I was recently buying a couple of things from Bureau Direct and needed to add something else to my basket for free shipping so I thought I’d get a wild card item… I chose the Tous Les Jours ballpoint pen by Mark’s Inc. 
It’s a very lightweight 0.5mm ballpoint pen. It’s USP comes in that it has the days of the week listed around the side, each with a suggested activity.
Spending the last 2 years doing evening classes in French has finally come in handy!
It translates as:
Monday – watch a film
Tuesday – listen to a CD (bit old school…)
Wednesday – Read a
Thursday – Write a poem
Friday – Buy a ticket
Saturday/Sunday – Go on a little trip
As I said, it’s very light, and actually, as you can see in this picture the body of the pen is a pencil casing. I really like how it writes; the line comes out incredibly thinly, and feels precise. I don’t generally like to use ballpoint pens very often, but this one could change my mind. The only negative thing about it is that it’s kind of noisy. The actual pen part rattles around inside the casing.
At £5.95 it’s actually extremely expensive, for what is essentially a biro. But I do like it and it’s a bit different, so maybe it’s worth it. I also recently reviewed another Mark’s Inc product, the Pensée sticky note rolls.
Lovely! It looks like it would nicely complement the Delfonics mechanical pencil I reviewed a while back — same push mechanism on the end, same sleek profile. Alas, if only I liked ballpoints at all….
Just looked up your review – very true! I do like a mechanical pencil that looks like a regular one. Also, just realised I wasn’t subscribed to you – terrible! I’ve just added yout o my feedly 🙂
I love these, I found them in Basel a couple of years ago and they were all borrowed away .-) I found they smudged a bit. But I since discovered the OHTO fine parker style refill which do not smudge and I use for my bird notes in the field. They are so fine things just start drawing themselves. 🙂
Ooooh, that’s a great tip – thanks Dave! I’ll look out those refills when I finish this one.
I bought a couple of these and loved the way they wrote but found the rattling too much to put up with. However, i did find an easy and effective fix which was to remove the metal push button, wrap some clear sticky tape around the base where it inserts into the barrel a couple times and then screw it back on. Rattle completely gone. Love the pen now
Oooh great tip! I’ll give that a go. Mine does rattle but it doesn’t bother me too much. This pen is a definite favourite!
I bought the tous les jours propelling pencil which is utterly lovely to look at…. BUT the mechanism has given out after only 2 weeks use. I am really upset!
I have one of these pens which a bought in the Far East. I really like it and hadn’t noticed the “rattle”. Do the pens come with different coloured ink?