Category Archives: Culture

Macron says French-Algerian author under ‘arbitrary detention’ in Algeria

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French president concerned for health of Boualem Sansal who has gone on hunger strike over his imprisonment

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said he is concerned about the “arbitrary detention” and health of Boualem Sansal, days after the French-Algerian author began a hunger strike over his imprisonment in Algeria.

On Tuesday, Pen America issued a statement calling for the immediate release of 75-year-old Sansal, noting that “his hunger strike adds to grave concerns for his wellbeing”.

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‘I chose to NOT follow the gutless rules’: Francis Ford Coppola says he’s ‘thrilled’ by Golden Raspberry votes

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Veteran film-maker defends his sci-fi epic Megalopolis as it scores two Razzies from nominations that included ‘worst picture’

Francis Ford Coppola has said he was “thrilled” to accept multiple Golden Raspberry nominations for his film Megalopolis, which ended up winning two awards.

On Instagram, Coppola said that he was treating the nominations, which are voted for by Razzie members, who pay for the privilege, as a “distinctive honour … when so few have the courage to go against the prevailing trends of contemporary moviemaking!”

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Alarms raised over legitimacy of Fyre festival 2: ‘An event that does not exist’

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Tourism and local officials in Mexico deny any knowledge of proposed follow-up to disastrous 2017 event

When tickets to the second Fyre festival went on sale this week, there was just one concrete detail: it would take place on Isla Mujeres, a tropical island off Cancún, Mexico.

But the festival seems to be repeating its own history as an improvised disaster after the local government in Isla Mujeres denied knowing anything about it.

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From The Sheep-Pig to His Dark Materials: the best audiobooks for children and teens

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As research reveals children want to listen to books rather than read them, here are some of the best audiobooks to enjoy

The popularity of audiobooks among young children and teenagers is on the rise with National Literacy Trust research showing for the first time that young people enjoy listening to books more than they do reading them.

Here are some of the best audiobooks on offer for kids and teens according to authors, critics and experts.

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‘There’s no better feeling’: TikTok star Go-Jo to represent Australia at Eurovision 2025

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Singer of viral hit Mrs Hollywood hopes his milkshakes bring everyone on board at Basel this year when he sings Milkshake Man, an ode to self-confidence

TikTok star Go-Jo will represent Australia at Eurovision in May, the 10th musical act to head represent his country since Australia joined the annual European song contest a decade ago.

Marty Zambotto, a 29-year-old Sydney-based singer-songwriter, went viral in 2023 after he uploaded a clip to TikTok of himself performing his song Mrs Hollywood while busking around Sydney. To date, the song has racked up more than 60m digital streams and 1bn views across all platforms.

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The 2025 Eurovision song contest runs 13 -17 May and will be broadcast on SBS in Australia

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Norman Foster on shortlist to design Queen Elizabeth II memorial

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Architect who was once highly critical of King Charles is part of team that is one of five finalists for scheme

The shortlist of teams competing to design a national memorial to the late Queen Elizabeth II has been unveiled and includes an architect once highly critical of King Charles.

Five finalists are in the running for what has been described as one of the most significant design initiatives in modern British history, in tribute to the UK’s longest-serving monarch.

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Karla Sofía Gascón to attend Oscars despite tweet controversy

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The Emilia Pérez best actress nominee will be at Sunday’s ceremony with Netflix paying for all expenses incurred

The Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón is reportedly set to attend this Sunday’s Oscars after controversy over bigoted tweets.

The Spanish actor, who is nominated for best actress, had been removed from the campaign trail by Netflix after resurfaced tweets led to a backlash.

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UK pop stars fail to reach global Top 10 albums and singles chart for first time since 2003

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Global chart dominated by US acts including Benson Boone, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter, with K-pop bands also strong

British pop stars have failed to reach the worldwide annual charts of the year’s Top 10 biggest singles and albums for the first time in more than two decades.

In 2022, UK acts such as Harry Styles and Glass Animals made up seven of the 20 entries in the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) list. This year, the leading UK act was producer and singer Artemas, for I Like the Way You Kiss Me.

Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department

Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft

Sabrina Carpenter – Short n’ Sweet

Enhypen – Romance: Untold

SZA – SOS

Seventeen – Spill the Feels

Morgan Wallen – One Thing at a Time

Seventeen – 17 Is Right Here

Noah Kahan – Stick Season

Stray Kids – ATE

Benson Boone – Beautiful Things

Sabrina Carpenter – Espresso

Teddy Swims – Lose Control

Billie Eilish – Birds of a Feather

Shaboozey – A Bar Song (Tipsy)

Hozier – Too Sweet

Post Malone – I Had Some Help ft Morgan Wallen

Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us

Taylor Swift – Cruel Summer

Noah Kahan – Stick Season

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Sag awards 2025: Timothée Chalamet, Demi Moore, Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win major categories

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Screen Actors Guild awards go to Shōgun and Conclave ensembles, while Jane Fonda gives a rousing political speech while accepting a life achievement award

Timothée Chalamet has won best actor in a surprise upset at the 2025 Screen Actors Guild awards for his performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, with Demi Moore and the ensembles of Shōgun and Conclave also winning big.

Chalamet won best male actor in a leading role, his first in an awards race that has been led all season by The Brutalist’s Adrien Brody, who has picked up the Golden Globe, Bafta and Critics’ Choice awards and is still widely predicted to win the Oscar next week.

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Don’t gift our work to AI billionaires: Mark Haddon, Michal Rosen and other creatives urge government

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More than 2,000 cultural figures challenge Whitehall’s eagerness ‘to ­wrap our lives’ work in attractive paper for automated competitors’

Original British art and creative skill is in peril thanks to the rise of AI and the government’s plans to loosen ­copyright rules, some of the UK’s leading cultural figures have said.

More than 2,000 people, including leading creative names such as Mark Haddon, Axel Scheffler, Benji Davies and Michael Rosen, have signed a ­letter published in the Observer today calling on the government to keep the legal safeguards that offer artists and writers the prospect of a ­sustainable income.

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Literary gold … or betrayal of trust? Joan Didion journal opens ethical minefield

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Soon we can all read the late author’s private notes about her therapy. But should we?

In 1998, the late journalist Joan Didion wrote a scathing essay about the posthumous publication of True at First Light, a travel journal and fictional memoir by Ernest Hemingway, 38 years after the author killed himself. “This is a man to whom words mattered. He worked at them, he understood them, he got inside them,” Didion wrote. “His wish to be survived by only the words he determined fit for publication would have seemed clear enough.”

Just over a year later, in December 1999, Didion began writing her own journal about her sessions with a psychiatrist. She addressed these notes – detailing her struggles with alcoholism, anxiety, guilt and depression, a sometimes fraught relationship with her adopted daughter Quintana and reflections on her childhood and legacy – to her husband, John Gregory Dunne.

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UK creative industries set behaviour standards after Strictly and MasterChef rows

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An independent standards authority says the industry must learn from recent scandals and create safer working environments

New guidelines will be issued this week for the UK’s creative industries after a series of scandals including reports of inappropriate behaviour by Gregg Wallace and Gino d’Acampo, and bullying allegations on the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing.

The Creative Industries Indep­endent Standards Authority (CIISA) will set new standards with the aim of stamping out bullying, harassment and discrimination, and address “power imbalances”.

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‘You dream about such things’: Brit who discovered missing pharaoh’s tomb may have unearthed another

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Archaeologist believes his ‘find of the century’ – of Pharaoh Thutmose II – could be surpassed by ongoing excavation

To uncover the location of one long-lost pharaoh’s tomb is a career-defining moment for an archaeologist. But to find a second is the stuff of dreams.

Last week British archaeologist Piers Litherland announced the find of the century – the first discovery of a rock-cut pharaoh’s tomb in Egypt since Tutankhamun’s in 1922.

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British Library acquires torn-out drafts of Edward Elgar masterpiece

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Exclusive: sketches for Introduction and Allegro for Strings had been removed from sketchbook by composer in 1930

The British Library has acquired previously unknown sketches and drafts by Sir Edward Elgar for one of his best-known masterpieces, Introduction and Allegro for Strings.

Spanning 15 pages, they shed light on the creative process of Britain’s most revered composer. One bears the beginnings of an unknown organ piece on which he had started work.

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Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner refused to sign memo saying Trump was not antisemitic, book says

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Pair declined to give public endorsement of Trump in wake of 7 October attacks, All or Nothing by Michael Wolff reveals

Donald Trump’s Jewish daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, refused to sign a statement saying Trump was not antisemitic, according to a new book by the veteran Trump tell-all author Michael Wolff.

“As he kept seeming to be incapable of offering absolute support for Israel in the wake of October 7,” Wolff writes, referring to the deadly 2023 attacks by Hamas, “Trump, not for the first time, turned to Jared for Jewish cover, explicitly asking him and Ivanka for a public endorsement.

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Historic England acquires collection featuring some of UK’s oldest photos

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Janette Rosing built up pioneering trove of 8,000 images dating back to the early days of the Industrial Revolution

Some of the oldest photographs in England which show the country’s transformation after the industrial revolution have been acquired by Historic England.

Images from the Janette Rosing collection include some of the earliest landscape photography ever taken in the country, spanning the breadth of southern England from the harbours of Clovelly and Plymouth in Devon to the streets of Bethnal Green and the banks of the River Thames in London.

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Argentina court drops charges against three people over Liam Payne death

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Charges of criminal negligence dropped against three key defendants over death of British singer in October

A court in Argentina has dropped charges of criminal negligence against three of the five people indicted in connection with the death of Liam Payne, the former One Direction singer who fell from a third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires last October.

In a decision issued Wednesday, the Argentine federal appeals court ordered the other two defendants in the case to remain in custody. They are facing prosecution on charges they supplied the famed British boy band star with narcotics.

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Writer quits Society of Authors over union’s ‘betrayal’ of Jerusalem bookshop raided by Israeli police

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Matthew Teller, whose books include Nine Quarters of Jerusalem, said the society’s response to the event which saw two leading booksellers detained was ‘an abject failure’

A writer has left the Society of Authors (SoA) in protest after the UK’s largest writers’ body made a statement on a recent Israeli police raid on a Palestinian-owned bookstore without mentioning Israel, Palestine or the names of the booksellers who were arrested.

Matthew Teller, the author of books including Nine Quarters of Jerusalem, said the SoA’s statement “added insult to the injury” and was a “betrayal”, leading to him cancelling his membership on Tuesday.

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‘Sweating like a mafioso’: calls in Italy to bar Estonia’s ‘offensive’ Eurovision entry

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Consumer group complains about song’s stereotypes of Italians – but other Italians say the lyrics are ‘no stresso’

The Eurovision song contest is several months away but the drama has already begun, with calls from Italy for Estonia’s catchy pick for the competition to be scrapped due to lyrics poking fun at Italian stereotypes of being coffee-drinking, spaghetti-eating mafiosi.

Espresso Macchiato, by the rapper Tommy Cash, is sung in a blend of broken English and Italian and depicts a life of sweet indulgence. “Ciao bella, I’m Tomaso, addicted to tobacco. Mi like mi coffè very importante,” the first verse begins.

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