
mechanical pencil leads
So the Color Eno pilot pencil leads finally arrived after their long journey from California, along with a customs charge slapped on them by "Border Force"....i mean come on, who chooses these names really? As i joked earlier, it sounds like some government superhero group who has the mutant ability to extort money from mild mannered cartoonists, i mean a package that weighs less than an apple has an 8 pounds sterling "handling fee" with 8 pounds in vat? A HANDLING FEE worth 8 pounds to lift some lightweight package! That's even more expensive than the postage and it flew all the way from the other end of the United States.

As i mentioned a few blogs previous, i was looking for the non-repro blue pencil leads at a more reasonable price considering how easily i seem to go through them and how expensive they can be (about 4 pounds each pack of 10 leads). Here they were however from San Jose California's jetpens.com at about 2 pounds per pack. Just what i needed i thought. I believe the postage was about 10 dollars and seemed reasonable. Little did i know that anything above the value of 50 dollars and the greedy assholes at "Border Force" want to slap a charge on there "just because", thus attempting to foil my plans at trying to save a few coins in my artistic endeavors. (hey what's wrong with trying to save a few pennies)

It would appear that handling these
pencil leads is backbreaking work
So what is the moral of the story? It can't be "support your own" considering that everywhere you look in the likes of Asda they have nothing but chicken from Holland, Brazillian or Argentinian corned beef, Polish sliced meat, Indian Surimi and so on and so on. So what is it? pick on the little guy who's just wanting to draw a bunch of cartoons? I mean a handling fee to handle a punch of pencil leads? backbreaking work i must say, i wish i could get paid as handsomely for lifting a pencil and sticking it on a plane....and VAT? I wonder what firework my hard earned cash helps contribute to when it goes up in smoke at the end of the year to the sound of Auld Lang Syne.
So if you're wondering why the word "starving artist" still prevails you can be rest assured that the government is partially responsible...but aren't they always? They want to take the color out of everything, even my Color Enos for heaven's sake!
So if you're wondering why the word "starving artist" still prevails you can be rest assured that the government is partially responsible...but aren't they always? They want to take the color out of everything, even my Color Enos for heaven's sake!