God I hate those reviewers on Late Review/the culture show/the broadsheets. They're so tragically middle class and pretentious. I don't think they even know or understand much about the things they review, they just love to intellectualise and namedrop, and use "the arts" as just another respectable lifestyle accessory - a bunch of hangers-on who don't actually do a whole lot except ride on the coat tails of the people that really do something constructive. Having a dinner-party in their suburban semi in the home counties and chattering all night isn't enough for them. I just saw some patronising posh bird on the telly called Verity strolling around a music festival saying how useless they are because "you can't really hear all the detail of what's happening on stage" and you'd be better off listening at home - doh, she really doesn't have a clue. Yesterday the bourgeois talking heads were reviewing some indie-pop band on the Late Review and Will Self was one of the guests and he said how preposterous it was to sit around and intellectualise something that is for young people to dance to. I remember Neil Tennant of the pet shop boys saying how useless and incredibly snooty the broadsheets are when it comes to reviewing pop music and he's so right - I read them just for a laugh sometimes. There's a show on radio 3 called mixing it where two presenters sit and discuss the latest music like a couple of extra-terrestrials who really don't seem to get any of it but try their damn hardest to sound like they do.They remind of me the english teachers at school that would get all earnest and precious about Shakespeare and George Eliot - ugh! At least those teachers knew what they were talking about.... Like Frank Zappa said, writing about music (and talking, presumably) is like dancing about architecture - so true

.....rant mode off - phew!