As someone who makes his living as both a film and music critic I have to stand up for people who multi task and review both, but I can't disagree with my dad when he lambasts those two critics who patently didn't have the first clue of the cutural context of what it was they were reviewing. It always drives me nuts to see lazy critics getting away with spouting the kind of rent-a-view rubbish that gives my profession a bad name. But they probably knew the producer, hence they get the gig.

Case in point. A while back I was given the job of interviewing Robert Palmer, this was just before he died. Now I don't much care for his music but I didn't want to go in ignorant so I spent a whole day reading background material and composing a list of questions that were all about his music, because the one thing I've learnt from interviewing people over the last year or so is that musicians get asked about touring and release schedules and videos and all the paraphernalia, but the one thing they get asked about least often is music. And it it, naturally, the one thing they REALLY want to to talk about. So the interview went really well and I got a lovely message from his manager later to tell me how much he'd enjoyed being interviewed by someone who knew what he was talking about - all the other interviewers that day had asked him over and over again about the 'Addicted to Love' video and not much else.

I learnt an important lesson that day: being a critic is all about two things - research and respect. Oh, and being opinionated, of course!

Now it seems clear that the critics who discussed S&G on Newsnight had given their back catalogue no more than the most cursory glance, so why should their opinions matter to me, or to anyone? Which is why I should be on Newsnight not them ;-)

As for the decline of music and film in general, well, dad knows I don't entirely buy that. Adaptation or Northfork prove that independent American cinema is the healthiest it's ever been, and don't get me started on how good The Divine Comedy and Fountains of Wayne are for I shall just rant on and on and bore everyone to tears.

I think there's still loads of good stuff out there, it's just that it takes a bit more finding than it used to. The cream is still in the churn, it just doesn't rise to the top as easily as it once did. The only way to get the best out of the fractured, over saturated media world we live in nowadays is to be extremely pro-active in your search for whatever it is you personally define as quality. It's out there, but you've got to root about for it coz much of the media designed to draw your attention to new music and film is created by lazy journos who rarely look beyond the latest press release they're spoonfed by the publicity company.

I signed up to the newly legal Napster and I just found, by surfing other people's favourites list, Uncle Tupelo. I'm four tracks into their last album and I'm wondering how I never heard this before coz it's great. Proactive, the only way to be.