Tuesday 4 September 2012


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!

9 comments:

  1. Welcome to the blogosphere! I'm going to add you to my Flipboard (iPad app) so I won't miss a thing you post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks like a wonderful typewriter. I have one of its descendants, the Lexikon 80, but haven't tried an M44. And while I've thought about keeping a shopping list on a typewriter, instead I scrawl on a paper tacked to the fridge.

    Welcome to the typosphere.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Perhaps kitchen typewriters are the future!

    And thank you for your welcome, Richard. I'm looking forward to joining in, but I'm still getting the hang of how to upload to the typosphere.

    Thanks again,
    John

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you for your words of welcome - I'm enjoying being here!

    John

    ReplyDelete
  5. God...Ton (I Dream Lo-Tech) must be drooling over this M44. Go on...ask him if he has one.
    Neat idea to keep you list on a machine in the kitchen. My wife writes out the list, and only right before she goes shopping, so I have never even thought to do this.
    Welcome to the Typosphere!

    ReplyDelete
  6. John, thank you for visiting my blog and leaving a comment. WELCOME to the wacky wonderful world of the Typosphere!

    So now I'm reading through all your posts and want to say: you are an excellent writer!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'd like to see more views of this one, it looks interesting!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you for your comments, and for your welcome.

    Next time I clean the kitchen counter I will take some more pictures for you.

    At the moment the kitchen typewriter is holding a recipe for apple chutney... I needed to re-type it so that I could cut down the ingredients (I didn't have enough apples from my trees to manage the full recipe). So, it is useful for things besides shopping lists!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I just got one of these which you can see on my blog, manual entry.
    have you been able to locate the serial number on yours?

    ReplyDelete