Interested in classical music as I am and long since someone who is interested in what the narrow mainstream overlooks, I have found but also returned to a number of works over the last year. Havergal Brian Symphony No 3, Cipriani Potter the symphonies between 1819 and 1834 and the Anton Rubinstein Quartets No 1 and 2 both part of the Op 17 set. These works are truly a case of there being as the composer Robert Simpson said, ‘no good critics.’ Let me qualify that. Any critic who isn’t a creative artist naturally has no idea how things are created by artists. What they do is more academic cross-referencing than criticism. To an extent these people can tell you what has happened but have little or no idea about what is happening now. When it comes to now they confuse their own prejudice with insight and as a result Art History of all kinds has suffered from the long tradition of prejudiced critics deciding what is and isn’t good. Understand I am not criticising these people I am just describing them. As well as the general damage done it is interesting how much better say a composer like Brahms would have become if he hadn’t had the support of the nineteenth century Viennese critics. Having said there are no good critics there is the great Jonathan Meades who has created his own art form for delivering cultural ideas and to a lesser extent there was the late Robert Hughes, again at his best a generator of ideas, though always a lot better talking about things he liked rather than what he didn’t. Then there is Freud, who didn’t write much about culture but did write ‘Civilization and its Discontents’ and the line, ’there are no differences except cultural differences,’ is worth the entry fee alone. And finally we have Shelly ‘In Defence of Poetry,’ the essential short read about what culture is and does.