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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/15/mark_e_smith/

Computers are so middle class – Mark E Smith

Stop Mithering. And Tweeting

By Andrew Orlowski

Posted in Bootnotes, 15th November 2011 10:51 GMT

Watch Now : Virtual Machine Movement with Hyper-V

Computers are middle class and tweeting is for morons, reckons shout-at-the-bins Northerner Mark E Smith of The Fall, favourite band of the late John Peel.

"I can never understand computers. It's a very middle-class thing", Smith tells [1] Mojo magazine in an interview.

Smith also berates people for using online banking and for Web2.0rhea: "You always thought people are daft but you give 'em the benefit of the doubt, but they are as f**king daft as you thought."

Has he got a point? Well, statistically he's correct: some 17 million Britons are internet refuseniks – and whenever a new "initiative" flies in from Martha Lane-Fox to put this "right", we can't helping thinking that Smith is onto something: a traditional Fabian distaste of the proles.

Lane-Fox, the lastminute.com co-founder who was voted Britain's most over-rated entrepreneur [2], is on a personal mission [3] to brighten the lives of people on "horrible council estates [4]" – people who prefer shouting across the street to tweeting and real communities to online communities.

"I don't think you can be a proper citizen in our society in the future if you're not online," reckons [5] Fox.

This is why people own Staffordshire bull terriers. It's not a lifestyle choice; it's a necessity. ®

The interview is in the current issue of Mojo, by Ian Harrison, whose splendid examination of Dr Who will entertain you here [6]. ®