In today’s world, no one has everything. And the minute you think you do, you find that something new has been invented you never knew you needed. My wife, for instance, had no idea she had use for a lipstick printer, which could produce paint in whatever colour she fancied that day. Neither of us had any idea you could get a projector that produced crystal-clear images on our wall (even if it had no speakers). And while, of course, I knew all about Moleskin notebooks — the legendary brand beloved of Hemingway and war reporters — one with a pen that “records” what you write and transfers it into digital form, or even types it up, made me instantly covetous. That’s our Christmas list almost sorted, then.
Moleskine digital notebook
Sometimes being a journalist is disappointing. As a teenager I imagined a life on the edge of war zones, drinking beer through grizzled stubble beneath a languorously swishing ceiling fan. Sitting alone in some sticky southeast Asian bar, I would read through my Moleskine notebook, in which – burdened by my noble calling – I had recorded the terrible scenes witnessed that day. I did not imagine – with the greatest respect to Yves Saint Laurent – testing lipstick shades in the home counties. Thus it is that a man reaches an age where he realises he will never be a footballer, and will never leave a string of mistresses across the Orient as he hitches dusty lifts in Land Rovers in pursuit of man’s inhumanity to man. What about the notebook, though? Even in a digital age? There is no shortage of electronic notepaper on the market. What I would like, though, is electronic notepaper with the emphasis more on the “notepaper” bit than the “electronic”. I don’t want a rigid screen that behaves like a marginally more sophisticated Etch A Sketch. This is where Moleskine’s Smart Writing Set comes in. It looks, and is, almost exactly like a Moleskine – beloved by eminent writers and people who would like to be eminent writers. What is different is not the paper, but the pen. Instead of a rigid “document”, recording what I write with a stylus, I have a real notebook, on which a pen really writes – but then a tiny camera on the pen records it for an app. The result is a set of notes that are, literally, just notes. The pen will upload these to an app that will record and save the page (if you use a non-Moleskine page you will learn that part of the magic comes from tiny dots that triangulate its position for the camera) – and, if wanted, convert your scrawl into typewritten text. Now all I need is the ceiling fan.
£229, moleskine.com
Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Sur Mesure lipstick maker
There is a surprising amount for men to enjoy in Rouge Sur Mesure, a home lipstick printer by Yves Saint Laurent. It loads like a shotgun, for one. “Ker-klunk” it goes as you put in the blush-pink cartridge. Ker-klunk it continues as you add a delicate shade of red. I can imagine I am an SAS hostage rescuer on a daring night-time raid, rather than a husband installing a choose-your-own lipstick machine for a mildly technophobic wife. Then there’s the app. When I point the phone towards my wife, on screen it shows versions of her with different lipstick colours. Briefly, tantalisingly, I have a customisable wife. Except, just on the lips. Also, the lips object and start saying things. And the hands take control of the phone. You can choose a colour to automatically match your Christmas party frock, or pick something bolder to kiss Santa under the mistletoe. My wife chooses something a bit more muted. She presses the button and from out of the machine, emerging like a pink wormcast, comes the chosen colour – in just the right quantities for one application. It works, but my wife is not completely sold. For her, part of the fun of lipstick is going to a shop, trying it out and “getting away from everyone. Seeing how it is made kills the magic: like seeing inside the sausage factory.” For women who change their lipstick colour regularly, however, she tells me this would be just the ticket. Apparently I know several such women, although have never noticed their ever-changing lips. When I point out that my not noticing – as a man – might negate the point of the regular lipstick changes, it is strongly implied that that view is precisely the problem with men.
£250, yslbeauty.co.uk
Sony home cinema projector
When people ask us what we watch on television, I like to reply that we don’t have a television. The implication is clear: of a winter’s evening we sit around the fire reading improving tracts in companionable silence. Perhaps, if my wife or I is feeling frivolous, we will request that one of the children “play something jolly on the pianoforte”. What I don’t usually add is that, while we don’t have a TV, we do have a big projector so that this Christmas we can watch less-than-improving movies on a really big screen. The problem with projectors, though, is that they don’t work so well in the daytime. On a bright winter’s day with the curtains drawn, sometimes we have to wait until 4pm before we can anaesthetise our minds with television. How to watch the King’s Speech? The answer is Sony’s top-end projector. The VPL-XW7000ES is huge. It is at least ten times the volume of my now-emasculated projector. Even switched off there is an uneasy menace to it, like a powerful stallion at rest. It doesn’t so much project the image on to our wall as etch it on frame by frame. This is a projector that is about sheer brightness. And while it takes up a lot of room, it is intended, I suspect, to disappear into your ceiling when done. What should I watch to test it? It is clear that a projector of this power needs – nay demands – a film of comparable stature: something high-octane and high-tech, masculine yet sophisticated. Something where manly men sweat together then stand around in handkerchief-sized towels. It needs, obviously, Top Gun. What it also needs, I realise only as Danger Zone begins, is a separate speaker. As someone used to an all-in-one cheapy projector I hadn’t appreciated that at the top end, as with sound systems, everything comes as separates. So it is that on screen, in pinprick detail, an F-14 Tomcat roars off to battle for freedom, but in my living room that roar comes out of my laptop. The baddies are beaten in dazzling Technicolor, but the sound of their defeat comes out of tiny, tiny speakers.
£14,999, pro.sony
