This is the aforementioned Kitchen Typewriter.  It is an Olivetti M44, and has a lovely type action - a nice firm clack clack clack as I produce my shopping list. 

Of course, the list stays in the machine for several days, so it is usually a curly piece of paper that I end up taking to the shops with me.  But at least it's legible.

The machine was a gift - I had been chatting to an elderly acquaintance of mine, who would hate to be described as elderly, but there you go, and we were discussing the joys of typewriters.  A couple of weeks later I came home to find this joyous beastie waiting for me on the doorstep.  It's not the strangest thing I've ever found there, but that's another story.  After asking around a bit I discovered that it was she who was the anonymous donor.

It didn't need much of a clean, and with a new ribbon sparked straight into life.  That's one of the joys of a manual typewriter:  it sits there, coiled like a coiled thing, ready to spring into life at the touch of a key.

I've never asked it, but I'm sure that it would say that it is happy getting nearly daily use in the kitchen.  It had nightmares about becoming jewellery, but it knows it's safe here.

PS I've not yet got the hang of cropping photos... so ignore everything else you see loitering near the Olivetti!