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.