First pluck your crow

As fewer people write by hand, some of us who do venture to squeak a thin call of alarm, like mice behind the frescoes during the last days of Pompeii. Philip Hensher (novelist and university teacher) voices dismay more manfully in this eloquent account of what has been and will be lost by the ending of this ancient habit, now that thoughts are transferred on to screens by squirming thumbs on dwarf keyboards. He has a ten-point plan for restoring pen and ink to daily life, and urges us all, literate or semi-literate, to try it out. This may seem like advising all who feel themselves drowning in the gruel of modern communications to trust themselves to a lone crouton bobbing on the surface, but the case for handwriting deserves to be heard, in terms other than those of nostalgic despondency.

In this justification the usual defences are abandoned. Into the ship’s furnace go graphic aestheticism, public utility, moral imperatives, respect for tradition, politeness, and all that.