DEAR reader. When did you last write a letter? Unless you are in love, in dispute with the gas board or writing to complain about something in these pages, the chances are that it was some time ago.

If you are under 30, it could well not be since your mum last sat you down and made you write your thank you letters. Yet, under new plans for the National Curriculum, children are to be taught the art of formal letter writing.

Why?

Not many people write letters any more. We prefer to use telephones or e-mails, even in business. It's quicker and more immediate. At least half the "letters" to this page now arrive electronically, others are actually telephone calls and only the minority - still a very welcome minority - are proper letters, a real joy amidst the depressing pile of ever more pointless press releases.

But I think their days might be numbered.

Come to that, when did the postman last leave a letter on your mat? Or was this morning's heap the usual dross of bills, invitations to take up credit cards you neither want nor can afford, plus a bit of emotional blackmail and a pen from a charity? When I was a student, my mother wrote me a proper letter every week. She also wrote to my sister, who has, in her time, lived in various British Army on the Rhine bases and Singapore. As students, my friends and I sent each other regular letters and postcards. Now, my sons keep in touch by mobile phone and my nephew in New York by e-mail.

They don't even write lovelorn letters to absent girl friends any more - text messages, or rather, txt msgs, do the job instead.

Yes, of course, the ability to write clearly and effectively is an important skill, which is why it seems so silly to dress it up in the virtually out-dated form of letter writing. Children will not happily learn what they immediately perceive as irrelevant.

Schoolboys once spent a large part of their days translating classical Greek. I'm sure it taught them to think clearly, but we've since found better ways. I still write letters, but not so many or so often and only when electronic communication is not possible.

Meanwhile, a report last week showed that the art of writing e-mails has been sadly neglected. The further up the professional ladder you go, apparently, the less capable you are of composing a decent e-mail. The etiquette for e-mail is still being formed, so everyone makes their own rules. But brevity too often results in rudeness, sloppy grammar in confusion.

So there's your answer. Forget the old-fashioned formality of letter writing and concentrate instead on the newer more relevant practice of how to compose a decent e-mail, polite and punchy. And put the letter forms back in the cupboard with the Greek verbs.

Hoping this finds you as it leaves me,

Yours, Sharon.

ULRIKA Jonsson says she will never forgive ex-boyfriend, footballer Stan Collymore, for beating her up. In a vicious assault in a Paris bar, he clearly mistook her for a football and kicked her in the head.

Now he's trying to make a career for himself in television and, apparently, doesn't see why this should be held against him.

Well, some of us do. And TV executives should remember that we're the ones who won't switch on to see him.

MAN Band is the grown-ups' version of Hear'Say, the obvious antidote to boy bands, as all the members have lived a bit and have the wrinkles to prove it.

But why do we need a manufactured band?

The Stones are rolling out plans for another tour next year; Tom Jones, Sting, Eric Clapton are still rocking on.

They haven't died before they got old and, what's more, they're not going to f-f-fade away either.

THE NUT has voted for industrial action in support of a 35-hour week for teachers.

There is no doubt that some (some) teachers work incredibly hard, face a dreadful job and put in all the hours God sends. Others don't.

But many other professions do - often for less pay and far fewer perks. OK, we're talking about the long holidays. Yes, teachers might need and deserve them - but there again, so do hundreds of thousands of other equally stressed workers who don't whinge so much.

The problem often is that all teachers know is life in various stages of the education system. Perhaps it should be compulsory for anyone contemplating becoming a teacher to have spent at least two years in another industry before they go back to school again.

They could find it a real education.

ONE in four of us is on a diet, according to new research. The Diet Industry is booming - with new products and promises hitting the shelves every day.

Meanwhile, the number of fat, overweight or seriously obese people continues to increase.

No, I can't work it out either.

A RETIRED dock worker has been awarded compensation - not because he contracted an asbestos-related disease in his working life when he regularly came into contact with the stuff. No, he has been compensated - apparently to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds - because he THOUGHT he might get ill.

Well, there's a hypochondriacs' charter if ever there was.

Does this mean that I can sue the police because I worry that one day one of their speeding patrol cars might hit me? Teachers could sue because they could be worried that one day they might get stress... the country's few remaining miners could claim because they might one day get lung disease... mothers living near busy roads could sue the highway authorities for not installing speed limits and pedestrian crossings, because they worry that one day their children might be in an accident... and as for the farmers and the fear of foot-and-mouth, well they'd be raking it in.

If people fear they might get an illness and don't, they don't need compensation. What they need is a damn good shake and to be told how lucky they are.

Then they should get on with their lives - and be glad that they are able to.

Published: Wednesday, April 18, 2001