ACCORDING to a professor of English at Nottingham University we Britons have lost the skill of conversation. Prof Ronald Carter says: "We have got used to chatter and have stopped making the effort to reach any more significant conversational depth."

I beg to differ.

The other night in the pub one of the regulars was puzzled because - for the first time in his lifetime - he had found slugs in some onions.

"Did they cry?" I asked in the spirit of deep conversation.

"They did when I trod on "em," he replied, eyes lighting up at the memory.

The professor's views, as recorded in my newspaper, followed a Telewest Broadband survey of 2,000 adults which found that two thirds of them admitted to indulging in shallow chit-chat at the expense of weighty dialogue.

They were more than happy to talk about traffic, last night's television and office gossip - rather than the meaningful exchanges we (apparently) long for secretly.

Some of you reading the above exchange might think it was not particularly weighty.

But, in reality, it touches on deep issues such as global warming, perceptions of worth and the right of man to take the life of a fellow creature.

The fact that the conversation stopped before it reached such heights had something to do with the fact that it was my time to get the beers in - and the subject had switched to football on my return.

Prof Carter thinks considered communication has been the first casualty of our rushed modern lives.

Because we are in a hurry, the theory goes, we resort to banal banter. About slugs, perhaps.

If you will allow me to continue with these banalities, it seems an appropriate moment to confess that I have no wish to kill slugs. Incredulous gardeners I know find this attitude odd and berate me for it.

Gentle people become enraged when they think their plants are under attack and plan various kinds of retribution, including wasting good beer by putting it in bowls to tempt the enemy.

They shake their heads in disbelief when I warn that such binge drinking might cause slugs to climb out again and seek drunken brawls with spiders and (if they are hard enough) passing tortoises.

Maybe I should change the subject.

The comedian Dave Spikey - I take a particular interest in him since he pretended to sack me for a critical comment in this column about his Dead Man Weds television programme - has been in good form presenting a Sunday night slot on Radio 4.

The two-part programme, now finished, looked at the way the folk club boom (familiar to many of us) led to a lasting comedy legacy personified by the likes of Billy Connolly, Jasper Carrot and Mike Harding.

It was good to hear appreciative references to some of the local performers who helped liven up club nights in between songs about gypsy rovers and Manchester ramblers. Bernard Wrigley, the Houghton Weavers and Bob Williamson - all stars in their own way.