Category Archives: Culture

Argentina’s Javier Milei accused of plagiarising UN speech from West Wing

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Populist leader alleged to have ‘copied word for word’ a monologue by TV show’s fictional president Jed Bartlet

Argentina’s rightwing populist president, Javier Milei, has been accused of plagiarising a chunk of his recent speech to the United Nations general assembly from the political drama The West Wing.

“It seems like fiction, but it isn’t,” the left-leaning Buenos Aires newspaper Página 12 reported on Friday, claiming Milei had “copied, word for word, a monologue” by the television show’s fictional president, Josiah “Jed” Bartlet.

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Oztix co-founder apologises for saying ‘pent up’ men ‘don’t need distraction’ of women’s clothing choices at work

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Brian ‘Smash’ Chladil made the coments while speaking at the Australian Women in Music Awards conference on Tuesday

The co-founder of Oztix has apologised for saying women’s clothing at work can be a “distraction” to “pent-up” male colleagues who are away from their wives, while speaking at a conference for women in the music industry.

Brian “Smash” Chladil made the comments as part of the all-male “Brothers for the Sisterhood” panel at the Australian Women in Music Awards (AWMA) conference in Brisbane held on Tuesday of this week.

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Bruce Springsteen endorses Kamala Harris for president while criticising ‘dangerous’ Trump

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The Born to Run singer praises Harris and Tim Walz’s commitment to ‘the vision of America I’ve been consistently writing about for 55 years’

Bruce Springsteen has officially thrown his support behind Kamala Harris, endorsing her for president and simultaneously opposing Donald Trump, calling him “the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime”.

The Born to Run singer made the announcement in a video posted to his Instagram on Thursday evening (US time) in which he described the upcoming election as “one of the most consequential elections in our nation’s history”.

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Dressing for the dancefloor: creative explosion behind 80s’ most colourful club

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Fashion Museum exhibition charts how shortlived Taboo and its founder, Leigh Bowery, inspired decade’s fashion

With ITV’s drama Joan on our screens and the bubble skirt back on the catwalks, the 80s are once again having a moment. An exhibition at London’s Fashion Museum, Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London, takes a different look – by going deep into the creative explosion on the dancefloors of the decade.

It focuses on Taboo, a London club that lasted barely a year but was pivotal in the careers of people including the singer Boy George, the designers John Galliano and Katharine Hamnett, the choreographer Michael Clark and the performance artist Leigh Bowery, who started the club in 1985.

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Pink Floyd reaches deal with Sony to sell music catalog for $400m – report

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British rock band also agree to sell rights to their name and likeness after years of reported infighting among members

Pink Floyd has reportedly reached a deal with Sony to sell their music catalog, as well as their name and likeness, for about $400m.

The British rock band agreed to sell the rights to their recorded music catalog, their name and their likeness, but not the rights to their songwriting, according to the Financial Times, who first reported the news of the deal on Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

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John Boyega to play Otis Redding in new biopic alongside Danielle Deadwyler

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Star Wars actor will lead Otis & Zelma, which will celebrate the ‘eternal love story’ between the singer and his wife

John Boyega is set to play Otis Redding in a new film telling the story of the soul singer’s decade-long relationship.

Otis & Zelma will see the Star Wars and Attack the Block actor play the tragic star with the Till breakout Danielle Deadwyler playing his wife, Zelma.

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Noise from new Hobart AFL stadium will ruin symphony orchestra’s historic concert hall, CEO fears

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Caroline Sharpen says ‘there’s no precedent in the world’ for a concert hall having to deal with 23,000-seat stadium just 170 metres from its stage

The $775m bid to bring an Aussie Rules team to Tasmania will place the state’s symphony orchestra in an unenviable world-first position, which could threaten its future existence.

The plan to build a home for the newly formed Tasmanian Devils AFL team will see a 23,000 seat capacity sports and music stadium constructed on a historic Hobart foreshore site just 40 metres from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s purpose-built performing and recording headquarters, the Federation Concert Hall.

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Former Nintendo factory in Kyoto opens as nostalgia-fuelled gaming museum

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Museum features consoles from 1983’s Famicom to 2017’s Switch, as well as honouring Nintendo’s pre-video-game era

Traditionally, visitors to Kyoto in October come for momijigari, the turning of the autumn leaves in the city’s picturesque parks. This autumn, however, there is a new draw: a Nintendo museum.

The new attraction, which opens on Wednesday, is best described as a chapel of video game nostalgia. Upstairs, Nintendo’s many video game consoles, from 1983’s Famicom through 1996’s Nintendo 64 to 2017’s Switch, are displayed reverently alongside their most famous games. On the back wall, visitors can also peer at toys, playing cards and other artefacts from the Japanese company’s pre-video-game history, stretching back to its founding as a hanafuda playing card manufacturer in 1889. Downstairs, there are interactive exhibits with comically gigantic controllers and floor-projected playing cards.

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Daniel Day-Lewis ends retirement from acting after seven years

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Three-time Oscar winner to star in his son Ronan’s directorial debut, Anemone, which he also co-wrote

Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis is ending his retirement from acting to star in his son’s directorial debut.

The 67-year-old British actor quit acting after starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread, and has largely stayed out of public life since.

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Indian police investigate ticket resales for Coldplay Mumbai gigs

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After tickets quickly sold out, some began to reappear on unauthorised third-party websites for more than £750

Indian police have opened an investigation after touts bought up tickets for Coldplay’s upcoming Mumbai shows and put them back on sale for more than £750 each.

India is often missed off global tours by popular western artists and news that Coldplay would be coming to India for the first time in January to perform two nights of their world tour in Mumbai had been greeted with wild excitement by music fans.

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Lincoln venue apologises for treatment of male gig-goers at Last Dinner Party concert

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Men who attended planned concert alone tell how they were searched and asked ‘condescending questions’ by security

A venue in Lincoln has apologised for the treatment of some male attendees at a planned concert by the Last Dinner Party – which the band ultimately cancelled shortly before show time due to illness.

On X, one man wrote that on arriving at the Engine Shed, he was “funnelled into a dark corner with other men, told I might be a pervert cus I’m alone and then taken into a room alone with a security guard where I was interrogated and searched. Feel sick.” In subsequent comments, he said he had been asked what his favourite song by the British group was.

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‘Incestuous fantasy’: Netflix hit crime drama rekindles debate over Menendez murders

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Thousands, many born after the 1989 murders, have sprung to defence of Lyle and Erik Menendez since broadcast of Monsters

It was a crime that shocked and captivated a nation.

On the night of 20 August 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez, then 21 and 18, stormed into their Beverly Hills mansion, shot their father, Jose, five times at point-blank range in the back of his head, and their mother, Kitty, nine times, including in the face as she tried to crawl away. In a frantic 911 emergency call, they then claimed that somebody had killed their parents.

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Phillip Schofield says he will be ‘forever sorry’ on primetime TV return

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Former This Morning presenter says he was ‘so, so close’ to taking his own life after scandal that saw him quit ITV

Phillip Schofield has said he will be “forever sorry” in his first television appearance in more than a year since his shock downfall.

Schofield, now 62, quit ITV and admitted to having lied about an “unwise, but not illegal” affair with a younger male colleague at This Morning last May. His agent parted ways with him and he has stayed out of the spotlight since.

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Cinema in mafia boss’s Sicily hometown refuses to show film of his life

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Venue owner says Sicilian Letters, about the Cosa Nostra leader Matteo Messina Denaro, ‘doesn’t interest me’

The owner of the only cinema in Castelvetrano, the Sicilian hometown of the notorious Cosa Nostra mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, has refused to screen a film based on his life.

Denaro died of cancer in September last year, nine months after he was arrested following 30 years on the run.

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Brontë sisters finally get their dots as names corrected at Westminster Abbey

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Amended memorial to the writers unveiled at Poets’ Corner 85 years after misspelled plaque first installed

An 85-year injustice has been rectified at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey with the corrected spelling of one of the greatest of all literary names. Reader, it is finally Brontë, not Bronte.

An amended memorial to Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë was unveiled on Thursday with added diaereses (two dots) that ensure people pronounce it with two syllables. As if it rhymed with Monty, not font.

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Comedian Janey Godley receiving end-of-life care for cancer

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Scottish standup posts video saying she is getting palliative care and will be going into a hospice

The comedian Janey Godley has revealed she is receiving end-of-life care after her terminal cancer spread.

The 63-year-old announced she would be getting palliative care and going into a hospice in a video shared on social media on Wednesday.

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‘A very brave thing to do’: all-nude play about boomers v gen Z to premiere at Sydney’s Griffin theatre

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An influencer on the run crashes a community of naturalists, in one of five new Australian plays premiering at the theatre in 2025

Boomer naturists will face off with a gen Z influencer in an all-nude comedy at Sydney’s Griffin Theatre Company next year, one of five new Australian plays premiering in its 2025 season.

Naturism, by Sydney playwright Ang Collins, is a comedy about a gen Z eco-influencer (played by Camila Ponte Alvarez) on the run who crashes a remote, off-grid bush eco-paradise created by a group of nudist baby boomers. The entire cast will perform nude for most of the play’s duration.

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Phillip Schofield to return to TV 16 months after quitting This Morning over affair

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Former ITV presenter will appear in Channel 5’s Cast Away, which follows a celebrity stranded off Madagascar

Phillip Schofield is returning to television 16 months after quitting This Morning over what he called an “unwise, but not illegal” affair.

The 62-year-old, who stepped down from presenting the ITV daytime show in May 2023 after 21 years, will appear in a Channel 5 special called Cast Away, which follows a celebrity stranded on an island off the coast of Madagascar for nearly two weeks.

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Lady Gaga announces 13-song Joker companion album Harlequin

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The singer and actor has revealed the upcoming release of a companion album to her role in Joker: Folie à Deux

Lady Gaga has announced an accompanying 13-song album to her new film Joker: Folie à Deux.

The singer and actor had been teasing the news on social media and has now shared that the album, Harlequin, will be released on 27 September.

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Lisa Nandy: Tories’ ‘violent indifference’ to the arts damaged access to culture

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Exclusive: culture secretary says predecessors ‘vandalised’ the arts and pledges state funding for every community

The Conservatives’ “violent indifference” to the arts has resulted in communities across the country getting poor access to culture, Lisa Nandy has said ahead of a planned funding review.

The culture secretary accused her Tory predecessors of “vandalism” as she pledged to get state funding to every community and make sure that private philanthropy reached beyond the major cities.

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