Stationery prize: World Cup bundle from Bureau Direct

A few weeks ago, I saw that Bureau Direct were running a competition to win a World Cup Stationery bundle and I entered it. I then thought nothing more about it (in fact I had actually forgotten all about it, as I was on holiday!). Then one day I was checking my emails and there was one from Dominic at Bureau Direct to say that I had won Spain 2010 in the Classic World Cup bundles. It was duly posted off to me and was there waiting for me when I arrived back from my holiday.

The bundle comprised:

• A medium lined Leuchtturm notebook in red
• A Leuchtturm pen loop in yellow
• A Lamy Logo ballpoint pen in blue

The Leuchturrm Notebook:
I assume the interior is identical to the interior of the berry red one I reviewed in May (read that review here) so I won’t review it again. The red of the cover is a nicer red than the equivalent Moleskine (which has a hint of orange to it) and the elastic closure is a darker red (which matches well).  The ribbon marker matches the cover well, but is lighter than the elastic closure. In many ways, it would have been nicer if the elastic and the ribbon had matched (even if they were slightly different from the cover), but then, I am ridiculously picky about things like that. I will certainly use the book for book-plotting!

The Leuchtturm pen loop in yellow:
I’ve had several of these pen-loops. I have a black one in my Leuchturrm Line a Day 5 year diary, another black one in my de Villiers slimline binder, a red one in the Moleskine diary (the diary I hated) and a pale blue one in another filofax. They are great – make sure you stick them in exactly the right place because the adhesive could hold an elephant up and you won’t be able to reposition it if you get it wrong!
My main gripes with them is that 1) there is always, always adhesive inside the elastic loop which then gets all over the pen you have in the loop and 2) the loop is really quite small – only a pen with a diameter of about <1cm will fit in it. The sticky adhesive inside the elastic eventually runs out but the one I had in my diary got glue on my biro for at least half the year. It rubs off okay (in a sticky sort of way) but it’s annoying that it does it.

The Lamy ballpoint biro:
I got a heap of despair from a good friend when I told him that the only pens I took on holiday with me were some bic crystal biros (I don’t trust my fountain pens to play nicely in bags). Anyway, the Lamy is lovely. It’s heavier than a bic crystal and has a very satisfying click to pop the ballpoint bit in and out. I haven’t written screeds with it yet, but it doesn’t (so far) seem to bleb anything like as badly as a bic crystal does, so maybe I will have to upgrade as the blebbing does annoy me!

The colour combination between the book, the pen-loop and the pen is delightful. Bright and summery!

All in all, this was a lovely little bundle to get! Thank you Bureau Direct!
[no affiliation, just a perpetually happy customer]