Neil, you will always be a bud 'o mine. Anyone who posts such good things in the Thought for the Day is tops in my book.

The great problem we face here -- which is also a benefit in some ways -- is that we don't have the actual ambiance of a friendly pub or sitting around just talking. This means that we don't get into real fistfights, which is good, but it also means that we can't make those little gestures to try and start over again or lower the temperature -- buy everyone a drink, try and talk the subject out in happier ways, tell a joke, be humane. We have to do it by these threads, and it is very hard, you are always pushing against the limits of what printed words can do to generate that space of give and take. As I have said a million times, this group handles it better than any other net group I know, because of the roots in traditions of sitting around sharing music. But we do need slightly more courtesy than we would in daily life, just because so much is filtered out. But how to generate that mutual courtesy without becoming boring or patronizing is a daily task around here. I am always fascinated by it because it is such a new medium -- it looks simple, but is really exquisitely balanced, and I know that I am constantly making mistakes and offending people -- the saving grace is that people here are so forgiving (and funny).

I was reading the other day the love letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett who lived in London in the middle of the 19th century (and counldn't meet), and because the Victorians knew how to run things, they had two mailings a day. So the two were sending letters back and forth to each other all the time, twice a day -- it is the closest thing I know to the Internet. And what you learn is that they are constantly trying to make up for the mistakes in the last letter, misinterpretation, and they do this in the fond expectation that there will be another letter back in a few hours. It is what brought them together, and it is very similar to what happens here (well, except for the lack of sex and the lapdog).
yours, Peter T.