Just for anyone looking for a really cheap but reasonably good fountain pen, I mentioned Platinum. These are the ones:
http://www.cultpens.com/c/q/brands/p...latinum-preppy
Great value at £3. Or these:
http://www.cultpens.com/c/q/brands/p...-fountain-pens
About £10 but have nice aluminium bodies, although the nib & feed is identical on both. A lot of people seem to prefer these to Lamy, but I haven't used either enough to give a fair comparison. I've got one of each Platinum and they are OK, but certainly not as good as say, a Twsbi, or any other £50+ pen. Much better than you'd expect for about 1/15th the cost though.
If you want to try something for virtually zero outlay, you can't go wrong with a £3 Preppy, even if it ends up in the bin when you later upgrade to something better. It's actually a refillable pen (takes standard "international" aka Waterman cartridges), but has the build quality of a disposable and should probably be thought of as such. The Aluminium cases on the Plaisir, while made to last longer, can be a bit of a marmite thing (they can be a bit cold to the touch and some find the finish a bit cheap looking). Whereas the Preppy just looks like an ordinary gel pen, so there's not much to hate even if you dislike demonstrators (pens with see-through ink reserves).
Platinum being Japanese, like Sailor, tend to make their nibs a bit finer than others. It's generally recommended to start off with a least an M nib, because it will be close to an F anyway, and these cheaper nibs can be a bit scratchy in the finer sizes. A wider nib is always going to be smoother than a finer one.