Most annoying! The clock from Eric has arrived but is being held by customs until such times as I pay the absurd amount of import duty accrued on it. I'll not be able to get it until Tuesday now.

Bought a book today with the best cover:





The graphics are just SO strong.

It is also, of course, all about patination of iron and steel. As with all books from this innocent period before the invention of health and safety, it is full of absolutely lethal suggestions, such as using mercury to blacken steel, then cleaning the mercury off with concentrated nitric acid on a wad of cotton.
Setting aside picric acid, mercury, arsenic and all the other madly dangerous suggestions, the book has some great ideas in it, which I will be trying out as appropriate.

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HORRIBLE weather. Howling gales and horizontal rain! Awful. Still, I'm going to do lots of engraving tomorrow.

Got up really early this morning and went to the car boot sale, probably a bit too early as it wasn't really set up when I got there, though that had a lot to do with the intermittently miserable weather. Not a lot there, but I got a couple of slow-cookers to use in the workshop as heated pickles and a strange German thing for growing beansprouts, called "BioSnacky". What a stupid name. It's basically a perforated plastic lid on a pickle jar. I'm glad I didn't pay the £3.99 listed on the BioSnacky website. Mine was 50p with some free packets of seeds. I'll see how it works.

After a visit to my mum's, I came back here to domestic chores and watched the film about Ian Curtis of Joy Division, "Control". It is an incredible film and well worth watching, though probably really only for fans: the rave reviews were true! It looks amazing and the performances are excellent. The only slight let-down is the unnecessary and bad cover version of "Shadowplay", performed by The Killers over the very end of the end credits. Why?

Just listened to the Autechre net-radio broadcast, which was, as the curate would say, "good in parts". I have to say that there was rather too much hip-hop and too little imaginative rhythm - a hallmark of classic Autechre - for my liking. Still, it was intersting enough.

During that time, I was further remaking the website. The new titles are in two fonts I downloaded ages ago from Misprinted Type, Selfish and Porcelain. They are free and of the best quality, having a full set of upper- and lower-case letter, symbols and numbers as well as a good range of accented and special characters. There are loads more, but these suited the look I wanted for the site.

Shiny new(ish) look to the website. Very plain, very stark. I'm not really sure where this is going, but I got a bit fed up with the rust theme!

Out with Clive earlier today, which was good. The town was fairly quiet, so it wasn't unpleasant, though the wind got up strongly enough to prevent us from walking easily, which was funny. Not much to report, though I did see this at the fleamarket:





A memento of how she would come to have her head caved in eventually. Saddest thing about this souvenir is that, as in real life, that idiot she married remains unscathed.

Also found this dreadful punning sign:





Viagra! From a lecherous fisherman, no less... Even that fish disapproves. Does make me wonder what the "Much, much, more" could be.

It's been a good day. Terrible weather and I got soaked twice, but otherwise it has been uncomplicated and I've completed a lot of work. The latest project is completely in my head, with no development work or drawings and is happening "live" at the bench, inspired by the "Stag" punts mentioned in a previous post: the Portable Shrine To St Hubertus.





I also buckled and bought one of Eric Freitas' clocks...





Now I need to build the house to go with it!

My head is full to bursting with ideas at the moment. I've not got the time to work on everything I want to make. Back to engraving again, and this evening I've finished carving up an old (Southern) Irish coin which I was very kindly sent by a friend in Northern Ireland:





Carving coins - often called "Hobo Nickels" - has a long history in the US but isn't really so popular in Europe. The limited size (including the thickness) of the coin makes it an interesting challenge to work on. I'm going to try another one soon, possibly with a view to enamelling it.

I was given a batch of rusty spring washers today which have been made into a somewhat complex chain. There's an idea in the back of my head to finally get round to making a piece relating to stags for which I will use an old Irish £1 punt coin.

Back from Birmingham, where I visited the Spring Fair and bought WAY too many new tools and gemstones! I've now got some rather nice bicolour tourmalines, a 1ct black diamond, a piece of fire-opal, a bending brake and a strange thing which I think might crimp metal. I've also decided to buy a second-hand electric rolling mill on the proviso that the delivery charge from Birmingham won't be too much.
You can't have too many tools!

I also visited the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, which is excellent but which was completely outshone by the bizarre and wonderful Pen Museum, just down the road. The website does not do it justice. For a start, it is much bigger than it looks on this; secondly, you get NO sense of the unhinged enthusiasm exhibited by the lovely owners of this private museum. Everyone visiting Birmingham should go and see this and make a pen nib of their own. It is so good you will want to make a (voluntary) donation to the upkeep of the place!

Met up with James, which was great. Not seen him in ages.

Some photographs on Flickr. I'm off to Brighton now, so will post more pictures on here next week.

Forgot to post the pictures of the cufflinks yesterday:





Also started another steel rule ring: