Kiss your lunchtime web surfing plans goodbye, because I guarantee that whatever page you were planning to visit next, you will instead want to go to YouGov. We know that your musical taste tells everyone…
Hipsters are so mainstream now that they’re the subject of mathematical papers. Jonathan Touboul, a mathematical neuroscientist from the Collège de France, claims to have answered one of the great mysteries…
Culture, as described by one celebrated critic, is among the most awkward words in the English language. So it comes as no surprise that cultural value is an ever-elusive, indefinable thing. The broad…
If a majority of Scots vote Yes for independence on September 18, it will transform our sense of what it is to be British. Still, that wouldn’t mean an end to the common culture of the island – it may…
The extent of Shakespeare’s legacy 450 years on from his birth is incalculable. But this, of course, does not stop some from trying. To many the crown of Britain’s cultural output, Shakespeare is integral…
So we have a new Culture Secretary. I wonder how he rates Daenerys Targaryen’s chances of snagging the most coveted seat of all, the Iron Throne. And whether he thinks Darren Aronofsky has succeeded in…
Tasked with winding down the over-exuberance of the build-up, Olympics closing ceremonies always have an anti-climactic tone. Terrorists from the Caucasus failed to disrupt the Sochi event, and the most…
London has 15.4%, one eighth, of the population of England. It is well known that London receives a disproportionate amount of UK arts subsidies, but perhaps not the vast extent of this. Our independently…
Pinning down definitions of the words “culture” and “arts” has always been notoriously difficult. But over the past 60 years, fast and profound social, economic, technological and cultural changes have…
Prizes are a common feature on the cultural economy landscape. In Australia there is the famous Archibald Prize for portraiture, there are numerous prizes for literature and poetry, the AFI Awards in film…
This month I am trekking around Europe with my partner, and I had the good fortune to be in London on the night of the fifth Wild Rumpus event. In a gallery space in central London on a Saturday night…
Following the explosion of do-it-yourself music in the 1990s, aspiring DJs and producers have been spoiled rotten. Home studios are increasingly commonplace now that there is such a wealth of affordable…
The age of the app has collided with the era of fake designer goods. Firms are now using social media and crowdsourcing to keep track of their intellectual property, but may still struggle in a world where…
Kingston-upon-Hull has been named the UK City of Culture for 2017; a spotlight has been thrown on a place that many people either don’t really know much about, sometimes falling prey to typical Home Counties…
Playwright Mark Ravenhill’s provocative opening speech at this year’s Edinburgh Festival outlined a doomsday scenario where public funding for the arts disappeared and Britain descended into a cultural…
Australia needs a cabinet-level portfolio dedicated to managing culture, one of the country’s leading cultural commentators, Julianne Schultz, said at a breakfast address in Sydney today. The Ministry…
The creative industries are an intriguing part of the UK economy - glitteringly successful, but difficult to pin down in terms of exact value and for some, maybe just too volatile to trust. Ever since…
In Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, a group of our ape-like ancestors encounter a towering black rectangle somewhere in an African desert. Something in them changes. A seed is sown. Everything…
Liz Minchin, The Conversation and Nancy Youssef, The Conversation
Australia should work harder on its official and unofficial diplomacy to strengthen its ties to India, after a new survey revealed Indians had a mixed perception of the two countries’ relationship. The…
MATTERS OF THE MIND – a series which examines the clinician’s bible for diagnosing mental disorders, the DSM, and the controversy surrounding the forthcoming fifth edition. There’s an old saying that psychology…