Introducing: Not Another Bill

We caught up with Not Another Bill founder Ned Corbett-Winder to ask about the joy of sending surprise gifts through the post

What's the idea behind Not Another Bill?

Not Another Bill is built on the premise that no one gets anything good in the post any more, other than bills and the odd pizza menu. Our aim is to make everyone's letter box a more exciting place, while at the same time introducing our subscribers to new designers, artists and creatives. Each month our subscribers receive a beautifully wrapped and carefully curated surprise present in the post. We work with a handful of brands to produce bespoke and exclusive products, which cannot be found on the high street.

Tell us about some of the recent gifts you've sent out to subscribers. Any particular favourites?

We've had a really exciting year, and we were lucky enough to work with some of our favourite brands. With such a broad subscriber base our gifts have ranged from mirrors to stationery, candles to card holders. One of our stand out collaborations of last year was working with Tom Dixon – we are big fans of his work as well as having a slight brass obsession, so his Golden Ruler and Brass clips were great for our stationery aficionados. Other favourites include jewellery brand Fairley, woollen gloves from Hikaru Noguchi, HK Living homewares and a pigeon post themed scarf from Karen Mabon.

What's important to you?

We think it's important to introduce our subscribers to designers that are sourced from far and wide. Why should we send something that could be found in any design store? We focus on the curation of our postal surprises, and work on overall themes that will fit in with our subscribers' personal preferences. The collaboration element of our brand is really important to us too, as it means that we are able to work closely with individual designers to create exclusive gifts each month. 

Any exciting new collaborations coming up this year?

We have got a very exciting year lined up, with collaborations sourced from all over the world  – from both big brands and small studios. Although we would love to share with our followers what gifts await them this year, we simply can't ruin the surprise. All we can say is watch this space...

What's on your bedside table?

Aside from the erratic scrawled notes of late night ideas and planning, my bedside table houses an alarm clock to ensure I'm at N.A.B headquarters on time, a scented candle from our collaboration with Yolke, a selection of books I'm forever trying to find the time to read and of course, Ernest Journal. 

Check out these recent gifts from Not Another Bill, now available to purchase through their site:

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Brass bottle opener, £28
The essential tool with a sleek, geometric twist. In collaboration with Danish brand Ferm Living.

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Brass cufflinks, £28
"Inspired by architectural design and lots of graph paper." Made in collaboration with Scottish brand Tom Pigeon.

Leather document folder, £25
"A document wallet to give you 10/10 in the board room." Made from recycled leather, in collaboration with Undercover.

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Nautical plates, £28
"A nautical-inspired kitchen set to keep your table looking ship shape". Scrimshaw set designed by New York-based Thomas Paul

Not Another Bill are offering Ernest readers £5 off any subscription plan – just quote code 'ernest5' when ordering. This is a sponsored blog post, created in collaboration with Not Another Bill. For more information on partnerships and joining our directory please email advertise@ernestjournal.co.uk.

The craft apron: butchery

7th Rise set a simple brief: a comfortable, durable and wipeable butchery apron, with a heritage aesthetic. Francli knew what to do

Together, as part of Francli's Live Projects, Francli and 7th Rise – off-grid outdoor adventure and wild food specialists – have created a multi-functional butchery apron, hard-wearing enough for when gutting, skinning and filleting meat and fish. It needed to be comfortable and versatile to lend protection for other activities such as wood chopping and indoor cooking.

Francli had this to say about their work:

"Our Live Projects are purely explorative and collaborative works fuelled by our fascination and respect for other creatives and outdoor enthusiasts. 

Each project works closely with a creative professional to make bespoke workwear for their chosen craft. This collaborative process of designing, sampling, testing and developing such specific pieces gives us the opportunity to expand our design knowledge and skills. These projects keep us constantly challenged and inspired so that we stay creatively fresh for other areas of our brand, such as our studio design service and craft-wear shop."

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The Francli studio is made up of purely explorative, creative and collaborative projects fuelled by their fascination and respect for other creatives and outdoor enthusiasts. francli.co.uk

The priest hole maker

With ingenious craftsmanship and derring-do, Nicholas Owen - patron saint of illusionists and escapologists - saved the lives of many priests in the 16th century, as Mark Blackmore relates

Design: Tina Smith

England at the time of the succession from Elizabeth I to James I was not the best place and time to be a Catholic. Having had their rather brief day under the reign of Elizabeth’s predecessor Mary I, or Bloody Mary, Catholics were now viewed by the ruling powers as dangerous at best, as kindling at worst. So if you were a Catholic priest it was a good idea to have a hiding place available. 

Fortunately, at this time there lived a man who mixed genius with derring-do, who would have won an All-England hide-and-seek competition with ease, who overcame great physical disability to show such courage and resourcefulness that in 1970 he was canonised by Pope Paul VI. 

Nicholas Owen was, according to contemporary reports, barely larger than a dwarf. He suffered from a hernia and a severe limp, one leg having been crushed by a horse. He travelled the country under the name of ‘Little John’, and on his travels he built priest holes so cunningly placed it is believed many still exist, undiscovered, to this day. 

A priest hole is a tiny concealed chamber built into a house – in the panelling, under a staircase, behind a false fireplace. Catholic priests would use them to evade pursuivants, or priest-hunters. 

Owen, always working alone at night, was a master of concealment. A good example of his work can be seen at Harvington Hall in Worcestershire. There, on a staircase, is one step that, if pressed to a certain angle, opens an entrance to a small room in which someone with enough food and water could stay for weeks. 

Little is known of his early life – the best guess is that he was born around 1550 in Oxford to a devoutly Catholic family, becoming a carpenter by trade. He worked most of his life in the service of a Jesuit priest call Henry Garnet, and was himself admitted into the Society of Jesus as a lay brother. 

Owen was first arrested in 1582, after publicly proclaiming that the Jesuit priest Edmund Campion, who had been found guilty of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered, was not guilty. After his release he managed to evade arrest until 1594. This time he was tortured, but revealed nothing of his work, and was released after a wealthy Catholic family paid a hefty fine. The authorities at this time believed him to be a man of no significance, who simply happened to have some wealthy friends. 

A figure of stealth 

If only they’d known they had a wee Elizabethan James Bond on their hands. On the night of 4 October 1597 Father John Gerard escaped from the Tower of London along with a colleague and, astonishingly, their gaoler, who would have been punished for their escape. They climbed from the Tower on a rope that had been strung across the moat. The man who planned and directed the entire daring escapade was of course Nicholas Owen. 

In 1603 James VI of Scotland became James I of England, but things didn’t improve for Catholics. Just three years later Owen and three priests, two of whom had been involved in the Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot, were surprised by pursuivants at Hindlip Hall in Worcestershire. They bolted in pairs into two priest holes that Owen had already constructed, but had little in the way of supplies, and the pursuivants had come prepared. Though searches were predictably fruitless, the hunters included a full complement of carpenters and stonemasons. They simply began deconstructing the house, brick by brick, panel by panel. 

With discovery imminent Owen gave himself up in the hope of distracting attention from the priests, but it was to no avail. All four were uncovered, and Owen’s capture in particular was widely celebrated. 

Secretary of State Robert Cecil said “It is incredible, how great was the joy caused by his arrest... knowing the great skill of Owen in constructing hiding places, and the innumerable quantity of dark holes which he had schemed for hiding priests all through England.” 

Nowhere to hide 

Off to the Tower of London went Nicholas Owen, and this time there was to be no escape. Here was a man who could give information on the hiding places of many of the most dangerous enemies of the state, and the full weight of the era’s interrogatory methods were brought to bear upon him. 

Owen was a brave man, but his body was not built to withstand such treatment. He was hung on a rack from iron gauntlets, and weights added to his feet. Even strapping an iron plate to his stomach could not keep his body from rupturing. He died, disembowelled, having provided his captors with no useful information. The government, finding itself somewhat embarrassed at having tortured to death a celebrity prisoner, claimed he had committed suicide, but this was met with public disbelief. The Venetian ambassador wrote home: “Public opinion holds that Owen died of the tortures inflicted on him, which were so severe that they deprived him not only of his strength but of the power to move any part of his body.” 

He is now one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, known to Catholics as Saint Nicholas Owen, patron saint of illusionists and escapologists. His friend Father Gerard wrote of him: “I verily think no man can be said to have done more good of all those who laboured in the English vineyard. He was the immediate occasion of saving the lives of many hundreds of persons, both ecclesiastical and secular.”

Discover more about priest holes and where to find them.

Mark Blackmore has written for many diverse publications including Men’s Health, BBC History, Countryfile, Focus and Sabotage Times. He recently published The Wager, a novel about a bet between God and Lucifer.

To read more curious history tales buy our second print edition of Ernest Journal

The Grey Fox meets Thomas Clipper

"The older among us may remember our fathers using single-edged blade razors. The memory of the scent of Palmolive shave soap and Old Spice that lingered in the bathroom after my father had left for work is a powerful one. Thomas Clipper has enabled me to relive this memory with their beautifully made traditional razors..."

Mark K razor, Thomas Clipper, £99

The usual assumption is that new is better, but, as I’ve discovered recently with the help of Thomas Clipper, when it comes to shaving, that’s not the case. The older double-sided single-edged blade gives a better shave that the modern multi-blade razor.

The older among us may remember our fathers using single-edged blade razors. The memory of the scent of Palmolive shave soap and Old Spice that lingered in the bathroom after my father had left for work is a powerful one. Thomas Clipper has enabled me to relive this memory with their beautifully made traditional razors (made in the UK and India), Egyptian-made blades and frankincense shave oil – soon to be joined by other products.

The skills of traditional shaving died as the modern razor took over, pushed by marketing men who recognised that, by selling a cheap razor and tying you into buying very expensive blades, they ensure a good profit. But, in my experience, multiple blades require more passes to achieve a close cut and cost maybe ten times as much as a single-edged blade. 

With a Thomas Clipper razor it may take you, as a novice, a week or two to acquire the skills (with maybe the odd nick in the process). After that time you will enjoy the experience, relishing the closeness of the cut. You will then want to explore the fascinating world of shaving foams, balms, oils and unguents that add to the fun. You will find that different brands of blade vary in results and longevity and razors give differing types of shave, depending on their design. 

The Thomas Clipper Mark K razor has a beautifully-balanced handle and shape that allows a close shave with minimum effort. It’s been a revelation. Give it a go; like me, you may find that you look forward to each morning’s shave.

David Evans is a lawyer turned teacher who writes Grey Fox Blog, which documents his search for style. With no background in fashion, he started the blog in 2011 to promote the British menswear industry and to persuade the fashion world to take notice of that large and affluent demographic, the older man. greyfoxblog.com 

Cutting a record, Gearbox style

Gearbox Records master and cut their own vinyl at their studio in King's Cross, London. They also master and cut for outside clients and provide a consultancy service to guide producers, engineers and artists through the potential minefield of vinyl record production. Here they take Ernest through the process of cutting vinyl from source to sleeve.

Cutting vinyl requires the same approach to craftsmanship, dedication and quality as any other hand crafted artisanal activities. Our goal is to make the best records that it’s possible to make at every level, and the mastering and cutting process is crucial to the quality and sonority of the finished record.

The source

Everything starts from the source – the better the quality the better the finished record will sound. Tape with no digital often sounds best, but we can work from any analogue or digital file format. We’ve found that recording a digital source to 1/4” tape on our legendary vintage valve Studer C37 tape machine can radically enhance the sound, almost as if the tape was gluing the music together.

Mastering

The source is then mastered through our all analogue and highly transparent Maselec master series equipment. This is the perfect marriage of vintage and modern to get the best out of the sound.

Cutting the groove

This signal is sent to the cutting head of the 1967 Haeco Scully lathe where the groove is cut into a blank lacquer to create the master. Our Scully, with its Westrex amplifiers, is the same set up as Blue Note were using and has no digital preview signal processing for Varigroove. This means we have a 100% analogue chain with none of the jitter associated with early digital converters from the 70s and 80s as in most other lathes currently operating.

Creating the record

The finished lacquers are then sent to Optimal Media in Germany for manufacture. The first stage is the galvanic process which includes polishing and electrolysis to create the metal stampers. From these stampers, hot vinyl pucks are smashed at high pressure, trimmed and cooled to create the vinyl record.

Testing, testing

We insist on the making of a number of test pressings to check everything’s sounding right and there are no technical issues. Meanwhile the artwork is prepared by our designer, and templates sent to Optimal Media, who also do all the printing.

Packing and shipping

Once the test pressings have been signed off, the production run can go ahead and the records are pressed, sleeved, packed and shipped to us for distribution to our dealers around the world. We insist on small vinyl runs of 500 or 1,000 units to maintain the highest possible quality control (a typical stamper can press about 5,000 units), and always use the best materials for covers and appropriate weight of vinyl for each release.

On the turntable

Finally comes the best part – the ritual of preparing and placing the record on the turntable, sitting back and enjoying the analogue glow of music that’s as close to the original source - the singers and musicians who created it - as it’s possible to get. Have a listen yourself. 

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Discover more about Gearbox Records in our online directory.

This is a sponsored blog post, created in collaboration with Gearbox Records. For more information on partnerships and joining our directory please email advertise@ernestjournal.co.uk.