You are not logged in. Would you like to login or register?



12-7-2016 05:45:53  #1


London type-in July 24

Come to the London type-in!
 
Sunday, 24th of July
Noon until ?
Hoop & Toy pub
34 Thurloe Place
Kensington SW7 2HQ London
 
People can bring their own typewriters or use machines that others will bring. There will be typing, chatting, eating, drinking, and spontaneous activities. I will bring a copy of The Typewriter Revolution for people to peruse, and would be glad to sign any copies people may wish to bring. (I will not have any for sale.) 

 

13-7-2016 09:59:32  #2


Re: London type-in July 24

I'll be there! I know the Hoop & Toy very well... I'll see if I can manage to bring two machines.  

Hope to see maybe one or two others from here on the day.

 

20-7-2016 12:20:33  #3


Re: London type-in July 24

I look forward to meeting you, Kat!

     Thread Starter
 

20-7-2016 16:25:24  #4


Re: London type-in July 24

Thanks, looking forward to it! Piotr and I are old friends by now, and I'm also hoping to bring a nerdy 14-year-old typing enthusiast with me. For at least a bit, anyway. ;)

 

 

24-7-2016 20:32:05  #5


Re: London type-in July 24

Looking forward to some pictures!

 

25-7-2016 08:14:06  #6


Re: London type-in July 24

Hiya, well I was a bit useless and took nary a one picture. But it was a very nice event, in a pub in South Kensington that I never went in for years and years and then have somehow been in about four times this year! Here's a link to Richard Polt's latest blog post on the typewriters of London - which I include because I want to state that I got to type on his bright red Good Companion! and I can vouch for it being a lovely machine. VERY pretty - and I realised I don't have anything red, my typewriters on the whole are rather greyish and greenish... except for the orange Tippa, of course. So I now know that my previous prejudice against Good Companions was more about an antipathy towards one machine I had bought - and possibly one model, the Model 2 - not really a hatred of the whole make. I'd never seen one in that colour before, not even on the internet.

Other typewriters people brought along included a really lovely blue Studio 44  with a bright, crisp action, a 1935 Rheinmetall of great beauty, which worked gorgeously too; an Empire Aristocrat a few years newer than mine, maybe 1954? and anOlivetti Scribe brought by Piotr. Now that's a very interesting and sweet machine: a sort of prototype Lettera 22, with a couple of key differences. One being the keys, which were flat, just discs cut from black plastic, not the liquorice-drop concave of a L22. Though the shift keys, as he pointed out to me, were the concave of a Lettera. So a rather interesting hybrid-stroke-prototype. And it had a shinier finish than any L22 I've seen. Most impressive to me was its drop-dead gorgeous leather case, which was more like a much-more-beautiful version of a Studio 44 case, with the wooden brace bits inside it. And a fantastic late-40s leather briefcase-style handle. I could have wept. The machine I took along was my 1955 Groma Modell T, which is ineffably beautiful but which I'm thinking about selling. It struck 

I couldn't type much because I have some kind of horrible RSI in my right shoulder and have been in agonies for days with it, but I bravely carried my machine in my other hand and crossed London - and was very glad I did! Very nice indeed to meet Richard P, a very jolly laid-back fellow, and get my book signed, and to see Piotr again. I met some other very interesting guys as well - and yes they were guys, there was only one other woman there (and she hadn't even brought a typewriter with her!). We're not very well represented in this little world. One plucky fellow had come from Swindon! AND brought a friend. Some people will do anything to get to a type-in. ;)

I'm imagining someone else will have been better on the  picture front than I was.

 

25-7-2016 08:26:47  #7


Re: London type-in July 24

There was also a moment when I was interested to realise that there was not one American typewriter on the table. That was almost disappointing; I'm sure we all have a few; but it was kind of interesting given how much of the internet is American. Next time there's an event of this kind it might even be more novel to take something not European...

 

Board footera

 

Powered by Boardhost. Create a Free Forum