Didnt see the show, but to most people, a 'critic' has a default setting of negative. A positive review is also being critical.

I saw about 5 minutes of it but I had to turn it off because I wanted to punch the screen whenver John Waters was talking. What did he write (I presume) that had him whining about nasty critics?

Waters recorded a demo tape and Meagher reviewed it saying 'it sounds like it should be played at a funeral'. So Waters turned it into a full on attack on all critics, not allowing Meagher to respond in a mature fashion even when he pointed out that Waters used to write for Hotpress. To which he replied 'I was a reviewer not a critic'.

Was this Waters' Eurovision entry? Even Joe Duffy took the piss out of that. Seeing as he harps on about the plight of the Irish male so much you'd think Waters would be in possession of a pair of testicles, it appears not.

:lol @ unicorn. Indeed, Waters can be readily identified by his **** ** **** *****. Waters has become a parody of himself and is just a one man tirade against everything. He has completely lost the plot and lost any credibility, particularly the line "I was a reviewer not a critic." Every critic is going to have an ego, as it is their job to listen to music all day etc.

Actually saw that Big Bite, pretty interesting. Everyone has an ego, obviously, but I generally thing bad writers lean on their ego too much, as a crutch for their faults. So instead of actually writing something informative and entertaining, they write something that gleans too much from their own opinion to be interesting. As a critic, it's hard to be objective, but there's no point in being diplomatic. Honesty and wit and the ability to articulate are the best virtues IMO.

You shouldn't be objective if you're a critic, you're there to give your opinion on whether you think something is good or bad.

I'd love to sit around all day watching daytime TV but unfortunately I have a job, so I missed it.

It was repeated at midnight one of the days last week. But what's more worrying than that is that some members of this board are guilty of listening to 'Liveline'.......tut tut tut

It's on in the office.

A critic is never going to describe what something is like for everyone. Therefore, a personal opinion is probably the best approach. If you read a critic regularly, know what they like and trust them based on past experience then their opining is probably going to be more in line with ones own tastes. Without critics we would have an awful lot less interesting crap in our collections!

Who's John Waters?

Sorry. Just typing out loud there. I don't actually care. Thank's.

Isn't it funny that Gar rhymes with Meagher? Or is it just me.

John Waters is the former keyboard player with bananarama before leaving the band over 'creative differences.' He successfully carved out a career as a freelance jouranlist for an in-house grocery magazine before applying for the role of Editor at NME. While at NME, he had an affair with a young nubile Sinead O'Connor who he father a child with. Rumours persist that the moment of conception took place in the newsroom of NME cheered on my NME work experience students. However, of late, he has battled a severe drug problem and addiction to painkillers. He is a ghost of himself and is reduced to tiresome rants. Great keyboard player though

As Brendan Behan said so eloquently "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves."

The artist has a vision, the critic only an opinion.