A letter to Neil Barstow
A letter to Neil Barstow
- Subject: A letter to Neil Barstow
- From: Jack Lowe <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 08:36:01 +0100
Dear Paul,
Your letter to Neil Barstow last week came as somewhat of a surprise to me.
I decided to give it some thought over the weekend before writing a
knee-jerk reaction.
I belong to a couple of other lists to which Neil also contributes. He is a
constructive, knowledgeable contributor and has in fact helped me with
numerous issues. His email style is very distinctive - I find that I don't
even need to read the header to realise that he has sent an email to a given
list. Neil's mail is short, to the point but never rude. He is busy, we
are all busy.
I read the thread between the two of you and was surprised to hear from you,
Paul, that there had been off-list contact - I felt as if I had read a
seamless discussion. As on previous occasions, I felt that Neil's
contribution to the discussion would have been entirely constructive and
valuable to you. I didn't experience any of the 'tone' you obviously felt.
I would put this down to a couple of reasons:
- You are over there, we are over here. Interpretation of wording will
always be different to some degree.
- We are using email as the contact medium. Again, not the best for
expressing tone and meaning (even between two Brits!).
I hope this is useful for you, Paul, to bear in mind for the future. Very
few of us on these lists know each other on a personal level, so I think it
will always be highly doubtful that a contributor would have reason to
insult a contemporary. After all, Neil did seem to give an awful lot of his
time to your cause...
Best wishes,
Jack
______________________
Jack Lowe, Photographer
e: email@hidden
w: www.jacklowe.com
t: +44 (0)191 224 5150
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