Apologies to anyone who checked back on or after Dec 9th wanting to download Roger Bean’s excellent ‘Walnut Burl Fountain Pen Box’ iPhone Photo documentary. It was my intention that it should be available by then, but things are never as simple as you think they’re going to be – unbelievably in this digital day and age, the setting up of these items as downloads turned into a real problem.  Anyway, it is now sorted and available to download here, it’s already proving popular. Roger has also posted this as a project on Lumberjocks here – this serves as a very readable introduction to the photo documentary which is 112 pages and goes into a considerable amount of detail. NB: The documentary is in .pdf format – a few have contacted me thinking that perhaps an iPhone was necessary … no, definitely not, Roger merely took the images on an iPhone. My posters are also now available – quite a few takers already … |
smartHinge Special Offer: Around the end of November I was informed by the manufacturers that they would be unable to supply me with any more hinges until the new year. This, combined with heavy demand in the preceding few weeks and a small manufacturing flaw on one batch, meant that I was very low on stocks and therefore unable to make a special offer to subscribers I had planned. | | |  |
But almost as soon as the newsletter went out the manufacturers started to bombard me with hinges – so I now have plenty! So, I will make the offer I intended to in the original newsletter! Special Offer: Order four pairs of smartHinge before the end of the year and get a fifth pair free! Go here to claim this special offer – this is a ‘hidden’ page on the site, not available to non-subscribers. The lining materials will be available early in the new year.
radio 4This is something I was going to include in the last newsletter but I ran out of space …
I listen to far too much radio, almost all Radio 4, but seldom read a paper or watch the telly. This has the interesting side effect that I don’t really know what most of our celebrities and politicians look like, but I DO know what they sound like. I could probably just about pick out David Cameron from an identitly parade, but as for the rest … The only time I read a paper is one of the many papers that are donated to Hilary and me by friends and family to start our various fires. So while scrunching up paper for the fires I do often get very interested in news that is, say, 6 – 12 months old … I mention this because a few years ago the PM programme [5.00 on R4 most days] requested a pic from anyone taken at a particular time [5 in the evening, I think], showing what they were doing then and there. Well, I submitted the following photo of the workshop [with only the very smallest bit of set management, honest – and less than many others, I’ll bet] and also submitted a caption. |
 As you will see if you click on the image through to the original posting, the caption was brief and to the point, but I did also take the opportunity to comment none too favourably on a trailer for a programme on climate change that was running on R4 at the time. The trailer included the phrase: ‘We are at the very precipice of a runaway train … ‘ what does THAT mean?! Anyway, to my disgust my comments were EDITED OUT of my caption! But I was very glad to hear that the trailer got slated by the Now Show at the time – quite right! Mind you, if I was live on radio I’m sure I would talk dreadful rubbish – the only time I ever was I somehow ended up discussing how KitKats tasted different in different countries because they’re made differently to cope with prevailing climatic conditions – and that went without a hitch! But the worst of the ‘runaway train’ trailer was that it was a pre-recorded, scripted trailer that was repeated again and again as is R4’s way with such things. I did hear someone in a sport-related interview say: “ … he found himself looking down both barrels of a bottomless doldrum” Excellent! Gibberish, of course – but un-scripted, heartfelt and descriptive gibberish. All for it … ! |
Happy Christmas!
This was meant to be a short one – well, I suppose it was, relatively! The next one will probably be in February when I hope there will be plenty of news on more smartBoxmaker products. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great time over Christmas and the new year. |
 Andrew Crawford |
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