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Pretty much anyone in the UK over a certain age will have memories of the classic red covered Silvine exercise books, or the ubiquitous memo book. I'm still fond of the latter now for its fountain pen-friendly paper, if not for its rather flimsy cover, so was interested to come across the recent launch of a high quality re-tread of these old favourites. http://www.silvineoriginals.co.uk/ Lots of sizzle going on there, but what's the steak like? I emailed them to ask after the FP-friendliness and was assured they were "very happy" with fountain pen ink, so naturally I wanted to try one. And of course it had to be a Memo. The Basic @ approximately £0.80 in my local newsagents, comes loose, while the Original @ £4.50 comes shrink-wrapped with a belly band. The Original at 52 pages is marginally thinner than the Basic at 72 pages. The Original includes a bookmark telling you all the joys of the thing you've already bought, which might arguably be more useful if you could read it before you have to unwrap it. But it's a nice thought. A major difference between the two is the binding and cover. The Basic is simply staple bound, and the cover is flimsy in the extreme - I've never had one survive the life of the notebook without help. The Original, on the other hand, has a sturdy textured cover and a sewn binding. A vast improvement, although while the dark blue thread looks good against the red cover, it does look rather ugly when you reach the centre pages inside the notebook. You do have to rather "crack" the cover to get it to lie flat, and once done it's not thus far inclined to want to lie fully closed again. Inside the difference between the Basic on the left, and the Original on the right is obvious; the latter is a creamier, brighter paper, with a more pronounced ruling. Every page is also perforated. The fleck on the line in the middle of the Original's paper is within the paper itself; a quick flick through doesn't immediately flag up any other instances. Both have 7mm ruling. Ruled, blank or blank/squared pages are only available in certain notebook sizes, which is a shame. But the important bit is, naturally, how it faired with FPs. I used a mixture of inks already in pens, and broke out a dip pen so I could test it with the potentially problem inks of Shigure and Apache Sunset. I see no evidence of feathering, spreading, or skipping. The paper has a slight texture to it which I personally prefer, and possibly as a result does not generate any noticeable sheen. No smearing noticed. The reverse of the page shows no signs of bleed through at all, and limited show through. An extremely satisfactory result. As I said, every page is perforated although they seem robustly fixed until folded at the perforation line and torn off. The latter being a very clean tear. All in all, for performance, I was very impressed. Truly a pleasant writing experience that really makes the ink pop most satisfactorily. It's nice to see a company aim to make a quality product and not forget about the paper! As a Brit, it's a pleasure to enjoy a British notebook as a change from seeking out alternatives from France and Japan. I also enjoy the "retro" look and the childhood memories it evokes. However, there are cons. The various notebook sizes are all, as far as I can tell, somewhat idiosyncratic. A6, A5, and A4 are all carefully illusive, and even existing oddities like Field Notes size or Traveler's Notebook are ignored. There's also no options in what ruling (or not) you can have in what size notebook. I would have liked to have tried the Pocket size notebooks, but they're blank and I wanted to see what the ruled paper was like. Finally, the price is pretty high if all you want is a notebook, and not the accompany story. Whether it's too high will, of course, depend on the individual.