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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

I wonder what psychological torment, latent criminality or sociopathic markers a graphologist might identify from examining my writing. The customary simile of an intoxicated spider staggering across the Nile Blue lined paper of one of those large notebooks from Smythson is pitifully inadequate when trying to describe the varied appearance of my, ahem, “idiosyncratic” handwriting style.

Some pages are filled with what look like the loops of an extended spring. Turn a leaf or two and there is a fine display of micrography. My favourites are the pages that make the paintings of Jackson Pollock and Joan Miró seem like easily decipherable works of realism.

The time has come for me to seek help, which is how I find myself in the basement bunker beneath the Montblanc store on New Bond Street in the subterranean lair of the nib whisperer, otherwise known as Simon Weir, Montblanc’s “senior learning and development manager”.

Weir is the UK custodian of Montblanc’s sacerdotal bespoke programme. The relationship between writer and pen is intensely personal (or, in my case, dysfunctional). Those who want to deepen, improve or actually establish that relationship have to submit to what can only be described as a calligraphical assault course, devised to identify the pen and the one true nib that will transform the act of writing from mere communication into an act of personal expression.

Nick Foulkes’s pen features a nib set with a faceted ruby and etched with his signature and email address © Joseph Horton

In addition to the eight standard nib sizes available to anyone who enters a Montblanc store, the bespoke nib-configurator service involves a further 16, each representing not merely a different line width, but an entirely different writing philosophy altogether.

Just as your first visit to a new tailor might involve trying on a jacket of roughly the right size to give the cutter an idea of what he is dealing with, so the Montblanc nib-meister works his nibs. There are nibs for copperplate, nibs for the slow careful hand, nibs for speed writing, nibs for book-signings, nibs with oblique angles… soon, I am lost in a labyrinth of writing choices.

“Take the flex nib,” enthuses Weir. “You apply pressure on the downward stroke, to broaden the line, and then you release the pressure on the upward stroke. You would use a flex nib for copperplate, or sharp point calligraphy. We then developed the curved nib that replicates the brush calligraphy of Asia, where you have a very fine vertical line, but a very fat horizontal line.”

The triple-tine, double-slit “signature nib” meanwhile is an instrument of ceremony and pomp – perfect for those moments when one’s signature must command attention and respect. It generates a gothicky script with a shadow effect – the sort of thing that encourages you to begin a sentence with the words “Ye Olde”.

The bespoke service starts from £1,315 © Joseph Horton

I require neither the meditative quality of oriental calligraphy, nor the sort of Tudorbethan style with which Henry VIII might have signed one of his spousal death warrants. I just want something that doesn’t scratch or leave unsightly blots and splashes. And to be able to read what I write.

Weir says the scratchiness should be ameliorated by the nib itself. “The beauty of our nib being 18-carat gold, and having the iridium tip, means that the more you write with your pen, the more it’s going to take the shape of your style,” he explains. “Like a good pair of shoes, once that nib wears in, that’s really your nib, which should be good for up to 50 years with the right use and care.”

The “fitting” procedure requires me to fill numerous pieces of paper with a variety of nibs. Sometimes I write slowly, sometimes quickly, and I have to sign my name many times, not to enable forgery of my signature, I am reassured, but, because when you sign your name, you apply a great deal more pressure to the page.

The pen is delivered in a leather casket © Joseph Horton

And all the time I write, I am being filmed so that the analysts in Hamburg can gauge the nib that best suits me in real time. I almost settle on what, in my ignorance, I can only describe as a treble-broad ultra-supersoft that leaves a broad blue stripe not much narrower than the northbound section of the M1 – but I am tactfully directed towards something more manageable, a double-broad soft. It glides noiselessly rather than scratching audibly, and the flow of glossy ink is even and neat.

Technical aspects finished, it is time for the pimping… as Montblanc does not call it. Naturally, I go fully loaded, my initials engraved copperplate style at the base of the nib, one flank laser-etched with my email address, the other with a miniature replica of my signature and, best of all, a faceted ruby in the centre of the nib, where the air hole normally is. In fact, this little spiracle is still there. Like a carburettor it ensures the correct mixture of ink and air to keep the capillary system running. It took Montblanc two years to devise a setting that would stop the stone from springing out when the nib is pressed but which would still permit free flow of air.

After a couple of months, the pen arrives in a handsome leather casket; a masterpiece in its own right with niches for more pens, a compartment for Montblanc ink and a stock of Montblanc notebooks.

I would be lying if I told you that my writing had improved. But at least my bespoke pen has added another distinct character to the multiple personalities of my handwriting.