This day in history - 07:01:1148.4

07:01:1148.4 On this day the first Gurden printing press was unveiled by Johannes Purvey.  A monstrous machine; it stood twenty feet high and was constructed on a black steel frame with a multitude of lethal looking golden arms and gigantic counter-weights flying through the air.  The machine, unlike so many other mechanical marvels of the Kingdom, worked perfectly, if rather noisily.  As Johannes tinkered with his machine, the clanging of metal on metal and the shaking of the ground kept the residents of the fourth circle of the castle awake for days on end.  When eventually it started to spew out reams of printed paper, everyone agreed that the printing press was a marvel; which surely would usher in the modern age.  Alas Johannes, being  severely affected by word-blindness, never really got to grips with type; never knowing which way up and in what order to place the little lead letters that made up the words.  The resultant sheets of paper that the machine spat out were so incomprehensible that the public soon lost interest in the machine and, so too, the promise of a modern age.  Gurden was therefore the only known society to end up rejecting the printed word, going back to writing out everything longhand with a duck’s feather and a bottle of ink. Johannes Purvey disappeared into history, a bitter man.  The ducks were not very happy about this either