Mark E Smith, portaphones and "fire in the hands of fools"

I do love (The) Word Magazine. Like the Oldie it really does feel owned by its readers.Apart from a fantastic piece this month by Andrew Collins defending Noel Edmonds; "the crunch of Ferrari on gravel, the whiff of Paco Rabanne, the steely grip of a pro". The highlight is two pages on the thoughts of Mark E Smith who is more articulate than I can recently recall. Here's his predictable take on technology and what he sweetly dubs; 'portaphones'.

"The lads in my band have got these, y'know, laptops. You can go on the internet and get lyrics for any Fall song and how to play them. When I see them doing that, I just get their computer and go (mimes slamming laptop shut). You can't have that. Technology is a funny one. By and large, its fire in the hands of fools. These days you've got people on computers all day - if you asked them to post a postcard they'd be stuck. I had a Sinclair computer in the 1980s and I didn't like it then. It started rewriting my fucking lyrics so i chucked it in the bin. I love writing with a pen and paper, I love it. I never use them portaphones. My wife has one and all me mates have 'em. They're always trying to make me get one, but what do i want a portaphone for ? When I left school I used to work in the docks and had to talk top people on the phones there. The main thing was you had to direct and quick. You'd have these massive ships coming in from Nigeria - brrrr brrrr - (makes ship noise) - so you couldn't be hanging about on the phone. It was "No yes, no, yes, no, yes, goodbye". I don't want to chat, because I'm still half thinking there's a big fucking ship coming in.No portaphones for me. No thanks."