I don't know about you, but my handwriting is getting worse. It has always been pretty awful - ornate yet scruffy, like weeds sprawling across the page - but now it's bordering on illegible. The reason for this is obvious: none of us write by hand any more. We type, we tweet, we paste; but we don't select our favourite pen and a sheet of white paper and write a letter. We Instagram instead of sending postcards. We send digital birthday greetings. I even write my shopping list on my phone.
Because handwriting is dying, it is becoming an art form. Or at least a symbol of old-fashioned elegance. Whenever I meet my friend Joan for dinner (she is a journalist of a certain age) two days later she sends me a handwritten message on her headed notepaper, telling me how nice it was to see me. Here in Paris, fashion houses commission the calligrapher Nicolas Ouchenir to create beautiful handwritten invitations to their shows. In other words, they outsource their handwriting.
I've decided to make a conscious effort to write by hand. Perhaps a short story, penned on vacation. I can imagine myself in my deckchair, wearing a panama hat, composing long sentences in the shade while the sea laps nearby. By the way, this magazine is about to take its annual break, so I wish you a wonderful summer. I live at 16 rue Villeneuve, Clichy. Feel free to write me a postcard.
