Government Stuff
G’DAY indeed. The UK has secured a historic trade deal with Australia, including an agreement to increase collaboration in tech and climate change response.
Higher fashion costs helped push inflation higher than the Bank of England’s 2% target in May.
The government has announced a further series of large-scale cultural pilots to gather more scientific evidence on reopening.
Bzzzzz. Police in the UK are being given new powers to crack down on people flying drones irresponsibly or illegally.
The Prime Minister has responded to a new report from the government’s Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform.
£3.4m of investment has been announced to expand the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to support more pupils in deprived schools in England to take part.
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Culture Stuff
Arts & Culture
Prue Leith and Alison Moyet are among those from the cultural world to be recognised in the Queen’s birthday honours list. Didn’t see your name, Ed? I'll check again.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe boss Shona McCarthy says the event is at risk due to a delay to a decision around social distancing in Scotland.
London’s Southbank Centre is to showcase more than 600 pieces of art created by people in isolation during the pandemic.
LiveArt Market, an anonymous peer-to-peer trading platform, has launched with $5 million of sales already. Show me the Monet.
Interpol has launched an app to help identify stolen art. Show me the Monet.
Design
The 28 gold, silver and bronze winners in the 2021 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards, with Sodexo grabbing the Grand Prix award. Vrooooom.
A group of US-based creative companies have launched an initiative to increase racial diversity across all fields of design.
Theatre & Dance
Theatre companies talk to The Stage about the ‘imminent financial ruin’ faced due to the four-week delay to ending all COVID restrictions.
Ian McKellen has set up a new fund with grants of up to £25k available to cover actors’ wages in new shows. He’s now donated over £5m to British theatre. Legend.
Leading companies, including our national theatres, have committed to making their output more sustainable.
Classical Music & Opera
Belfast’s Grand Opera House has completed its £12.2m restoration and development project.
Museums
Museum of the Home in East London has reopened after an £18.1m restoration – and it’s on the look out for three trustees.
Also open for applications for trustee roles are the Royal Armouries and the National History Museum.
Imperial War Museums has launched a new podcast series embracing and exploring the ignorance of celebrities around the biggest conflicts of our time.
Press, Books & Libraries
Rupert Murdoch has written down the value of The Sun to ZERO in response to a dramatic fall in ad revenues. Still about 60p at my local Tesco. I’ll call them.
Hilary Mantel has won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction for the second time.
Jason Reynolds has bagged the Carnegie Medal, the UK’s most prestigious prize for children’s books, for his ‘breathtaking’ novel Look Both Ways.
Exhibitions and Events
The rather brilliant game / theatrical experience The Money at London County Hall wants YOU to come and test your decision making before 3rd July.
A new exhibition has opened at The Barbican looking at the biases in architecture and the built environment. I’m biased towards IKEA tbh.
Four new plays and an international comedy programme have been announced at Soho Theatre as it prepares to reopen its doors.
More than 100 activist banners are on display at London Scottish House until 11th July as part of their Women Making History exhibition.
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VG 24/7 gets its mitts on the new Nintendo Switch version of Rebellion’s mummified adventure game Strange Brigade.
Rebellion’s first foray into feature films School’s Out Forever is released in the US today… and you can get the Scott K. Andrews book it was adapted from for 99p to celebrate.
If you missed out on the Kickstarter campaign first time around, FEAR NOT, you can now preorder a copy of Sniper Elite: The Board Game.
Games Radar here with its top 10 Judge Dredd comics of all time.
City, University of London has achieved TIGA accreditation for three of their gaming-related courses.
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Creative Industries & Tech Stuff
Film & TV
GB News bagged a bigger audience share than BBC News or Sky News on its opening night.
SHHHHHHHHH. A Quiet Place 2 has become the first pandemic-era film to quietly bust through the $100m mark at US box office.
Samuel L. Jackson has listed his top five Samuel L. Jackson films. Ed, pick your top five newsletters.
Summer is SAVED! Love Island is back on 28th June.
Fashion
British clothing brand Ben Sherman has revealed the official uniforms that Team GB athletes will wear for the Tokyo Olympic ceremonies.
Bloomberg charts how Black in Carnaby is shaking up British fashion and sparking a debate about diversity in retail.
Music & Radio
1 in 10 of all tracks streamed globally are now by British artists. Woo.
British music export revenue reached a record high of £519.7m in 2020, up by 6% compared to 2019, according to BPI stats.
Facebook has launched an Independent Artist Programme to help increase opportunities for independent musicians.
The Beeb dons its wellies and looks at which festivals are still on this summer.
The Other Ed has a ‘comeback’ single set for 25th June. Didn’t even release he’d gone anywhere? Has he? Can we be sure? Sorry, just thinking out loud.
David Guetta has just sold his back catalogue to Warner Music for over $100m. I guess these will be the best memories now huh Dave.
There’s a bunch of new Spice Girls stuff coming out to mark 25 years since the release of Wannabe. Zigga zig ah yeah I’ll check it out, thanks.
Gaming
Interesting read from The Telegraph on how video games in the classroom are helping to jump the digital skills gap.
Tech & Telecoms
The UK has welcomed its 100th $1bn tech company, according to Tech Nation and Dealroom data. And that unicorn is…. *drum roll*… AI company, Tractable.
The Tech Zero taskforce has officially launched, aiming to get 1,000 UK tech firms to commit to net zero by COP26. Monzo and Vodafone joined the ranks this week.
TikTok owner ByteDance has seen its earnings double in 2020. *flips water bottle and dabs while flossing*
Vodafone has picked Samsung as a supplier for its 5G infrastructure, as it seeks to extend its coverage.
Tech Nation has unveiled its D&I Toolkit, providing resources for tech founders to build more inclusive companies and help close diversity gaps in the sector.
UKRI is urging British innovators to apply for a slice of billions of pounds of funding through the EU’s Horizon Europe funding. Even with you know what.
A Jeff Bezos-backed company is to build a large-scale nuclear fusion plant in Oxfordshire - and an 11 minute trip into space with him (Jeff) has sold for $28m.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee is to sell the original code used to create the Internet as an NFT. Another NFT. Refusing to use the Internet now. You just wait.
Dun dun dun duuh duuuuuuh (Windows start-up sound, roughly). Microsoft is set to retire Windows 10 in 2025, as it reveals its new OS.
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Appointments & Movers
Arts Council Wales has announced Sian Tomos as its new chief exec; Lina Khan has been named as FTC chair by President Biden; Sean McNamara will be the new principal and chief exec of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts; Shaun Keaveny is to leave 6 Music; St George’s Bristol has appointed Samir Savant as its new chief exec; Camilla Finlay has been appointed a trustee of the Historic Royal Palaces; Theatre Deli has announced Ryan Harston and Nathan Geering as joint artistic directors; Voices Foundation has appointed Manvinder Rattan as chief exec
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Ed Stuff
Popped up in The Stage calling for the government to increase arts funding to secure the sector’s funding; spoke on a panel at CogX on the createch stage; also spoke on a Future of Theatre panel with the likes of playwright James Graham
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...And Finally
Wow, turns out whales chew up and spit people out in both Massachusetts (he’s ok) and also Euros group stage matches against Turkey (they’re not) (football) (long week, sorry).
An ark of biblical proportions has been impounded in Ipswich for not having the right papers to say it’s seaworthy. My sources tell me the owner looked everywhere, but they were Noah to be found.
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