…regularly – unashamedly – happens in the château. Given decent paper i write with a medieval monks’ steady hand, but upon bog rolls i am reduced to writing in wonky capitals. MA D MA N ST Y L E. Letters spaced accordingly, given room to stretch and express themselves.
Martha’s instructions:
Short sentences are best. If possible, eviscerate the verb. Pare down. The eye can take in only so much, approximately seven words per line given the dimensions of a standard toilet roll. Consider the aesthetics too. Background colour will determine a script’s clarity. The choice restricted to rosé, cream or white. A palette of the pallid.
White is best.
ON PAPER WHITE AS DAY. LETTERS STARK AS PASTRY CUTS. MAXIMUM CONTRAST.
But, should the supply of white tissue rolls be compromised, inferior rosé and cream will do. On tissue quality, though, Martha is intransigent. Must be three-ply, a golden rule, because on thinner tissue you just can’t get the requisite purchase, regardless of your writing implement. Be that quill, pen (felt tip) or pencil. (Crayons quite unusable, which Martha says is a shame given my ‘juvenile temperament.’)
Two ply tissue poses additional difficulties. It crumples after a first reading. And ink, being subject to capillary action, turns unruly. Letters distend and distort, as if worked upon by some mischievous djinn in the pay of Josef A. Writing on a bog roll certainly poses technical challenges; good hand eye co-ordination required. A meticulous business. Pen dipped into an old marmite jar. A receptacle, i should make clear, which has had its label removed and filled with runny darkness. BLACK MAGIC. A material wonderfully transformable known as ink! Shape shifting and bound for the Toilet Tissue of Finn’s Manifesto.
(There might come a time, should extreme (stationery) impoverishment strike, when i use marmite as ink substitute.) Josef A, of, course operates in flashy Technicolor; his vision of the world relayed in gaudy (digital) lies.
What happened to Martha’s guideline on sentence length? Why the flurry of exclamation marks? Must have used up my quota for this roll.