The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning.

Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking.

After university, I got a job sub-editing and for years I was a literary editor.

No one else understands us 7th sense people. They regard us as freaks. When we point out illiterate mistakes, we are often aggressively instructed to 'get a life' by people who, interestingly, display no evidence of having lives themselves.

I do needlepoint from kits. I give them as gifts to people in the form of cushion covers and they are often speechless with horror.

All writers learn this, in time: don't show your work to other people until it's safely finished. Even discussing your unborn book in quite general terms can be such an undermining experience that, afterwards, you give it up and go to live in Guatemala.

Texting is a supremely secretive medium of communication - it's like passing a note - and this means we should be very careful what we use it for.