(Nights) Actually most of my emails are no different from letters except in the greeting if I'm familiar with the person. This means capitals, punctuation and paragraphs. Well, why not? At my age you simply don't give a toss if people think you're bizarre. It's great.

The thing is, I tend to see emails as more closely related to memos than letters. When I receive an email written like a formal letter, it comes across, frankly, as somewhat illiterate.

[darren] How would you receive a letter through your letterbox? Would you feel impatience that they didn't email you about it?

[Projoy] It's a gut feeling thing. Although, if I sit and think about it, my regards tend to be much kinder if I'm selling than buying.

[pen] I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at there.

[pen] Dunno about Darren, but I would feel exactly that (and frequently do). We've too few trees as it is, without wasting them on pointless letters, cards etc.

(Projoy) You really can't be allowed to get away with that. The proportion of paper in actual letters compared with the total amount of paper (newspapers, junk mail etc) that comes through my letterbox is very small. In any case, we're not short of trees; there are many more than there were 40-50 years ago, everywhere. To be honest, I'm not that keen on trees, they spoil the view and at one time threatened to undermine my house. Rather overrated, I feel.

[Rosie] Who says my annoyance is confined to only legitimate letters? As to "more trees", I don't know if that's true, although I guess you're more likely to know than I am, But don't we need even more trees at the moment to do Carbon Dioxide conversion? This is the general impression I have gained.

I suspect Rosie is right that there are more trees now than in the 50's. I'm pretty sure, however, that there were many more in the 30's and more still before WW1. Also, the tree-planting boom of the 50's 60's & 70's was mostly conifer plantations. Planting more trees as mixed woodland must be a good thing both aesthetically and as carbon sinks.

IIRC, commercial forestry supplies most of the pulp for paper - and that's a planting-and-harvesting operation of fast-growing monoculture conifers; it doesn't use wood from mixed and deciduous woodland.

I'm still not sure what forest conservation and my opinion of email writing style have to do with each other.

Which would explain the demise of resin/wood particle composite board and the resurgence of quality natural wood at the woodyards. Oh, hang on......

That's a matter of furniturenfashion and the health hazards of the resin fumes, innit?

[Rosie] Well I look forward to being 23 then. And I write text messages just the same way - the joy of predictive text. And a new phone!

In other news, I handed in my dissertation today!

[nights] Congratulations! Well done! I hate you. No, really, well done.

(Projoy) It's true that trees fix carbon rather than letting it float free as CO₂ but the number needed to make any difference is impractically large particularly considering the rate the Amazon jungle and other areas are being chopped down. Trees are nice but have become sacred, which is just silly. They undermine buildings, obscure the sky and the view, drop leaves on the railway line and are even allowed to obscure signals. The biodiversity of tree-free railway cuttings was incredible. Down with trees! BTW I don't quite understand your aversion to printed paper. I get cards all the time from my nieces in addition to all the emails, which is nice, and far better than when they were young teenagers and sent me electronic Christmas cards. Sod that.

[Rosie] Well, I suppose it's a personal preference, but I just find dealing with paper irritating these days. It becomes clutter very quickly. You can't miniaturise it and file it conveniently in a sensible folder system on a HDD. Cards and the like seldom express sentiments profound enough to be worth keeping, and for the most part are ritualistic and purposeless. Almost anything that could be said in a conventional letter could be said in an email, which is far more keepable these days.