There is probably a lot less poking going on these days. For years I used a pencil as a dipstick for my outboard fuel tank. I used a pencil for stirring epoxy resin. Pencils are also good for propping open an overhead hatch, as a spool for fishing line, as a dental and/or medical probe (though I confess that I have heard some computer users advocate the latter use to the developers of certain computer products), or as a drying rack for homemade pasta. Just try any of those with a computer.

Sure, pencils break. But all you need is a sharp knife and it's good as new, though maybe a wee bit shorter. Contrast this with the much-praised computer. Type a long letter, and on the final page you are likely to get a message: “This program has committed a FATAL error...this computer will self-destruct in 0.5 seconds.” As the old nursery rhyme says, "All the kings horses and all the kings men could not put '.doc' back together again."

In the words of the immortal bard of Persia: "The moving pencil writes and having writ moves on, nor all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it." Not so the computer; a simple inadvertent keystroke can destroy a masterpiece of brilliant prose in the blink of an eye.

You can even use a pencil to write things. During my school days, I used the good old #2 pencil, but discovered during one English class that the harder #3 got better results; the teacher got so much eyestrain trying to read the faint #3 scribbles that she gave up correcting my essays. Thinking I was on a roll, I tried the same strategy in my math class. The teacher failed me, causing permanent psychological scars, not to mention deep and enduring suspicions of the inconsistencies in modern education. I abandoned the #3 in favour of the less disaster prone #2. After all a C- in English was preferable to an F in math. I could always claim that my English class essays were a kind of art. No such possibility existed in math class.

I suspect that the esteemed editor of the Langkawi Eagle uses a pencil when nobody is looking. Our reporters do too. Maybe there is hope yet for the trusty old pencil.