more vintage pens I quickly realised that this pen stood out from the crowd. The pen is from around 1950 and except from some scratches on the nib it is in almost unused condition.

The most interesting thing about the pen isn't how beautiful it is though, it is that it writes amazingly! It is actually one of my absolute favorite pens and it is actually much better than many modern pens I have, and have tried. 

It is a small pocket pen and after some research I learned that it has a nib that can easily be swapped out. There are apparently a huge number of different nibs to choose from and mine (with the number 9550) is one of the extra fine nibs for small notes. I think that is perfect because of the pens size and it happens that I take this pen with me as a note taking pen instead of my Pilot E95S (a 140$ pen) because it is at least as good. 

Of course I also matched the color of the pen with the ink (Pilot Iroshizuku Shin-kai) because why not? 

Cut your cigar in style

There is a plethora of different cigar cutters on the market and some of the best that I have tried are the Xikar Xi series. they have super sharp blades, a good action and they are also quite affordable. But there is one thing that they lack and that is style! Except for maybe the Xi3 made out of fossilised Mammoth Ivory, because seeing someone cutting a cigar with a 10 000 year old mammoth tusk is just not something you see everyday.

My Xixar Xi1

But as that one is a bit expensive I had a hard time finding a cutter that had what I would call "style". Most cutters are modern mechanical contraptions that sometimes has small pieces of wood on them. There are many that aren't ugly, but they aren't anything special either. That is until I saw that the French manufacturer Laguiole, famous for their knifes and sommelier tools, made this amazing looking cigar scissor. 

This cigar cutter may not be the best cutter out there and using a scissor is also a bit more tricky compared to a double bladed guillotine like the Xikar. But I still think it's worth it just because how stylish it looks, and isn't at least part of smoking a nice cigar about style?

If you don't like the wood mine is made of you can of course get it in a couple of other types of wood.

A quick drip tip

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Here is a quick tip for avoiding that wine runs down the bottle and leave stains on your table when you pour straight from the bottle. Of course you could use a good, fancy decanter or buy a drip stop, but where’s the fun in that?

Instead, do this:  

  1. Take a piece of paper towel
  2. Fold it into a strip
  3. Wrap it around the bottleneck 
  4. fasten it with a toothpick

Now you don’t need to worry about wine stains on the table, in your sofa or on you floor!

Why I started using fountain pens

I have loved nice looking pens for many years, and I also love the look and feel of handwriting in a nice notebook. Therefore, I have tried over and over again to start to write and take notes with pen and paper. Sadly, I have not succeeded even though (or maybe because?) I work with writing. I have tried buying nice pens, cooler and smarter notebooks, bullet journaling and more. But nothing has worked and the notebook has always eded up in a drawer. Until now, that is!

The perfect rollerball

During a hunt for the perfect rollerball pen for my girlfriend I "found out" about fountain pens and thought I should give it a try. Even if it didn't get me hooked on handwriting a good looking fountain pen at least could be a stylish accessory. So I bought a Lamy Safari as it seemed to be the pen that everyone starts with (even though I think it looks quite ugly). The plan was to just try it out for a while even though I didn't have high hopes. I thought fountain pens demanded some learning, that they were completely different from "normal" pens and to be fair, just a hassle. But oh how wrong I was! 

PS. The perfect Rollerball was a Waterman Hemisphere because if it's slender stylish look and the ability to use Pilot G2 refills.

I will never go back to ballpoints

It didn't even take a week until I was completely sold and actually started to hav a hard time using other pens at all. That is just how big a difference there is between even rollerball pens and fountain pens. you write like normal but without any pressure and effort at all. The pen just glides over the page in a way that is hard to describe. It really was an amazing feeling and I never want to write with anything else ever again, even if that sounds a bit snobby. 

And the thing is that it doesn't stop there. The feature of being able to choose between hundreds, if not thousands, of inks to find the perfect color for me is amazing. Also I must admit that I love the feeling and style of pulling out a fountain pen from my inner pocket. The main thing is of course how it writes, but the style part should not be ignored. 

That also meant that my Lamy Safari wasn't enough, I needed I stylish classic pen. the choice fell on a Waterman Hemisphere with a glossy black finish and chrome trims. I won't do a review about the pen here but I will say that I thought 80€ was a lot of money for a pen when I bought it and that I do not think so now. With that said, you won't regret trying out a fountain pen, but your wallet might.

Feel > style

As I wrote in the beginning of this post, I have always have wanted to write and take notes with pen and paper but never have succeeded in that. The thing is that now I do, and I thank fountain pens for it. The style part was important in the beginning, but even without that part I would only use fountain pens from now on. The feeling of writing with this type of pen is just unmatched and makes me want to write more and more and more.

So many years, with so many different attempts I at last found what could make me a bit more analog. And as I work as a tech expert and writer that is huge. Therefore I can't recommend you enough to try out a fountain pen. Not only for the style points you will get, but because of how it writes.

Last but not least, there are so many beautiful ink bottles to buy and put on your desk! that is definitely a big plus.

Color matching accessories

I love color, especially vibrant colors. In spite of that my wardrobe actually mostly consists of black/blue suits and white shirts. The reason for this is that even if I love color it can be a bit much with a pink suit (but yes, I do own one of those!) and my wardrobe would need to be HUGE if I wanted clothes in strong colors and still be able to mix and match a bit. Especially when you think about all the different shades of every color that doesn't match with other shades of the same color. And to be fair, who has the space for suits in 50 shades of gray?

Instead I try to pick up a lot of accessories in all different colors. these aren't to expensive and they don't take much space at home. It is also super fun to color match all the different accessories with each other to get a colorful outfit even with white shirts and black suits.

This is why I always try to pick up new ties, pocket squares and cufflinks when I find one that I like, and after that the hunt begins! The hunt for other accessories that can be matched with the one I just bought that is. Sometimes I also try to bring my new accessory with me in case I get the time to go into a store and look for things that match, it's always a lot easier to find something that matches when you actually can compare the colors. 

Pattern matching (if you don't look to closely).

Of course it is even nicer if I can find something that not only color matches another accessory but also can be matched with something else. One example is to mismatch colors but instead focus on patterns, but there are many different ways to match. I just happen to love color matching a bit more than all other ways of matching. 

One of my latest idiotic ideas is to also try to match the ink in my pen to the colors I wear haha!

One frame per person

Here are a couple of portraits that I took many years ago, but as most of them didn't fit the portfolio they haven't seen the light of day. The main photo has been in my portfolio for a long time but the thing is that it was actually part of a series of photos so I wanted to publish them all without thinking to much about the portfolio.

The portraits were shot during one day in my home town of Köping, on just one roll of film loaded in my Hasselblad camera. The idea was to take ten portraits in one day and only shooting one frame per person. I ended up taking 9 portraits with 7 out of those actually turning out okej. I would call that a success.

A whisky I never want to be without

One thing that I like is to have a "standard" bottle of every type of spirit that I like to enjoy. That is, one certain brand and type that I always want to have at home no matter what. With that said, I don't mean a base spirit that everyone needs in their liquor cabinet, but a really nice spirit I don't want to be without.

For whisky that is Aberlour A'Bunad so I thought I should write a couple of words about it. But first, what is needed to become one of my "standards"?

1. It needs to be easily available.

That means that all limited editions are immediately disqualified, and for me it also needs to be sold at most Systembolaget stores near where I live.

2. It can't be to expensive.

A standard that you always want a bottle of at home needs to be affordable. You should never need to think twice about pouring up a big glass for yourself or to a friend. For me that means a bottle may not cost more than 100€ and preferably it should be around 50-60€ at most. 

3. It must have great taste and value

Essentially it needs to be the best tasting spirit in it's price range. Also a 100€ bottle really needs to be 100% better than a 50€ bottle, otherwise the 50€ bottle comes out on top. Of course this is very subjective.

Sherry all the way

As far as whisky goes I'm very much a sherry cask guy, so if I only could have one whisky at home it would absolutely be a "sherry bomb". That is of course exactly what Aberlour A'Bundah is! I do like other types of whisky as well but as said, if I only get one it will be something aged on sherry casks.

The A'bundah costs about 65€ here in Sweden and I would say that's a steal! This is not only a great whisky for its price, it's just an amazing whisky overall and one of my absolute favorites no matter the price. 

The taste

This is a strong, powerful spirit which usually is a round 60% ABV (120 proof), it may vary a bit depending which batch your bottle is from as it is bottled straight from the cask. The same goes for the taste but it's close enough to write a couple of words about it and one thing is for sure, it's always amazing! A short description is that this whisky is a real taste explosion with sweet fruity notes of apricot and orange zest. It is spicy and a bit rough, but in a good way. I would not water it down because it makes it a bit smoother and you loose much of the that wonderful rough taste.

The conclusion is that I can't recommend this whisky enough if you like stronger whiskys with a lot of taste..