Meanwhile in England...

They're still dancing the ol' blogger-print tango. This time it's Rónán McDonald, who has written the latest in a series of books that claim that blogging is the end of the West, or something. "Controversial artists have often been brought to a resistant public by prominent critics," he opines on the Guardian's blog page. "Clement Greenberg did it for Jackson Pollock. John Ruskin did it for Turner. But are there now critics of sufficient authority to perform this role?" The Critic, he proclaims morosely, is dead: "The critic-as-instructor, as objective judge and expert, has yielded to the critic who shares personal reactions and subjective enthusiasms." Yeah, like Ruskin was an "objective judge". And I suppose Coleridge would never have been caught being personal or anything. As we say raucously in these here parts, get off the prawns.

This so-called debate is getting a little old. Blogger luminaries like Andrew Haydon or the London Financial Times theatre critic Ian Shuttleworth bravely make the sensible rejoinders. And there's another good take at Counter Critic. Can we stop now and just accept that blogging is a medium like everything else?