Category Archives: Culture

Sake: Japan’s ‘divine gift’ given special status by Unesco

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Rice wine enshrined as part of ‘cultural heritage of humanity’

Sake is perhaps more Japanese than the world-famous sushi. It’s brewed in centuries-old mountaintop warehouses, savoured in the country’s pub-like izakayas, poured during weddings and served slightly chilled for special toasts.

Now, the smooth rice wine that plays a crucial role in Japan’s culinary traditions - and is a favoured tipple of celebrities such as Cate Blanchett – has been enshrined by Unesco, which has put it on its list of the “intangible cultural heritage of humanity”.

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Australian Music prize: 80-year-old Kankawa Nagarra wins over Nick Cave and Amyl and the Sniffers

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Walmatjarri elder and blues musician wins $50,000 prize for Wirlmarni, saying she hopes it will bring pride to her community in Wangkatjungka

The Walmatjarri elder and blues musician Kankawa Nagarra has won the $50,000 Australian Music prize (AMP) for her debut album Wirlmarni, seeing off competition from Nick Cave, the Dirty Three and Amyl and the Sniffers.

Inspired by the UK’s Mercury prize, the AMP focuses “entirely on artistic merit” and aims to “financially reward and increase exposure” for Australian musicians who release the best album in a calendar year.

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Henry I’s luxurious tower at Corfe Castle reopens to visitors after 378 years

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A National Trust viewing platform at Corfe Castle offers visitors a glimpse into the king’s royal quarters in Dorset

A luxurious suite of “rooms with a view”, built for the son of William the Conquerer but partly destroyed in the English Civil War, has become accessible to visitors for the first time in almost 400 years, thanks to a new viewing platform at one of England’s most dramatically situated castles.

The King’s Tower was built in 1107 for William’s son Henry I at Corfe castle, which sits on top of a steep hill on the Purbeck peninsula near Wareham in Dorset. Constructed from gleaming white limestone inside the imposing fortification, the 23-metre tower was Henry’s personal penthouse, built to the highest standards of luxury and including an “appearance door” from which he could be seen by his subjects far below.

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Marshall Brickman, Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning co-writer, dies aged 85

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Screenwriter co-wrote Annie Hall and Manhattan, penned the Jersey Boys musical, and wrote for Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and The Muppet Show

Marshall Brickman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter who wrote some of Woody Allen ’s best films, the Broadway musical Jersey Boys and a number of Johnny Carson’s most beloved sketches, has died aged 85.

Brickman died Friday in Manhattan, his daughter Sophie Brickman told the New York Times. No cause of death was given.

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Bob Bryar, former My Chemical Romance drummer, dies aged 44

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Longest-standing drummer of pop-punk band said to have influenced emo movement was found dead in Tennessee

Bob Bryar, the former drummer of the US pop-punk band My Chemical Romance which was said to have influenced the youth culture movement emo, has died aged 44.

Bryar’s body was found in his home in Tennessee last week. The entertainment news outlet TMZ, which was the first to report his death, said that according to police no foul play was suspected as his possessions, including musical equipment and weapons, were untouched.

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Dawson’s Creek actor James Van Der Beek sells merch to pay for cancer treatment

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Actor says he’s selling memorabilia to help cover ‘expensive’ treatment costs for recent colorectal cancer diagnosis

The Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek announced he is selling memorabilia to help cover the “expensive” treatment costs for his recent colorectal cancer diagnosis.

Van Der Beek, also known for the film Varsity Blues, made the announcement on Instagram last week, nearly three weeks after revealing his illness in an interview with People.

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Feminist hit movie Her Story touted as China’s answer to Barbie

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Directed by a woman with a cast of female leads, the film is the latest to be centred around female experiences and prove a box office success in China

The recent box office success of Her Story, a Chinese comedy directed by a woman with a cast of female leads, has led commentators to dub the movie China’s answer to Barbie.

The second feature film by Chinese director Shao Yihui, Her Story revolves around a newly unemployed single mother with a daughter and their young female neighbour, as they explore their experiences and struggles as women in Shanghai.

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Letter from 1300 in support of Scottish hero William Wallace goes on display

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Fragile, rarely seen artefact sent by the King of France was briefly available for public view on St Andrew's Day

An important letter in support of Scottish hero William Wallace has been put on display on St Andrew’s Day.

More than 250 people turned up on Saturday to see the fragile document, which was only on display for five hours to protect it from too much daylight.

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Cornish tourist spot unveils spider-related haiku spun by Simon Armitage

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Work first in a series from poet laureate about wildlife that exists in the Lost Gardens of Heligan

A new haiku by the poet laureate Simon Armitage has appeared on a garden wall in Cornwall, the first of a series of pieces celebrating the creatures that make their home among the woods, meadows and ferns there.

Armitage’s haiku, Web, celebrates the silky but deadly threads that spiders “darn” in the hedges at the Lost Gardens of Heligan and was unveiled together with an illuminated 2-metre recreation of a walnut orb-weaver spider as part of a midwinter night trail.

Web can be seen at Heligan Night Garden, which is open on select dates, until 4 January and Dwell will be published by Faber.

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Still life quartet by Dutch golden age master to be shown together in Cambridge

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Jan Davidsz de Heem’s four paintings of sumptuous food and luxury objects were produced as series

A quartet of influential still lifes from the Dutch artist Jan Davidsz de Heem will go on display together for the first time since the 17th century at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

The four paintings were produced as part of a series by De Heem, who is considered to be a master of pronkstilleven – a style of ornate still life painting – during the Dutch golden age, depicting displays of sumptuous food and luxurious objects.

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Band Aid 40 fails to reach UK Top 40 in opening week

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All-star version of Do They Know It’s Christmas?, spliced together from previous versions, falls short of the No 1 success of those earlier hits

The 40th anniversary version of Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? has failed to enter this week’s Top 40, reaching No 45.

The new version of the song was made up of performances spliced together from three previous versions, in an arrangement by producer Trevor Horn. But despite featuring the unusual A-list juxtaposition of George Michael, Sinead O’Connor, Chris Martin, One Direction and more, the new version has not yet matched the success of its predecessors, which each went straight to No 1 in 1984, 2004 and 2014.

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Crypto entrepreneur eats banana art he bought for $6.2m

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Conceptual work created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was sold at auction in New York last week

The cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun has fulfilled a promise he made after spending $6.2m (£4.88m) on an artwork featuring a banana duct-taped to a wall – by eating the fruit.

At one of Hong Kong’s priciest hotels, Sun, 34, chomped down on the banana in front of dozens of journalists and influencers after giving a speech hailing the work as “iconic” and drew parallels between conceptual art and cryptocurrency.

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Silvia Pinal, star of Mexico’s Golden Age of film, dies aged 93

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Over a career that spanned seven decades, Pinal was a muse to director Luis Buñuel, appearing in 60s classics such as Viridiana

Silvia Pinal, an actor from Mexico’s Golden Age of cinema and muse to the director Luis Buñuel, has died aged 93.

Pinal got her start in theatre in the 1940s, working with the director Rafael Banquells – the first of her four husbands. She became a star in 1950 aged 18, when she appeared opposite two of Mexico’s biggest comedic film stars: Germán Valdés (Tin-Tan) in The King of the Neighborhood and Mario Moreno (Cantinflas) in The Doorman. In 1952 she appeared alongside heartthrob Pedro Infante in A Place Near Heaven.

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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs denied bail for a third time over ‘serious risk’ of witness tampering

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Judge rules that the court ‘doubts the sufficiency of any conditions’ that place trust in Combs to follow bail rules

Sean “Diddy” Combs has been denied bail for the third time by a judge in New York City who described him as a “serious risk” for witness tampering.

Prosecutors had previously accused Combs of trying to contact prospective witnesses from jail in an attempt to create “narratives” to influence public opinion as well as potential jurors for his impending sex trafficking trial.

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Plan to cut Berlin arts budget will ‘destroy’ city’s culture, directors warn

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Leading theatre figures warn ‘drastic’ reduction in funding will cause bankruptcy and harm city’s tourism appeal

Plans to slash Berlin’s culture budget by tens of millions of Euros have led to a huge backlash, with leading venues saying they have been forced to cut performances and others warning they will be pushed into bankruptcy.

About 450 institutes that are reliant at least in part on state subsidies, from theatres and opera houses to nightclubs and galleries, have formed an alliance in an attempt to force a rethink over the €130m (£108.6m) cuts. At around 12 to 13% of the current annual budget, they have been described even by those proposing them as “brutal”.

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Jim Abrahams, co-creator of Airplane! and The Naked Gun, dies aged 80

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Famed comedy writer and director, who was also involved in Ruthless People and Hot Shots!, died of natural causes

Jim Abrahams, the writer-director involved with hit comedies Airplane! and The Naked Gun, has died at the age of 80.

According to his son Joseph, who confirmed the news to the Hollywood Reporter, he died of natural causes at his home in Santa Monica.

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Drake claims UMG and Spotify ‘artificially inflated’ Kendrick Lamar’s diss track Not Like Us

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Feud escalates as rapper’s lawyers file two petitions alleging Universal Music Group and streaming giant conspired while also accusing them of defamation

Drake has launched two legal actions against Universal Music Group and Spotify, alleging they conspired to artificially inflate interest in Kendrick Lamar’s diss track about him, Not Like Us, while suppressing his own music, as well as accusing them of defamation.

In a petition filed to the New York supreme court on Monday, attorneys for Drake’s company Frozen Moments LLC accused UMG and the streaming service of having “launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves”, using various tactics to make Lamar’s song more popular.

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‘Opera should be an unstoppable art form’: Royal Opera announce Netia Jones as associate director

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The Royal Ballet and Opera have created a new role, allowing Jones to drive development and new commissions

The Royal Ballet and Opera today announces that Netia Jones has been appointed to the newly created position of associate director of The Royal Opera.

Over the past two decades the British-born Jones has carved a career spanning opera, theatre, concerts and immersive installation projects as a director, designer and video artist. Recently she directed the Royal Opera’s first ever virtual reality opera Current, Rising, and her staging – as director and designer – of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Garsington Opera this summer was hailed as “stylish and very funny”.

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Wales may introduce visitor levy for people staying overnight

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Proposal would give councils option to charge 75p-£1.25 a night to help alleviate pressure on local services

People who stay in Wales overnight, including children, are set to be charged a visitor levy under a scheme that could raise up to £33m a year to be ploughed back into tourism and culture.

All visitors would be charged 75p a night to stay in campsites and hostels and £1.25 for all other accommodation including hotels, B&Bs and holiday lets.

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Norway launches Jon Fosse prize for literary translators

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The award will be the biggest of its kind in Europe and aims to celebrate the work of an overlooked and underpaid profession facing an existential threat from AI

Norway is launching a new translation price that is one of the most highly endowed of its kind in Europe, in an attempt to boost a “partly invisible” and often poorly paid profession increasingly under threat from machine translation.

Named after the Norwegian novelist and playwright who won the 2023 Nobel prize in literature, Jon Fosse, the Fosse prize for translators will reward one author every year with 500,000 NOK (£36,000) for making “a particularly significant contribution to translating Norwegian literature into another language”.

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