After parking up the Sinclair C-5 and booting up our Commodore 64, TS sometimes finds itself pitying those less technologically advanced than ourselves.

Take the technophobe tax inspectors at the Treasury as a case in point. Gordon Brown is keen to give inspectors crash courses in computer science so they might accept more applications for research and development tax credits claims for software innovation.

Since R&D tax credits were introduced in 2000, take up has been disappointing, costing the Treasury £1.3bn. Its tax credits e-portal was suspended due to alleged attempts to defraud the credits system. Perhaps the tax man should start loading up those programme tapes now