Letters to the Editor
Amerigo
Published Letters: 955 Editor's Choice: 60
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Amazon reviews
[Read the article: Was this review helpful to you?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I used to write quite a few Amazon review and am still rated in the top 3000 reviewers for helpful ratings, for what it is worth. I don't know how many reviewers there are, but when I started out I shared the 186,000th spot, so there must be quite a few of us.
Not all reviews are anonymous. Mine have my real name attached.
Readers are very unpredictable, and some of my best reviews got negative ratings. The way to get good ratings seems to be to pile on superlatives on the product in question. People don't want to read negative reviews of their favorite products. Not even of Britney Spears.
I do find the reviews helpful for buying music and books, though you have to read between the lines to determine whether a writer is credible. To me the negative reviews are more helpful, because more likely to be honest.
However I have not yet purchased toilet tissue online. I would suggest to the writer than she purchase a small quantity of the product first from a supermarket, apply it to the bodily part in question to test its efficacy, and then order in bulk online as necessary.
You really cannot be too careful with your family's bottoms.
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How to interpret music reviews
[Read the article: Was this review helpful to you?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find music reviews helpful, as I am often looking for cheap, used CDs to burn to my mp3 player as background music for travel and work.
It is always nice to find something with a low star rating that is cheap, but good.
Looking recently I found this three star review on a CD called Michel Plays Legrand, which I bought for $1.85 plus shipping.
If you like jazz, this CD may be for you. However if you're used to associating smooth Easy Listening with Mr. Legrand, pick some other recording, cause this is jazz, man...,
As a jazz aficionado it seemed to me that this album was exactly what I wanted, especially as it had a slew of fine performers listed including trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, so I bought it all the same.
CD came and it is OK, but nowhere near as good as the 1958 CD Legrand Jazz, which is arguably one of the best jazz CDs of all time, but not a bad buy for the money.
A little later, as a fan of both Cole Porter and Kiri Te Kanawa, I am looking at reviews of a CD called Kiri Sings Porter. One review with five stars says this is possibly Kiri's finest CD. Another gives one star and says "Pathetic..."
I listened to the samples and concluded that both had their points. It really depends on whether you would enjoy hearing an operatic voice at work on these standards. Frank Sinatra's version of I've Got You Under My Skin is generally considered the definitive version, but in my book it can't hold a candle to the stunning 1966 hit single version by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
I splashed out all of $2 for a used copy anyway. I hope I won't regret it too much.
In the end, you can only determine for yourself whether a product will be one that you like, but the reviews can get you thinking.
But you can never account for folks. The most popular review that I have written on Amazon has 830 out of 850 readers scoring it as helpful, but what I really want to know, and never will, is what the other 20 had in mind when they gave it a negative score.
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At least she is not...
[Read the article: Campaigning while female]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... a babe. Just think what they would be saying about her if she had the slightest sex appeal.
Only a few months ago, there was a minor frisson in England when tasteless radio personality Jonathan Ross asked new Conservative Party leader David Cameron whether he had ever, as a young conservative masturbated to images of Margaret Thatcher.
I don't remember his reply, but I think it had something to do with a boot and a rectum.
Mrs. Clinton need have no fear of being perceived as a sex symbol and she can be quite certain that if anyone votes for her, it is not because of anything like that.
Fortunately for her, the elderly vote in the United States out of all proportion to their numbers, partly, presumably because they don't have to worry about getting time off work to get to the polls, so she should be OK, as it is a well known fact that people like to vote for people who look like themselves.
However if she is really worried about this image thing, she probably ought to get a divorce and find herself a young stud.