The Lost Art of the Letter

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On Monday night, I watched an item on BBC News about a new Van Gogh biography that attempts to explode the legend that the troubled artist committed suicide. The primary research materials have been the thousands of letters left by Van Gogh and it got me thinking. So many biographies rely on correspondence either written to, by or about the figure in question, and letters usually provide the largest body of material due to their inherent "keepsake" nature. Call me a Luddite, but there's something irresistable about the letter. Emails don't make that satisfying "thwap" sound on the doormat. They don't have the same tangible feel, and they don't feature random doodles. The lack of handwriting makes them so impersonal.

It did make me wonder exactly what form future biographies will take. Will they quote casual tweets as an indicator of a person's mental wellbeing? Will access be granted to inboxes to allow researchers to comb through years of spam and Facebook notifications? Will blog posts become the favoured means of communication, replacing the personal correspondence of a beloved or notorious figure? As our private lives become increasingly public through the use of social media...will there even be a place for the biography?

20 Things I Miss

Tweet Yesterday, over on her Kommein blog, Deb Ng posted a list of thirty things that she misses. It really got me thinking, so I couldn't help but make a list of twenty things that I miss. I would have done thirty but it would have essentially boiled down to things I miss about my home town.

1) 80s kids' cartoons like Count Duckula or Dangermouse.
2) School holidays.
3) Staying up until 4am just to talk random nonsense with someone online.
4) Receiving actual letters in the post, not just marketing circulars or bills.
5) Wispa Cappuccinos.
6) Having a garden, and not having to visit a park just to enjoy green space.
7) Proper phone calls to catch up, instead of relying on Facebook statuses to see what someone's up to.
8) My rabbit.
9) The clacking of old keys on a typewriter.
10) The deathly silence of a week day morning in the suburbs.
11) Being only half an hour away from the coast.

12) Pretty much the North East in general.
13) Cinema prices being less than a fiver.
14) Dressing up to go out to dinner.
15) Going to the theatre.
16) People talking to one another on public transport.
17) Mobile phones that simply let you call someone.
18) Being able to see the stars.
19) Manners.
20) When people were famous for having a talent for something besides getting themselves in the paper/on TV.

What about you? What do you miss?