We've been hearing about a mythical paperless society, for what, 20 years or more now? In fact, I think it was actually predicted that we would all exist in some sort of Orwellian world of speak-writing by this point.

Now, apparently, something of this ilk will exist within four years. Given the disastrous track record of government when it comes to major IT projects, I can't help feeling distinctly sceptical about its ability to deliver on Mygov within a reasonable budget. Can but hope that lessons will indeed have been learned from past failures. With my cynical hat on I also look forward to national outrage as the Mygov master CD is left on a train by some hapless civil servant, and/or the site is compromised by Chinese hackers.

But reading Gordon Brown's speech on "Building Britain's Digital Future" yesterday I see from the transcript that the word "paperless" doesn't actually occur. Good. Why spend taxpayers' money striving to replace something that in many cases is perfectly suited to the job in hand?

Perhaps rather than paperless the descriptor should be paper-less, as of course it makes sense to do away with unnecessary forms and paperwork (and emails and other communications) when appropriate. There's a view, for example, that next year's Census - preparation for which is already keeping Polestar's presses busy - will be the last one to capture the information via a paper form. Perhaps it will be the last one, full stop.

For we involved with paper and print there is no point in taking a Canute-like approach to such moves. Rather, we should use it as an opportunity to remind people about the things that print and paper do really, really well. How much information has already disappeared into the ether because it only ever existed online, or on a now-obsolete disk? And remind me, how old are those Dead Sea Scrolls?