I was just driving along the banks of Loch Tay looking for my usual photo opportunities when I saw this shop .... When I say I saw it , I mean I nearly crashed the car , it's a thing of beauty !!

The only sad thing is the shop is no longer open , but why not ? Is it a PC thing that people are turned off by the thought of horn carving ? I hope not , it is obviously a dying (or dead) art and the man would have been an artist in carving and or that his skill should have been preserved .

If you're going to get tattoo's done , make them old school .

The ones shown on this page are all mine and all on my right arm and courtesy of my favourite tattooist Frankie , and he done one hell of a job .

These are my latest buy , a boot so ugly it's beautiful .

I think of these as the duck billed platypus of the boot world ... if you were to describe them to anyone they'd never believe they even existed ....BUT ... put them in their own environment and they are unbeatable and TOTALLY functional and for someone who spends some of their personal time walking across streams to get better photographs there isn't better footwear on the planet .

Another couple of recent buys and this time both Japanese .

What I love about both these items is the simplicity of them .....

The Higonokami knife for example , the design hasn't changed since the 19th century and it's all about function ...they looked at what is important about about a knife ? THE BLADE and baby what a blade .... triple folded Samurai style and it is SHARP .

A thing of beauty .

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Up next is the Hero fountain pen which again has a simplicity about it that screams function but yet looks AMAZING .

It's a pen like this that make me want to write stuff ... the question is what to write?

This is my latest buy and in a surprising twist it is devoid of technology .

It is totally handmade in India and contains handmade paper as well ...These are the kind of skills we need to maintain in the world .

Now , people who know me will be screaming about Lo-Tech and other such nonsense but occasionally we need to step away from phone note takers (like the one on the iPhone4) and do it the PROPER way ....Imagine yourself sitting in a coffee shop reading Kerouac , would you rather be doing it on a iPad looking like a dick ? or doing it on a battered copy that has been read to death and lived many lives with many people ? I know which i'd choose .

LONG LIVE THE ARTISAN !!!!

I find these Caterpillar boots quite inspiring , they are currently inspiring me to get out and about , take walks etc .

They've also inspired me to look for more artisan items , items that improve with age and with the wear that life brings . I don't know why but they remind me of an old expedition boot and I love that !!

I imagine the next few posts will include leather items , wooden items and other stuff that , like myself (ha) will age gracefully

I find myself recently mourning the (almost) death of the artisan ...The Leather Worker , The Book Binder , The Cobbler etc .

I don't imagine I'm the only one who feels as if everything is being standardised , from clothes to furniture and everything in between right up to people's 'taste' .... for example , where are all the youth cults ? the little pockets of 'in' crowds who have their own style and even in some cases their own language . You don't have to harken back that far to the 70's and 80's when you had Mods, Skins , Punks , Rockers , Casuals , Soulies ..... everybody was SOMETHING and within all those cults there was sub-cults of differing styles ..... WHAT DO WE HAVE NOW ?

What i would say is find a style you like , however outlandish it is and stick to it , buy classic and buy good , ignore fashions and keep a note of your thoughts