Some years ago I was in Seattle for a business trip (horror of a flight there) and had a few hours to take in a few of the obvious tourist spots, including the Space Needle. When visiting touristy places I tend to pick up a few mementoes and have a tendency to get a booklet of some sort – and a cup.

I have learnt that most tourist venues sell cups – so if I always buy a cup, I can have a generic collection which is generally similar across the range.

Anyhow, this time I got something very different. I found some boxes which contain a wooden pen in the shape of the Space Needle – in itself not actually that interesting…

…until I read the note and it turned out these pens had been made for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, but hadn’t arrived in time so spent the past 40 odd years in a warehouse forgotten. They were found, cleaned up and were finally on sale.

I thought the story was charming – and promptly brought one for myself, and a few for my colleagues back at the office who had worked just as hard on the business proposal.

Why am I writing about it now – well, there is a weekend of Frasier on one of the satellite TV channels and I noticed from the trailer in one of them that the Roz character has one of those very same pens sitting on her desk when working in the radio broadcast office.

Neat!