Letter: Blasted plastic

Sir: I am saddened by the report on people who cannot overcome a distaste for the telephone ('Don't call me, please, and I won't call you', 24 August).

Like all gadgetry, the telephone has its uses. It can, of course, be life saving. But it has killed stone dead the gentle arts of real conversation (which requires a bottle and several glasses rather than a piece of plastic lodged in two widely separated ear holes) and letter writing.

What I would like the experts quoted to tell me is not how to combat telephonophobia, but how to induce it.

Yours faithfully,

JACK BARBER

Farnborough,

Hampshire