They'll none of them be missed

PETER ACKROYD Novelist "The work of the 16th-century poet John Skelton because I don't like his ragged rhythms, the Three Graces because commerce has taken advantage of art, and Canary Wharf because of its inhabitants."

NEIL BARTLETT Theatre director, Lyric Hammersmith "In the sense of inflation, I'd blow up performers' salaries. Failing that, it would be the office block which has the impertinence to occupy the site of the Rose Theatre on Bankside."

GEORGINA BROWN Independent theatre editor "All productions of The Taming of the Shrew, because when it's played straight it's unpalatable and in production's where Kate tips us the wink the forced political correctness is plain silly."

GAVIN BRYARS Composer "The entire works of Brahms. I remember that I found it quite endearing when I learnt that Britten, apparently, used to spend one day a year playing Brahms at the piano just to remind himself what a bad composer Brahms was. The absence of Brahms would create huge programming opportunities for the BBC who seem to have him as Composer of the Week whenever it's the turn of a 19th-century composer. It would also rid the world of a phenomenon which John White used to call `that development noise', which can be heard both in and out of the development sections of the symphonies, a study of which has sent too many composers down a blind alley."

NICK COLEMAN Independent rock critic "Any institution getting ready to invest, time, money and expertise in the forthcoming `Eighties revival'."

SOPHIE CONSTANTI Independent dance critic "The role model of the shaven-headed male dancer. Innocently instigated by Michael Clark and Lloyd Newson, it's now reached epidemic proportions, with innumerable clones with glistening, sweaty, very white heads and they all seem to have dreadful ears. It's completely unattractive."

ALICE THOMAS ELLIS Novelist "Madonna. I think she has done women a great disservice. Who wants to be like her? I'd quite like to blow up the Beatles. I don't find them at all engaging, I find them irritating and I resent them for changing the face of my favourite city. Of course, i t wasn't all their fault, but they didn't help. I'd also like to blow up the works of Edwin Landseer whose works cast a gloom over my entire childhood. They were everywhere. You couldn't go into a pub or even people's houses without seeing them. They wer e all mist and rain and animals not having a nice time."

IAIN GALE Independent art critic "Sergei Chepik. He is a third-rate artist, over-hyped, over-priced and much too often over here. His banal and lacklustre paintings of outplayed ecole de Paris subject matter justify the pejorative use of the otherwise maligned term `illustrative'. His c lowns, myths and boxing matches are the themes of great art but in Chepik's hands are better suited to Montmartre or to the railings of Green Park."

NICK HORNBY Writer "Sunley and Son, the company that closed the Camden Parkway cinema, the most beautiful cinema in London. There are empty offices all over the city and no nice cinemas, yet despite a huge protest campaign, they closed it down to build offices. It is simpl y tragic."

ROSE JENNINGS Independent art critic "Toys R Art: models, mannequins, stuffed toys, use of in contemporary sculpture. Stick a willy on an Action Man, rough up that teddy fur, and hey presto, you're asking questions about family dysfunction, infantile sexuality and the construction of identity. Or perhaps not."

SHEILA JOHNSTON Independent film critic "The Heritage department, which in October spent £23,000 to send seven MPs on a freebie fact-finding mission to Hollywood: it would be `one of the most wonderful £23,000 ever spent out of public funds'. Then its Select Committee told British directors they should make Carry On movies."

CARLA LANE TV comedy writer "All out-of-town Sainsbury's sites. All roads used to lead to Rome but now they all seem to lead to Sainsbury's. I've nothing against them in themselves but there are too many of them. They're pseudo buildings, pretending to fit in with the surrounding countryside. It's like some terrible acne."

DAVID LODGE Novelist "The municipal car park on Brunel Street and Navigation Street in central Birmingham. Constructed of steel girders and painted the colour of dried blood, it is a hideous eyesore even in a city not noted for distinguished modern architecture."

TOM LUBBOCK Independent art critic "I would choose to blow up extended festivals: those long-drawn-out themed cultural programmes, like `Everybody's Shakespeare' or (throughout 1995) `Fairest Isle'. They're hard to be unaware of but largely chimerical entities, which exist only in the minds of their organisers and the critics who cover them. Not positively bad things; not really things at all."

EDWARD SECKERSON Independent music critic "My charges are primed in readiness for any John Tavener piece lasting longer than the sum total of the digits `95' seconds. Please, let's have no more revelations, no more repetitions, no more Apocalypses - not now, not ever. Life is too short. I have h eard the future and it is an eternal drone on the note of D. D for Delusion. Whatever happened to the music? Or is that not really the point anymore? In which case, let's call it meditation or communion or penance and be done."

MARTIN SHERMAN Playwright "Anyone who uses the term `luvvy'. A sour, ignorant word that is contemptuous of an honourable profession, it suggests the person using it is eaten up with fear and envy of anyone who dares to be both creative and emotional."

NED SHERRIN Broadcaster "I would blow out the N in the English National Ballet and replace it with F for Festival. The Festival Ballet had a huge reputation and a wonderful sense of tradition. Why blot out all that history, the work of Alicia Markova andAnton Dolin and the tradition of foreign influences within the company? There are plenty of National and Royal companies but there is only one Festival Ballet."

THOMAS SUTCLIFFE Independent television critic "That phrase "It's hot, you're not", and any variation on it. I'd also like to take some gelignite to the idea that blowing things up is the best way to make the culture less mediocre. The sacred cow is now a rare breed, there are so many journalists dedicated to slaughtering them."

JEFFREY WAINWRIGHT Poet and Independent theatre critic "The notion of heritage and the notion of cultural criticism, as being equally selective, reductive and pretentious. Also, any kind of promotion that calls something `the new rock and roll'."

NATALIE WHEEN Broadcaster "It's nothing personal, but I want to blow up Pavarotti. The Pavarotti industry has transformed opera from an art form which should transform your life to a gross spectator sport. Inflated egos charge millions to cheapen it into"Anything you can sing I can sing higher, longer, louder and more vulgarly" - and often, I hear, not even standing up."