Category Archives: Culture

KPMG asks Sydney writers’ festival to delete its name from website after Randa Abdel-Fattah confirmed as speaker

Posted on by

Festival confirmed writer and academic would appear in two sessions in 2026 following disinvitation from Adelaide event

Global accounting giant KPMG has distanced itself from the Sydney writers’ festival, requesting its name be removed from the event’s website where it was listed as a corporate partner.

The move follows the festival scheduling Palestinian Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah to speak at two sessions in this year’s event.

Continue reading...

Bono lambasts ICE, Putin, Netanyahu and more as U2 release first collection of new songs since 2017

Posted on by

New EP Days of Ash features songs about Renee Good, Iranian protesters and other political topics, and precedes new ‘defiantly joyful’ album later in 2026

• Alexis Petridis on Days of Ash: six new tracks that reaffirm the band as a vital political voice

U2 have released their first collection of new music since 2017 – a politically charged EP entitled Days of Ash, which focuses on a series of high-profile global deaths including the killing of Renee Good by ICE agents.

Good, a mother of three children who was killed on 7 January while protesting against ICE activity in Minneapolis, is the subject of the opening song, American Obituary.

Continue reading...

Tom Noonan, actor known for Heat and Manhunter, dies aged 74

Posted on by

Actor, whose credits also included RoboCop 2, Anomalisa and Heaven’s Gate, was also an accomplished playwright

Tom Noonan, the actor known for his Michael Mann collaborations, has died at the age of 74.

His death was confirmed by Fred Dekker, the director of 80s comedy horror The Monster Squad which saw Noonan play Frankenstein’s Monster.

Continue reading...

Hundred-year reveal: Catalonian chalet confirmed as Gaudí work in centenary year

Posted on by

Xalet del Catllaràs contains elements of architect’s naturalistic style, expressed in works such as Park Güell and Sagrada Família

An elegant modernist building in the mountains north of Barcelona, originally constructed to house engineers establishing a nearby mine, has been confirmed as a work of Antoni Gaudí, Catalonia’s most celebrated and distinctive architect.

The Xalet del Catllaràs, about 80 miles from Barcelona in the county of Berguedà, was built in 1905 and commissioned by Eusebi Güell, Gaudí’s lifelong patron. Güell was the owner of a cement company with mines in the region and he needed somewhere to house the engineers, many of them British, who would help extract the coal for his factories.

Continue reading...

‘Bored by all the sex and violins’: readers on Wuthering Heights film

Posted on by

Reaction to Emerald Fennell’s movie adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi

My group of six English teachers – aged from 30 to 54 – saw the film on Friday. We are still processing our thoughts in a group chat. We agreed that the visuals were often delightfully shocking. We talked about the contrasts between the lavish costumes and the moor landscape, which we thought Fennell got right. We talked about the Charlie XCX music and how well it evoked the landscape and the spirit of the book.

Continue reading...

Oscar-nominated co-writer of It Was Just an Accident released from Iranian prison

Posted on by

Mehdi Mahmoudian released 17 days after arrest for signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader and regime’s protest crackdown

Mehdi Mahmoudian, the Oscar-nominated cowriter of It Was Just an Accident, has been released from an Iranian prison 17 days after his arrest, according to local media reports.

Mahmoudian was arrested in Tehran shortly after signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators. On Tuesday, he was released from the Nowshahr prison, along with two other signatories of the statement, Vida Rabbani and Abdollah Momeni.

Continue reading...

Javier Bardem and Tilda Swinton among those to condemn Berlinale’s ‘silence’ on Gaza

Posted on by

At least 80 film-makers and stars sign open letter after German festival jury president Wim Wenders says they should keep out of politics

More than 80 current and former participants of the Berlinale, including Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton and Adam McKay have signed an open letter condemning the festival’s “silence” on Gaza.

It comes after the film festival was swept up in what it called a “media storm” over the alleged sidelining of political discourse at the event.

Continue reading...

Madrid museum shuffles its pack charting decades of rapid change in Spain

Posted on by

Reina Sofía’s three-year rehang of works by artists from Spain and beyond is billed as a ‘critical reinterpretation’

The Reina Sofía’s new rehang opens, quite pointedly, with a painting of a detained man sitting, head bowed and wrists shackled, as he waits for the arbitrary hand of institutional bureaucracy to decide his fate.

The picture, Document No …, was painted by Juan Genovés in 1975, the year Francisco Franco died and Spain began its transition to democracy after four decades of dictatorship. Genovés’s faceless, everyman victim of the Franco regime’s control and repression is the natural starting point for the Madrid museum’s exploration of the past 50 years of contemporary art in Spain.

Continue reading...

Frederick Wiseman, prolific documentary film-maker, dies aged 96

Posted on by

Recognised with an honorary Academy Award in 2016, Wiseman directed and produced almost 50 films with a lifelong commitment to curiosity and naturalism

Frederick Wiseman, the prolific film-maker whose documentaries primarily explored US public institutions and communities, has died aged 96.

His death on Monday was announced in a joint statement from the Wiseman family and his production company, Zipporah Films.

Continue reading...

Taylor Swift concert attack plot: 21-year-old man charged with terrorism in Austria

Posted on by

Unnamed suspect accused of planning to bomb one of singer’s Eras tour shows in Vienna

Austrian prosecutors have filed terrorism-related charges against a 21-year-old who they say planned to attack one of Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna in August 2024.

Three dates in Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour were cancelled after authorities warned of the plot.

Continue reading...

Robert Duvall, Apocalypse Now and Godfather star, dies aged 95

Posted on by

From the classic To Kill a Mockingbird to blockbuster Gone in 60 Seconds, the Oscar-winning actor’s films spanned a remarkable range

Robert Duvall, the veteran actor who had a string of roles in classic American films including Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, M*A*S*H and To Kill a Mockingbird, has died aged 95.

“Bob passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love and comfort,” wrote his wife, Luciana Duvall, in a message on Facebook.

Continue reading...

British Museum removes word ‘Palestine’ from some displays

Posted on by

Museum revises labelling on maps and panels, saying term used inaccurately and no longer historically neutral

The British Museum has removed the word “Palestine” from some of its displays, saying the term was used inaccurately and is no longer historically neutral.

Maps and information panels in the museum’s ancient Middle East galleries had referred to the eastern Mediterranean coast as Palestine, with some people described as being “of Palestinian descent”.

Continue reading...

Ebo Taylor, Ghanaian highlife pioneer and guitarist, dies age 90

Posted on by

Taylor, who did for Ghanaian music what his friend Fela Kuti did for Nigeria, has been called the greatest rhythm guitarist in history

Ghanaian musician Ebo Taylor, a definitive force behind the highlife genre, has died age 90.

His son Kweku Taylor announced the news on Sunday: “The world has lost a giant. A colossus of African music. Ebo Taylor passed away yesterday; a day after the launch of Ebo Taylor music festival and exactly a month after his 90th birthday, leaving behind an unmatched artistry legacy. Dad, your light will never fade.”

Continue reading...

Stranger Things season 5 breaks Netflix viewership record

Posted on by

New episodes of sci-fi series achieve 59.6m views in first five days of release, a new record for an English language show

The upside-down is still the right way for Netflix – Stranger Things 5 is now the company’s biggest English-language debut ever.

The fifth season of the streaming company’s flagship sci-fi series achieved 59.6m views in its first five days on the platform, making for the best premiere week for an English-language series ever on Netflix, and the third biggest debut overall behind the second and third seasons of the Korean sensation Squid Game.

Continue reading...

Shells found in Spain could be among oldest known musical instruments

Posted on by

Conch-shell trumpets discovered in Neolithic settlements and mines in Catalonia make tone similar to french horn, says lead researcher

As a child, Miquel López García was fascinated by the conch shell, kept in the bathroom, that his father’s family in the southern Spanish region of Almería had blown to warn their fellow villagers of rising rivers and approaching flood waters.

The hours he spent getting that “characteristically potent sound out of it” paid off last year when the archaeologist, musicologist and professional trumpet player pressed his lips to eight conch-shell trumpets. Their tones, he says, could carry insights into the lives of the people who lived in north-east Spain 6,000 years ago.

Continue reading...

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs decries Netflix series by 50 Cent as ‘shameful hit piece’

Posted on by

Disgraced and incarcerated music mogul claims footage in docuseries Sean Combs: The Reckoning was stolen

Sean “Diddy” Combs has taken issue with a splashy new Netflix docuseries on his life and many legal troubles, that is executive produced by his longtime rival 50 Cent.

The former Bad Boy Records executive and hip-hop star, currently serving a four-year sentence for prostitution-related charges, blasted Sean Combs: The Reckoning as a “shameful hit piece”, and accused Netflix of incorporating stolen footage.

Continue reading...

Iran sentences award-winning director Jafar Panahi to year in prison for ‘propaganda activities’

Posted on by

Iranian film-maker won Cannes film festival’s Palme D’Or prize earlier this year for It Was Just an Accident

Iran has sentenced the Palme d’Or-winning film-maker Jafar Panahi in absentia to one year in prison and a travel ban over “propaganda activities” against the country.

The sentence includes a two-year ban on leaving Iran and prohibition of Panahi from membership of any political or social groups, his lawyer Mostafa Nili said, adding that they would file an appeal.

Continue reading...

Josh Brolin on Donald Trump: ‘There’s no greater genius than him in marketing’

Posted on by

The actor met the future president while making Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and says he is ‘not scared’ of him

Actor Josh Brolin says President Trump was a “different guy” when he first met him in 2009, and that “there is no greater genius than [Trump] in marketing”.

Brolin was speaking to the Independent to promote his new film Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and said that while his clergyman character was not based on the president, there was a similarity in that once he “garners a sense of power, then there are no boundaries”.

Continue reading...

Bridge to the past: JR to wrap Pont Neuf again, 40 years after artistic forebears

Posted on by

Exclusive: French artist planning to cover bridge over Seine in tribute to Christo and Jeanne-Claude

The enigmatic French artist JR will undertake what he says is his biggest ever challenge next year when he “wraps” Pont Neuf, the oldest standing bridge across the Seine River in Paris, in a tribute to a monumental art project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

For three weeks next June, the 232-metre (761ft) long bridge will be wrapped in fabric, 40 years after the married artists known for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations did the same thing.

Continue reading...

Can you have a community without craic? Scholars of Ireland’s pubs warn of declining numbers

Posted on by

Two new books analyse what makes the ‘perfect pub’ and both come to a sobering conclusion: Irish pubs are in trouble

Like triple-distilled whiskey, Irish pubs appear to have timeless appeal. They are staple setting in films, books and plays, draw tourists to Ireland, replicate themselves around the world and induce social media quests for the perfect snug and the perfect pint.

Scholars have now bestowed academic imprimatur on this cultural treasure status by examining – and celebrating – pubs through the lens of history, sociology, architecture, psychology, design, art and literature.

Continue reading...