Government Stuff
As part of the National Quantum Technologies Programme, 12 projects have been awarded a total of £50m to explore quantum technologies.
£15m investment has been announced to digitise Kew Gardens’ collection and revolutionise climate change research.
The Times looks at what could be included in the forthcoming Online Safety Bill, including potential prison time for online trolls.
The APPG for Music is to hold an inquiry into the barriers and delays facing musicians touring in the European Union.
The Intellectual Property Office has launched a consultation on how the copyright and patent system should deal with AI.
ATTEN-SHUN! DCMS has placed a temporary export bar on an exceptional Sargent painting. Yours for £7.5m-ish.
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Culture Stuff
Arts & Culture
One fifth of National Portfolio Organisations have failed to report environmental data each year, despite it being a funding condition from Arts Council England.
Arts Council England has however just unveiled the first stage of its environmental action plan – and new rules for applying for National Lottery Project Grants.
The Culture and Commerce Taskforce have freed up about 20,000 square feet of creative workspaces across London in the past year.
Arts Council Northern Ireland and the British Council have extended their partnership to 2024.
The Art Newspaper with six eco artworks popping up in Glasgow and beyond for COP26.
The Boijmans Van Beuningen gallery in Rotterdam will become the first in the world to show off its entire art collection in one go. Van Goghs, Monets, the lot.
A painting recovered 40 years afters its theft in Germany may be a Rembrandt. Quite damaged by the sounds of things. But if it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it.
Design
RIBA has revealed the top 20 British homes on its House of the Year 2021 longlist, including a Norfolk water tower and one perched on stilts in Berkshire.
BIG and ICON are to build the world’s largest neighbourhood of 3D-printed houses in Texas. 100 homes in total. That’s a lot of ink refills.
Theatre & Dance
UK Theatre and SOLT have released an updated version of their 10 principles for creating safe and inclusive working spaces in the theatre industry.
A Theatre Trust survey suggests that making the country’s theatres sustainable could cost upwards of £1bn.
A theatre dedicated to showcasing and developing new work by female and non-binary writers is to open in north London.
Classical Music & Opera
Ryan Bancroft has won the prestigious Conductor Award from the Royal Philharmonic Society.
The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama is launching an online initiative to pull back the curtain on the complex workings of the opera industry.
Also going digital, opera house Glyndebourne is set to launch an on-demand streaming service, Glyndebourne Encore, next month.
Tourism & Heritage
William Blake’s 17th century cottage where he wrote the lyrics to Jerusalem is among the 130 places added to the at-risk register by Historic England.
The winners have been announced for the Community Archives and Heritage Awards 2021.
Museums
The British Museum has announced the largest ever find of gold coins from Anglo-Saxon England. Kerching.
Press, Books & Libraries
South African author Damon Galgut has won fiction’s most prestigious award, The Booker Prize, for his novel The Promise.
Lord Rothermere has agreed to a £3bn deal which will take the Daily Mail, Metro and i publisher DGMT private after nearly a century on the stock market.
The shortlist for the Waterstones Book of the Year has been unveiled, including an entry from up-and-coming author Paul McCartney from a band called The Beatles.
A new CLPE report has found that the proportion of children’s books with a minority ethnic character has quadrupled in the past four years.
Press Gazette has announced the finalists of the tenth British Journalism Awards and, for the tenth year running, there’s no newsletter prize.
Exhibitions and Events
There’s still a bunch on at COP26 next week, including Es Devlin’s ‘conference’ of trees and an AHRC panel on the power of films in the climate crisis.
Rawr. The theatre adaption of Life of Pi finally opens in the West End next week. Here’s The Guardian on how they breathed life into the big stripy cat.
University of Arts London is hosting a Carnival of Crisis across London until 10th November, positioning culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development.
Next Tuesday, a mere hours after receiving his MBE for services to diversity in media, Marcus Ryder will be in (online) conversation with Variety’s Manori Ravindran.
MTArt Agency’s founder Marine Tanguy will chat to Creative Entrepreneurs on 23rd November about how she’s shaking up the art world and empowering rising stars.
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TIGA has announced the finalists of the UK Games Industry Awards 2021 – and Rebellion’s teams are up for a whopping eight awards.
November’s lineup for the Xbox Game Pass has been announced, with the likes of Football Manager and GTA to keep the console warm until Evil Genius 2 arrives on the 30th.
A piece from Dr Richard Wilson, CEO of TIGA, calling on the government to support further education to make the grade in the video games sector.
Rebellion has released its streaming schedule for November on Twitch.
In the latest Future Imperfect podcast, Jason Kingsley talks to Margaret Heffernan about what we can predict (eg. a newsletter every Friday) and what we just can’t (eg. whether even a single part will be funny).
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Creative Industries & Tech Stuff
Creative UK Group (a combination of Creative England and Creative Industries Fed) has published its annual report.
Film & TV
In an industry first, the UK’s 12 big broadcasters (including BBC and Sky) have signed up to a Climate Content Pledge, convened by albert.
BBC Film has received 47 – FOURTY SEVEN – nominations at the British Independent Film Awards.
In the past two years, Netflix productions in southwest England have generated £130m for the region and created more than 1,000 jobs.
Fashion
A total £14.5bn of store-based clothing sales could be lost by 2025 as a result of the industry’s shift to online, according to a Retail Economics report. Yeesh.
To mark COP26, The Guardian meets nine fashion designers making real change.
Music & Radio
After 40 long, long years, we finally have a new ABBA album. The Guardian aren’t the biggest fans, but most other outlets have thanked them for the music.
This one stopped me in my tracks. You could say it gave me shivers. The Other Ed has scored the fastest-selling album of 2021.
BBC Radio is to launch a new Indie Development Fund and Radio 1 has announced an Annie Nightingale Scholarship for emerging DJ talent.
The tracklist for Adele’s upcoming album, 30, has been revealed, including a tune called ‘I Drink Wine’. Cheers to THAT, Adele.
Redefining the phrase ‘it’s all gone Pete Tong’, he's been honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the Music Industry Trusts Awards.
Bee Gee Barry Gibb is to get his own stamp in the Isle of Man. Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a postman, no time to talk (it’s a stretch. Just move on).
Gaming
Netflix has launched its first mobile games for some Android users, including a couple based on Stranger Things.
Advertising
I can confirm that it is, in fact, that time of year again. The latest John Lewis Christmas advert has crash-landed with an alien in tow.
Tech & Telecoms
Facebook is ending its use of facial recognition tech and deleting 1bn ‘faceprints’… but a new study says climate misinformation on the platform is rising rapidly.
Net Zero tech companies in the UK have doubled in value in a year, according to Tech Nation’s new report.
On that note… Qatar is teaming up with Rolls-Royce to pump billions of pounds into UK green engineering startups.
And another… London School of Economics’ Marshall Institute has launched a new £50m accelerator for innovative social impact startups.
BT has scrapped plans to find a joint venture partner for Openreach as the cost of fibre rollout has dropped.
Jazzy Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has lost its lawsuit against NASA over the awarding of a $2.9bn lunar lander contract to SpaceX.
Alphabet has launched a new company, Isomorphic Labs, aiming to reimagine drug discovery with an AI-first approach.
Tesla is opening up its Superchargers to other electric cars for the first time. Electrifying.
Apple’s app tracking policy has reportedly cost social media platforms nearly $10 billion, so says a Financial Times investigation. Gulp.
New York’s new mayor Eric Adams has said he’ll take his first three pay checks in Bitcoin. Buy high, sell low, Eric.
Yahoo is the latest US tech firm to pull out of China. And Epic Games is pulling the plug on Fortnite there, too.
Instagram and Twitter are burying the hatchet and making link previews work again. BFFs.
Microsoft has also unveiled its entry into the metaverse race with immersive meetings. If this metaverse is just meetings then count me out. Goodbye.
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Appointments & Movers
Jon Gilchrist and Stephanie Sirr have been appointed as the first joint presidents of UK Theatre; Gill Whitehead will be the new chief exec of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum; founder Jon Bromwich is stepping down from the helm of the British Youth Music Theatre; Newsnight’s Esme Wren has been named as the next editor of Channel 4 News; GitHub CEO Nat Friedman is stepping down; Seven Stories, the national centre for children’s books, has appointed Claire Riley as its new chair; Tamasha Theatre Company has announced Pooja Ghai as its new artistic director; Paul Taylor-Mills has been appointed as artistic director of The Other Palace
Could this be your next gig? The British Youth Music Theatre is looking for a new chief exec and creative producer; the National Academy for Social Prescribing is building out its comms team
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Ed Stuff
Sharpens his pencil for this review of season three of Succession for The House Magazine
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...And Finally
Well isn’t this FUN. 1,000 Andy Warhol sketches are being sold for $250 each in Brooklyn. 999 of them are fake… but one is an original worth $20k.
A huge - and I mean HUGE - congrats to Doug, officially the world’s heaviest potato at nearly 8kg. His competitors had no chance. Bunch of small fries. Mere spec-taters.
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