Well, people don’t think my production is cool,” he says (he regularly works with U2 and Coldplay, which baffles critics and clearly amuses him). “Of course, everyone thinks I do it for the money. I like working with both those bands because they are at the centre of something I’m usually at the edges of and I’m fascinated by how they handle it. Snobbery is an English disease. Even John Peel, who I regard as a great force in English music, was a totalsnob: there were certain things he had only disdain for. It was based on a mythical idea about what ‘sort’ of people musicians should be – so he loved Captain Beefheart and the Fall because they had that dangerous, Dadaistic quality: he demanded artists should be the sort of Épater-la-bourgeoisietype, the sort who shake you by your lapels. Sure, I don’t mind those kind of artists but it’s not the only type that’s allowed, as far as I’m concerned. Another version of snobbery is this horror about people rising above their station: you can do anything in England – you can run fucking corrupt banks but rise above your station and you will never be forgiven. (Brian Eno, in: New Statesman)