The Letts academic diary, like most paper objects in these days of bits and bytes, has had to re-forge a niche market for itself in the face of the multi functional phone onslaught. Fortunately for all the diary companies, the phone makers still haven’t found a way to make a really convincing application for the academic diary, which in its best form is a combination of appointment keeper, note book, memo pad and weekly planner. Academic diaries allow students to keep track of the whole experience of school or university life: from homework assignments, essay deadlines and lecture times to extracurricular activities, sporting commitments and of course passing infatuations with fellow class mates. Try as they might, mobile phones will never surpass the Letts academic diary, or any other form of academic note pad, in these respects – and particularly not the latter. How is any young Romeo or Juliet supposed to scribble inarticulate messages of youthful endearment (i.e. insults) on a phone and pass it across a class room? Not even text messages cut it in that environment: you can’t intercept a text message and read it out for the benefit of the class, and you can’t soak it in ink and throw it at people either. Well, you could – but you’d have to buy a new phone for someone and you’d probably get some kind of record for ABH.
No – the Letts academic diary, like all academic diaries, retains a special place at the heart of school and university life. Academic diaries are really the centre of a student’s universe – the one document he or she can turn to that makes sense of all the rules, regulations, times and appointments that academic life is made of. They’re like the beating heart of the school bag or rucksack. In the bag are all the books and whatnot that make up a day at school, college or university – but without the little red heart (or, these days, liquorice-allsorts-photo-covered heart) of the Letts academic diary nestled in there too, nothing ever gets done.
