Echo from up north

Well, not all that far north, just as far as Crouch End, a little to the west of Wood Green, where we put in a decade or so.

It so happened that rather more recently we were involved in clearing out a house in Crouch End, prior to the builders moving in, in part to rebuild the front of the house, damaged by ground movement, one year of drought.

At that time, we acquired a number of G-cramps, engineering variety, rather than the much lighter woodworking variety which I was used to. Various sizes, not much used since, but they are readily accessible from their perch in the roof of our garage.

Now it so happens that I have a wad of A3 paper under the front of my laptop in the study, paper which is used for various odd notes, things like the times of trains, my weight of the day and the name of some important file. But because of the way I sit, the front right hand corner (in the snap above) tends to get rolled up in a rather untidy way. I put up with this for months.

And then, I came across Maigret scribbling on his buvard while he took a phone call. From where I associate to the blotting paper holder I used during my secondary school days. The then equivalent of A3, with padded brown leatherette ends under which one tucked the loose ends of one's wad of blotting paper. Which stopped the very rolling up which had been irritating me.

The answer was clearly a short length of batten - exactly a foot, as it happens, held down at one end by a G-cramp.

Half an hour's DIY, deploying tool box, vice, panel saw and various other bits and bobs, with the result snapped above. Notice how the drop of oil on the shaft of the cramp has worked its way down to the batten. Some sort of low grade tropical timber; easy to work but soft and it crumbles easily at the edges and corners.

But irritation is no more and it will not take long to knock out a higher grade batten, should that prove necessary. My right elbow rests on said batten as I type this and, if it survives, it will no doubt acquire an attractive patina with age.

PS: eBay offers the black blotting paper holder snapped above for a tenner or so. Not the same pattern as the one I had all those years ago, with my pads occupying the two short sides rectangularly, rather than the four corners triangularly, but very much the same sort of thing.