King Charles in ink blotter crisis
King Charles III is a noted letter writer. The Guardian reported on his ‘black spider’ letters. These were written by hand and sent to Government Ministers in an official attempt to change policy.
The point being (here) that the King eschews such new fangled things as laptops and still writes his missives by hand using a fountain pen.
For those reading who don’t know what a fountain pen is, it has a nib and is filled with liquid ink. In more recent times ink cartridges have been used but traditional models are filled from an ink bottle.
Either way they can be quite messy and in the traditional office the blotter is used to deal with this. The blotter is usually a piece of absorbent A3 paper slotted into a rectangular board. They are not a feature of the modern office, although my central London office (aka the museum) has several
When the fountain pen malfunctions the blotter absorbs the excess ink.
In Northern Ireland in September 2022 HRH had a fountain pen incident while signing an official document. There was no blotter on the desk. He handed the leaking pen to Camilla, as one does, and exited stage left (presumably to wash the ink off his hands- no easy matter).
Clearly the blotter is one Royal tradition King Charles plans to continue so there will be more blotter crisis to come.
[…] learned yesterday from Keith Flett’s blog that the new King of England appears to have had a bit of problem with his writing equipment. It […]