Writing

Robert Brady at PureLandMountain comments on the demise of handwriting. People no longer write, they print - in Block Letters. My 80-year old mother's handwriting is beautiful to the eye (and a joy to read), and I confess to being obsessive about the pen I use. Here technology has made great progress, no more blobs from a ball-point pen, but real ink from a precision made yet disposable gel-ink Pilot HI-TEC.

There's a natural link between the hand and eye, a pace conducive to thinking while the hand does the writing. It's the same with fonts – I get carried away by beautiful fonts, and have even been known to buy a font or two for my laptop from a proper foundry - none of this Microsoft Comic Sans nonsense.

I noticed a shop-assistant writing the day's special deal with a brush pen, quick care-free strokes that looked good. But a Japanese colleague thinks computers will be the death of written Kanji, you forget the strokes and stroke order. I doubt it – once learned never forgotten – but I'm not Japanese.

One of the bigger shocks I faced in University life was marking essays - some handwriting was more-or-less illegible, yet all my wiser colleagues would say was "you get used to it".

I never did.