We've all been there, I suppose, and I was there a few minutes ago.

I took a phonecall and wanted to make a note on the calendar. The calendar has horrible shiny paper. My pen beaded and skated all over the place without leaving anything legible on the calendar page. I reached for a ballpen and, believe it or not, that was no better (skate, dent, no line).

Is this insurmountable? I wonder if there may be an ink that overcomes this problem. Does anyone know?

Perhaps a Sharpie would do the job? It's the only thing I know of that works on horrid shiny paper.

Reminds me of what happened when I was using fountain pens on regular Filofax refill paper.
Horrible problems with beading up. I changed to ordering the alternative refill they call
"cotton cream". That made it all better. For the glazed shiny paper they print calendars
with large photos on, I've had mixed results. Some of the Noodlers seem to stick to
them anyway, but you must BACK AWAY and allow plenty of drying time!

It's not an insurmountable problem. Buy a new calendar with decent paper.

Life is too short to have to keep Sharpies around.

Heh, true, they're vile instruments. But handy at times. I confess I use one to mark the tops of my Noodler's boxes.

I carry a Sanford Uni-Ball Micro most of the time because it seems to write on nearly anything that might be paper.

I keep one ballpoint in the house for all such eventualities (and for filling in patient report forms - we're not allowed to use anything other than black ballpoint). It is a Parker Insignia with a cisele type pattern, looks quite nice and hides a Space Pen refill. This refill really will write on almost anything I've asked it to, including shiny calendars.

Thanks for the replies. I'll try Noodlers and the Sharpie.

As for getting a calendar with decent paper - well, yes, of course. The trouble is that you get these shiny things as Christmas gifts and feel obliged to use them. I worse example is the Folio Society diary - horrible shiny paper. It takes FP ink but soaks it up like blotting paper, yet I'm sure a lot of Folio Scoeity members must be FP users (same sort of people). I think I'll send them an e-mail rant about it. They'll probably assume I'm a crank and send me a patronising reply, but at least it will enable me to let off some steam about what appears to be an increasing disregard for those of us who use proper pens.

A Pilot PermaBall is good for hard-to-write-on stuff. It's a liquid ink roller, will write on virtually anything (wood, plastic, metal...), and the ink is waterproof, lightproof, acid-free and archival. However, it's only available in "medium", afaik, which is actually more like a broad.

-- Brian

There is no finer marker than a Staedtler Lumocolor permanent for this type of situation.

Martin

[cramming in my drawers for Lumocolor four-pack] Yes Martin, you're right. I sign plastic cards (CC, Bank cards, etc) with it, mark DVDs. You just have to tell everybody they are felt tip pens , and feather on paper. You better write fast ...