It is very hard for me to imagine any half-way successful educational system which does not include the humane arts. It may well be that such a system is graded according to the results achieved in examinations, but that cannot be the deciding factor. Most people can learn dates and numbers by heart, spewing them…

The most interesting thing about letter writing is that it is usually shared with only one other person, unless they decide to pass their letter on to other people, as used to be done in the nineteenth century. It was not uncommon then that a letter writer received a reply from someone he had not…

Dear Sarah Bakewell, It was with great pleasure that I worked through your latest book – At the Existentialist Café – although it is difficult to term such an exercise in reading as work when so much pleasure is involved. Enough to say that it brought me and, undoubtedly, many other readers, in closer contact…

Dear McDonald’s Employee, thank you for taking my order this morning in a courteous and friendly manner, I appreciate it and also appreciate the fact that you are able to remain calm and friendly even when your customers treat you like a piece of dirt. I also appreciate the fact that, despite what many believe,…

I was sorry not to hear from Hannah after my letter to her a while back, but at least I know she is still alive now, and that clearly nothing bad has happened to her which prevented her replying. I tend to answer every personal letter I receive, and it makes no difference to me…

I have also spent a good deal of my time combing through the various penfriend and Snail Mail web sites available, in the vain hope of finding some form of comparable listing, not just of basic interests but also where it is clear that when started the conversation will not simply die after one or…

Dear Bree Olsen, your tearful plea to all young women not to enter a life of pornography is to be welcomed in many respects, and regretted in many others. That you could not have foreseen what life away from the camera would be like, as a ‘public figure’ so to speak, at age nineteen smacks…