The Herald's look-back letter H

The grand old New Zealand Herald, which has been talking to Aucklanders daily since 1863, has been shrunk from broadsheet down to compact size and been given a big revamp. But in one way it’s not so new because while the old masthead has been sidelined, we are still left with one lonely letter, the capital H, printed in what’s known as blackletter font.  

And that’s not new at all. In the middle ages, monks used to fill their days by writing out religious texts by hand, using ink and quill pens to produce convoluted gothic lettering. 

So when Mr Gutenberg invented, in 1455, a way to print words over and over again, using movable type, it was natural for him to copy the monastery style you can see below. . 

He printed his famous bible and showed the world a way to make books available en masse for the first time. 
Blackletter is closely linked with German history and much used by Hitler's lot for nasty propaganda publishing, which is why it fell right out of favour after World War II. 

There are of course thousands of modern, more readable typefaces, but many newspapers, in love with the aura of history and authority conveyed by blackletter script, have clung on to it. 

So even now the Herald still carries a 15^th century echo of Gutenberg. Given how very hard it is to read, we can just be very thankful that graphic designers dropped blackletter font for any other purpose a very long time ago.  

Me and My Car

Depending on how your life works out, and if you’ve had kids, and if they’ve had kids, and assuming you’re all living in the same town, you might get caught up in granny duties at some stage of your mid- or late-life years.

At 60 I thought I’d never be a grandma. Blink. A few years on there’ve been three new arrivals, all accessorised with irresistible smiles. Being on granny duty (let me amend that to ‘calling’ rather than ‘duty’) can be complicated if there’s fair distance between your house and the dwelling of the little people.

So I find myself driving. A lot.

There are two ways to cope. You can mutter darkly to yourself on the motorway about how ridiculous this is and how you’ll have to move closer before you go mad or the rising price of petrol chews up your bank account forever.

Or you can sit back, play some nice music and ponder on the fact that actually you’re so lucky to have a car to get you to the big-hug zone. And how some of your friends have grandchildren growing up 12,000 miles away who they only get to see on Skype, while your trip is only 50ks long.

And that there are some nice cafes and excellent produce shops to drop into
along the way. And that when you get there it really is worth it. Every time.

I’ve made a small video about this modern driving dilemma. Hope you enjoy…