Hey, yeah. Or the same with being a chef. ← I had a great reply here but then I clicked and something went awry! Rats! First, I think we all can critisize the President because he is a public servant who has taken an oath to protect and preserve....do you feel protected? And I agree. Plenty of reviewers are poor writers and don't know what they are talking about, but then television writing has suffered also. Major mags aren't what they used to be. either. Hell, nothing seems to be. But to say the genre is dead is a bit of an exagerration. Reviewing is hard work if you really care. Bad reviewers don't really care and papers are advertiser driven. Put it all together and you've got sucky reviews. ← As someone who runs a restaurant review website (specialising in restaurants in North London, UK – www.matthews-table.com) I can only say that there are hundreds of people who like my full length reviews enough to pay me £20 a year ($40) for the privilege. Since my revenue comes from subscribers, I don't have to sell space to restaurants, and so I can be completely independent. But, when you come down to it, I think the main role of a reviewer is to give the reader some idea about whether he or she might enjoy the restaurant. And you don't have to agree with the critic! I used to read one critic's reviews assiduously because even though I disagreed with every word he said, he was at least consistent – so I KNEW that if he liked a restaurant, I wouldn't. Finally: good, entertaining writing is all. Matthew Lewin
