Gone are the days when I always had a pen in my pocket. Gone are the days when I needed a pen to go to work. The NHS does not now always require a pen, and the NHS is not quick to abandon old technology. Ten years ago I worked in a hospital where a ward computer still had a floppy disk drive. Older readers will understand – and wince – when I say it wasn’t three-and-a-half inches but five-and-a-quarter.

I remember writing my university finals with a pen, and I remember it because I recall how it felt. The pressure of time and the pressure of the pen made the ache in my writing hand memorable. I rewrote each sentence several times, and sometimes the whole paragraph, before it reached the paper. I don’t think I’m alone in finding my thoughts quicker than my hands, even when writing in haste. These days, like almost everyone else, I don’t use a pen even to scribble a quick note – I use my phone – and for anything longer there is the keyboard. Now I don’t consider and revise my phrases as I write; I discover what they are when I see them appear on the screen.

Does the enforced slowness of a pen encourage prose that is more thoughtful, more leisured – in some fundamental way better? Hard to discern, any more than........

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