Back to school (again)

It's that time of year once more, when we try to get the children (and teachers) in our lives enthused about going to back to the chalkface. Well, a little top-flight stationery would help, wouldn't it?

If, like the Beautiful South, you love them from, the bottom of your pencil case, procuring one of those isn't a bad place to start. Nero has a rather nice one from Write which beats whatever the dull kids are carrying.

What to put in the case? Well, naturally, a pencil - and for the full retro experience there's the trusty and admirably affordable Staedtler Tradition, the stick that taught so many of us to write in the first place - and now available in 2B, which is a jolly good idea.

If you're a responsible penfluencer you'll want some decent nibbage in the mix, but perhaps not a gold-and-precious-resin number, eh? Well, the proven Kaweco Sport is universally admired, and Nero can even sell you one in a tasteful lavender hue. 

Of course, a 9cm x 14cm pocket notebook never goes amiss, and Dapper Notes have created My Journal For Very Important Things, which says it all really. That ought to make you popular. They'll still hate PE, of course - there's no stationery in the world which can cure that - but at least they can now craft their own sick notes using the mystical lost art of, ya know, writing.