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Editor: Alex Pleasants

A cracking episode of Break Out Culture this week. Ed’s joined by Lord Norman Foster, Britain’s most-revered architect, and Stephen Bayley to talk all about beautiful buildings.  

And SET YOUR ALARMS!!! His first weekly Times Radio show kicks off tonight at 7pm.  

 Government Stuff 

An updated Online Safety Bill returns to Parliament next week, but plans to force Big Tech to remove ‘legal but harmful’ content are out.  

The Competition & Markets Authority has published its final market study report on music streaming. Music biz figures are now calling for government action.  

The UK has struck a digital trade deal with Ukraine.  

North East England is to pilot a new £2.25m scheme to restructure tourism boards and boost visitor numbers.  

Elon Musk is helping bring internet to rural Cumbria as part of a government trial. You read this correctly.  

Arts Council England boss Darren Henley is to appear before the DCMS Committee to explain the context behind recent arts funding decisions.   

Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has spoken of ‘progress’ in talks with the UK government over reuniting the country with the Parthenon Marbles.  

Education Minister Robert Halfon has said there are no plans to include the arts in the EBacc.  

 Culture Stuff 

Arts & Culture 
London's National Gallery is to go ahead with its controversial £35m Sainsbury Wing remodelling.  

Innovate UK has made £3m of new funding available for creative businesses in six English regions. 

Staffing concerns and rising costs are the biggest current concerns for UK art galleries, according to an Ecclesiastical survey. 

Arts Council England has reopened its fund to support artists and musicians to tour in an environmentally responsible way.  

A new scheme in Northern Ireland will see professional artists going into schools to share their skills with students.  

Somerset House has launched a new Black Business Incubator to help early-stage Black entrepreneurs to grow their creative enterprises.  

Indonesian collective ruangrupa bagged number 1 spot in this year’s ArtReview Power 100 list of movers and shakers in the arts. We came 101st, sadly. 


Design 
An office and cafe by Moxon Architects tucked away in Cairngorms National Park has been named as Scotland’s best building for 2022.  

It’s that kinda time again… Dezeen has announced all its winners for this year’s Dezeen Awards.  

Ahoy. An upside-down boat in Jersey built in 1997 has become the UK’s youngest listed building. They just grow up so fast these days.  


Theatre & Dance 
Skills shortages in offstage roles are worsening, according to BECTU research. 

A new low-cost counselling service for workers in theatre and the arts is to launch early next year.  

The stage version of Life of Pi is loading up the tiger in the boat
(spoiler) and going on its first UK tour. 

Tourism & Heritage  
Would I lie to you? NEVER. An interactive TV gameshow experience is to open in London next year. (Did I mention I was once on The Chase? I rarely bring it up).  

Museums  
The Wellcome Collection has permanently closed a display of artefacts amassed by its founder after deeming it ‘racist, sexist and ableist’.  

Press, Books & Libraries 
Katy Hessel’s rewrite of art history, The Story of Art Without Men, has been named Waterstones book of the year.  

Gulp! Lawyers have filed a £13.6bn adtech lawsuit against Google on behalf of UK publishers.  

A new report commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation outlines how women of colour are “effectively invisible” in UK and US news industries.  


Exhibitions and Events  
The Fashion Awards strut their way back to the Royal Albert Hall on Monday. Actress Jodie Turner-Smith is on presenting duties and Yinka Ilori has designed the snazzy trophy.  

Props from His Dark Materials are being exhibited at Swansea's Glynn Vivian Art Gallery until April. If you can pull yourself away from your dæmon for a minute!
(you wouldn’t get it).  

 A message from The Cares Family 

We live in an age of constant connection, with the power to communicate instantaneously with people everywhere in the world. And yet, in that same context, loneliness affects 9 million adults in the UK. 

At The Cares Family, we build connection by bringing people together across generations, backgrounds and experiences. In 11 years, we have connected nearly 30,000 older and younger people. More than that, we now lead national projects to help other people to build connection in a disconnected age.  

Our latest project is Ripple Effect – our programme to give our intergenerational model to institutions and individuals in 50 places across the UK. Through Ripple Effect, we will train people in councils, businesses, voluntary organisations, health agencies and more to lead inspiring intergenerational social clubs like dance parties, Desert Island Disc Nights, local history clubs and more. 

If you can help The Cares Family to turn a ripple of connection in local places into a wave all across the country, please email alex.smith@thecaresfamily.org.uk or find us on Twitter: @TheCaresFamily. 

 Creative Industries & Tech Stuff 

Film & TV 
The Beeb has launched a new commitment to improve access for disabled people on and off screen.  

Amazon has caught wind of these places called ‘cinemas’
(please Google) and is planning to spend $1bn on movies for theatrical release.  

Cc. Netflix. The Knives Out sequel could have made $200m at the box office, but this particular streaming service only let it play in ‘cinemas’
(?) for a week.  

Talking of NetflixHere’s a trailer for the new Harry and Meghan series.  

Director Ang Lee
(no relation to Bruce Lee) has cast his son Mason Lee (no relation to Bruce Lee) in a biopic about Bruce Lee (no relation to either Ang or Mason Lee).  

Fashion 
The Balenciaga fallout continues. Celebs are ditching the brand and they’re suing the ad company for $25m. The Telegraph on the shock tactic gone wrong.  

Shein has overtaken Zara as the world’s most popular fashion retailer… but, they can't always get what they want, as the Rolling Stones have pulled their partnership after a week.


Music & Radio 
The MOBO Awards celebrated its big 2-5 this week. Knucks and Little Simz tied for album of the year.  

The Guardian remembers the enigma of Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie.  

And you can tell everybody, Sir Elton John will headline next year’s Glastonbury as part of his farewell tour. His final EVER UK show, too.  

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus and Jamie Oliver are three of the guest editors of Radio 4’s Today over the festive period.  

Ah, now this is lovely. Former Desert Island Discs host Kirsty Young is returning as a guest over Christmas, as are Steven Spielberg and Cate Blanchett.  

Cat Burns, FLO and Nia Archives have been nominated for the next BRITS Rising Star award. 

Most streamed song of 2022? Harry StylesAs It Was. Total streams? 1.5bn on Spotify alone. Sign of the times, I guess? Wrong song.


Tech & Telecoms 
Rather surprisingly, FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried still appeared at a New York Times conference this week, saying “I didn't try to commit fraud”. Oh, no worries then. 

It is expected that 1 billion people globally will be connected to 5G by the end of the year.  

Water under the bridge between Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook in case you were wondering, after Elon accused them of planning to block Twitter.  

Meta has been fined just a mere €265m by the Irish Data Protection Commission over a data leak.  

The US has now completely banned sales and imports of Huawei, ZTE and goods from three either Chinese companies.  

A surgical robot has been used to remove a throat tumour for the first time in the UK.  

This is interesting. MIT Tech Review on the biotech labs using generative AI inspired by DALL-E to invent new drugs.  

Imran Chaudhri, Humane founder and iPhone designer, gave a first glimpse of a post-smartphone world at BoF VOICES this week. 

Elon Musk’s brain implant Neuralink should be ready for human testing in six months if anybody fancies it? 

San Francisco has voted to allow its police to use ‘killer robots’. Seems fine. 

Electric, robot tractors powered by Nvidia AI chips are popping up in the fields of California. Transfarmers.  

 Appointments & Movers 

Ex-GB News editorial director John McAndrew has joined the Beeb as director of news programmes; Suhair Khan has been appointed as a trustee of the Design Museum; Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock is among the new vice-presidents of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama 

 Ed Stuff

Popped up on ITV's Peston 

...And Finally

Next time you think about leaving somebody on ‘seen’ just remember these two pen pals who’ve turned 100 and been writing to each other since 1938. DO BETTER!!!  

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