In case you missed it… We’re working with Ajaz.org to shine a spotlight on extraordinary charities around the UK supporting families and children.

Last week, it was The Cares Family - an amazing organisation combating loneliness. This week, we partner with Little Village, who are supporting families with babies and children under five living in poverty in London. More further down in the newsletter.

And Ed’s first weekly Times Radio show was an absolute rip-roaring success - thanks for asking. He was joined by Michael Gove and Pattie Boyd. Listen back here.  

 Government Stuff 

 Culture Stuff 

Arts & Culture 
Veronica Ryan has been named winner of this year’s Turner Prize for her work including a Windrush memorial. The Guardian on why she’s a ‘sensational choice’.  

The Creative Industries Trade & Investment Board has launched a new strategy to grow UK creative exports to £78bn by 2030.  

Viva Magentaaaa… I’ll be waitiiiing… Everlastiiing… As Pantone’s colour of the yeeear. 

Gladrags on for awards season, you lot. Here’s the winners of The Apollo Awards, including Art UK and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp. 

Probably about time for a ‘best of 2022’ list or 100, too? The Guardian with their favourite books, films, TV shows, albums and songs of the past year.

If you still don’t know your NFT from your DFS (one is sofas, one is tokens of sofas), Creative PEC has an explainer on what the tech means for the arts.   

The Art Newspaper analyses the decline in demand for paintings from the Old Masters. They’ll be giving them away soon. Mark my words.  

Design 
This rather lovely Red House in Dorset by David Kohn Architects has won the coveted RIBA House of the Year. 

The brilliant seaweed packaging company Notpla was one of the winners of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize. He couldn’t kelp but pick them.  

Theatre & Dance 
The Mayor of London has launched a Christmas season of reduced price theatre tickets to get more people to the West End.  

Groundhog Day is to return to London's Old Vic next year.  

A live recording of one of Stephen Sondheim’s earliest musicals from 1948 has been found on a random bookshelf in Milwaukee. Never happens to me.  

Groundhog Day is to return to London's Old Vic next year.  

(I did that on purpose before anybody pipes up). 

Classical Music & Opera 
Arts Council England boss Darren Henley has said that the English National Opera will continue to perform ‘large-scale productions’ at the London Coliseum.  

Museums  
Art UK and partners have launched a project to create a UK-wide digital collections database, thanks to Bloomberg Philanthropies funding. 

The Museum of London’s last weekend at its current site after 45 years was the busiest in its history.  

Press, Books & Libraries 
Volodymyr Zelensky is Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2022.  

Factchecking organisation Full Fact has become the first non-individual (aka. group) to win the prestigious British Academy award.  

Writers’ earnings have plummeted, according to an ALCS report, with your average professional author now taking home £7,000 annually.  

BuzzFeed is laying off 12% of its workforce.  

‘Goblin mode’ has been picked as Oxford word of the year. I mean…  

Awww. Stephen King, Margaret Attwood and many more have shared experiences of speaking to empty rooms to reassure an author after a poorly-attended book launch. 

Exhibitions and Events  
Sundance Film Festival is returning to IRL (in real life) next month in Utah, with Anne Hathaway, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Julia Louis-Dreyfus topping the bill.  

Creative UK has announced the first bunch of speakers for its Creative Coalition Festival next spring, including gaming godfather Sir Ian Livingstone.  

 A message from Little Village 

 Creative Industries & Tech Stuff 

Film & TV 
Harry and Meghan’s documentary series is now out. Netflix is saying the Royal Family refused to comment… they’re saying they weren’t asked.  The Only Way is Sussex.  

Paul Mescal’s new flick Aftersun (not about treating sunburn. I checked) has bagged best film at the British Independent Film Awards.  

The UK television industry needs to hire another 13,500 disabled people to truly reflect the diversity of the country, according to Diamond data.  

Disney+ is the latest streaming service to launch an ad-supported version.  

BAFTA, BFI and British Council (all the B’s) have teamed up to release an industry-first short film digital toolkit for aspiring talent.   

Reviews are in for the Avatar sequel. The Guardian: “a silly, soggy, motion-smoothed epic of solemnity without a single interesting visual image”. I’m already in the queue. 

Fashion 
Burberry and Bella Hadid were among the winners at this year’s Fashion Awards. Vogue’s on hand with their best-dressed of the evening. 

The iconic Fenwick’s department store on London’s New Bond Street is to close after 130 years.  

Music & Radio 
London-based girlband Flo have won this year’s BRITs rising star award - and they’re on the shortlist for BBC Sound of 2023, too. 

Our man, OUR MAN, Stormzy has secured his third no.1 album on the trot. Wired looks at how he’s built an empire. The head truly is heavy.  

The Music Venue Trust has announced the first recipients of grants of up to £5,000 to support grassroots venues.  

Can’t say I love this. The Beeb’s legendary Maida Vale recording studios is up for sale for £10.5m.  

Gaming 
In the US, the FTC is suing Microsoft in a bid to block its planned $68.7bn of Activision Blizzard.  

Rebellion - the brilliant British games studio, filmmaker, publisher, and more - is celebrating its big 3-0. Woo!  

Microsoft and Nintendo have agreed a 10-year agreement to bring Call of Duty to the latter’s consoles.  

Tech & Telecoms
Atomico has released its State of European Tech report for 2022. $400bn has been wiped from the value of the sector in the past year.  

OpenAI has released its mind-blowing ChatGPT bot. The Telegraph on why it can do your job better than you and The Verge on how it proves AI is finally mainstream. Game over for newsletter writers. We had a good run. 

A new EU-funded study has found that risky online behaviour is ‘almost normalised’ among young people, with one in four admitting to trolling someone. 

Apple is planning to move even more production out of China. The Washington Post on why it's an ‘overdue reckoning’.  

They (Apple) are also expanding their DIY repair service to the UK and have announced privacy changes which could be at odds with UK government plans. 

Wordle was the most Googled word in the world this year.  

A change in the way the cryptocurrency Ethereum works is said to have cut total energy use by a similar amount used by the whole of Ireland. Blimey.  

San Francisco has reversed its plan to allow the police to use killer robots. Seems like a good move.  

The Guardian on whether Meta is losing its $100bn gamble on the metaverse. Surely not?  

Amazon is to give overworked delivery drivers a $5 tip if you ask Alexa to thank them - and they’ve launched a definitely-nothing-like-TikTok-how-dare-you shopping feed.  

Microsoft apparently wants to build a ‘super app’ that ‘does everything’. Clearly never heard of the Matt Hancock app.  

 Appointments & Movers 

Sky News boss John Ryley is leaving after 17 years in charge; Vodafone chief exec Nick Read is stepping down; Stewart Butterfield, founder of Slack, has left Salesforce less than two years after it acquired his firm; Prada has confirmed Andrea Guerra as their new CEO; Tabitha Goldstaub is to lead Innovate Cambridge; Caro Howell has been appointed director-general of the Imperial War Museum; Gill Whitehead is joining Ofcom as group director for online safety; Trevor Noah has finished as Daily Show host in the US after seven years; Silvia Montello has been appointed as chief exec of the Association of Independent Music; Frank Douglas has been named as chair designate of the Chineke! Foundation; ASOS finance chief Katy Mecklenburgh has quit; Matt Lucas is leaving his role as host of Bake Off (cc. Ed)  

 Ed Stuff

Popped up on The News Agents to talk to Emily Maitlis about returning the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. 

On this week’s Break Out Culture, Ed’s joined by Christina Makris to talk about the best combinations of art and food. Mmmm.  

Wrote to The Times with some philanthropy thoughts.  

...And Finally

Let’s finish with a proper heartwarmer. Neil Diamond gave a surprise performance of Sweet Caroline at the opening of a Broadway show based on his life, five years after retiring due to Parkinson’s.