My A & B Blogs

The Papers

Philanthropy

The Sunday Times

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/specials/rich_list/article3780023.ece

A NEW breed of philanthropists pouring their fortunes into the developing world are behind a doubling of charitable giving by Britain’s rich.

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3668689.ece

How appalled should we be by Max Mosley's Nazi-tinged cavortings with five prostitutes? The son of Oswald and the equally unpleasant and fascistly inclined Diana has been exposed by the tabloids as, their words, “a secret sado-masochistic sex pervert” (the word “secret” is key: most sado-masochistic sex perverts, you see, play out their dark fantasies in public).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/04/14/sv_artslist1.xml

Cityam Article – new wave of philanthropy

Arts & Business

Creativity Dr’s

Arts Grants

The Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=553630&in_page_id=1770
Artists seeking funding for their work are being asked to disclose their sexuality in the Arts Council's latest grants form. Individuals and arts bodies applying for money are invited to state if they or their board members are bisexual, gay, straight, lesbian or 'unknown'.

The Arts

The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-and-architecture/news/more-women-are-needed-in-topranking-arts-posts-says-culture-minister-803530.html

Britain's creative industries are lagging behind other sectors in the fight for gender equality with leading arts institutions suffering from a dearth of women in high-ranking positions, the Culture minister Margaret Hodge has warned.

The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-and-architecture/news/the-hidden-parisian-art-going-down-the-tube-810398.html

The Paris Metro has become a cavern of ephemeral but beautiful underground art, discovered one month and destroyed the next. Renovations in two-thirds of the underground stations in the French capital have exposed a cornucopia of old, torn advertising posters or paintings. Some appear to date back to the earliest days of the Paris Metro a century ago.

The independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/ready-set-draw-a-new-campaign-is-shining-a-spotlight-on-the-next-generation-of-illustrators-810223.html

According to Booktrust, an independent national charity that encourages reading in all age groups, it is about time we moved on from picture-book classics gathering dust on our bookshelves, including Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are, Brian Wildsmith's ABC, Raymond Briggs's The Snowman, Shirley Hughes's Alfie books, and Quentin Blake's Mr Magnolia, to shine a spotlight on the next generation of illustrators.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article3697893.ece

BBC Worldwide

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7320000/newsid_7326000/7326085.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1

A South Korean gallery has unveiled hi-tec versions of world famous paintings which move and talk.

The Evening Standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23458931-details/Top+Opera+House+tickets+hit+%C2%A3210+to+pay+for+lower+prices+in+the+gods/article.do

The new pricing announced today is not the highest ever but is an increase on this season. Chief executive Tony Hall said: "What we're doing, bluntly, is taking what we think we can get from certain performances to make sure we can keep prices as low as we can in as much of the opera house as we can."

National Gallery

The Daily Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/03/27/bapenny127.xml

Nicholas Penny, the new director of the National Gallery, reveals his plans to Richard Dorment - and explains why he is wary of blockbuster exhibitions

Architecture

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/564167ba-0003-11dd-825a-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

London has the worst public space of any European city. Discuss. London is the city not of the passeggiata or fiestas, of piazzas or boulevards, but of gated gardens, pubs spilling their pissed and puking progeny on to narrow pavements; the city where local authorities treat teenagers like bothersome flies, to be deterred from hanging around by introducing high-pitched whining loudspeakers that only the young can hear.

Charities

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a89ea52-09ae-11dd-81bf-0000779fd2ac.html

Charities should give high priority to the investment of their assets and take greater risks with them to boost performance, according to a new report from the Institute of Philanthropy, a British advisory service.

Arts in a Market-Driven Economy

(Opinions welcome.)

In response to the current credit crunch felt worldwide, Berner of Morgan Stanley employs language in an article that could be applied to the current economic arguments for government intervention in the arts within a market-driven economy that seemingly benefits some arts organizations at the expense of others:

‘Unconventional tools’—possibly ‘enough time and aggressive stimulus’, ‘policy…to offset losses’, ‘taxpayer funds through agencies’, ‘more explicit…insurance policies’, ‘more uniformity of regulation’ and ‘a safe, better capitalized system that will reward strong market participants’ (2008)—these are the interventions needed to help struggling homeowners and possibly nonprofit arts organizations that fail to command respect and survive or sustain themselves in the current geopolitical climate of political expediency, economic strife, and globalization.

These ideas and re-investment of government support are not limited to teaching arts organizations how to run as businesses, forced now to match government funds with corporate sponsorships. The principles above suggest a duality in the role of both protecting and guiding the arts through the economic challenges of this era.

Just as the home and family as social ‘institutions’ provide comfort, structure, identity, and meaning to our lives, so do arts organizations provide the experiential and material contexts by which communities may promote the values outlined by Americans for the Arts, according to Hill et al (2003): ‘Education; Inspiration; Urban regeneration, employment and community growth’ and ‘…civilized nation’ (p. 22).

Yet, such social capital described by Throsby (2001) as 'aesthetic, spiritual, social, historical, symbolic and [authentic]' (p. 157) is largely forgotten by governments pressurized to treat the arts in the short to medium term as a set of sectors within a creative or cultural industry for economic gain mostly. As Anderson states, ‘[A]rguments for the elimination of protection, or calls for economic rationalization within this ‘commercial’ cultural sector, could be expected to include the ‘non-commercial’ (subsidized) arts’ (1992, p. 87). Symphony orchestras are expected to compete on some level with folk festivals and modernize, experiment with marketing strategies, and alter programming in order to earn revenue to counter losses in public funding.

This is not necessarily wrong, but as Throsby (2001) states, ‘[T]he greatest challenge [will be]…the distribution of gains...the gap between the rich and poor…the gulf between the haves and the have-nots’ (p. 155), and pop culture proves that the folk festival will do better economically in the American state of Georgia than the former Russian state-now-turned-country Georgia which loves its classical traditions. Government policy for funding is generally aligned with the results.

It begs the question: what kind of world do we want to live in? Anderson (1992) states that people agree with public arts support. Thus, politicians--and there are some--who espouse the viewpoint that nonprofit arts are undeserving of public funding fail to ‘remember that our economic system also supports activities that do not necessarily pay for themselves through sales’ (Byrnes, 2003, p. 226). Multinational companies, by and large, do not fund endeavors that are controversial or unprofitable, so the role of government, economically, regarding the arts should be to offer a balance of alternatives to protect a wide range of arts and accessibility to them for the betterment of society.

Adelman offers helpful principles to follow: ‘[A] government with substantial autonomy, capacity and credibility is required for successful long term growth...the nature of the state and its relation to civil society matter…a strong state that adopts self-serving, or simply misconceived economic policies and/or institutions can generate economic disaster…[and the state] must have sufficient autonomy not only from domestic political constraints but also from international constraints on [its] economic actions’ (1999, pp. 22-23)

References:

Adelman, I (1999), 'The Role of Government in Economic Development', University of California at Berkley, viewed 26 March 2008: <http://are.berkeley.edu/~adelman/Finn.pdf>.

Anderson, P (1992), 'The Arts as Industry: Economic Arguments for Arts Subsidy-Research Issues and Debate', Australian Journal of Arts Management, AETHESTEx, Vol 4, No 1, pp. 84-92.

Berner, R (2008), 'Fixing the Credit Crunch – The Growing Case for ‘Unconventional’ Tools', Morgan Stanley, viewed 26 March 2008: <http://www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/index.html#anchor6145>.

Byrnes, W (2003), Management and the Arts, Focal Press, Amsterdam.

Hill, L, O'Sullivan, C, and O'Sullivan, T (2003), Creative Arts Marketing, Butterworth Heinemann, Amsterdam.

Throsby, D (2001), 'Economics and Culture', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 153-167.

The Papers

Arts & Business

The FT Magazine Article

The Rich List

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ca28a818-ebaf-11dc-9493-0000779fd2ac.html

It’s official: after 13 years, Bill Gates is no longer the world’s wealthiest person. The news arrives courtesy of Forbes magazine. This week it published its 2008 rich list, putting Warren Buffett in the top spot, while the Microsoft co-founder trails in third behind Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim. Though it makes a great story, there are reasons to dislike such compilations. Here is a list:

Libraries

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article3499015.ece

Decaf soya cappuccino over a bodice-ripper in your local public library, anyone? Borrow a book in Colchester and and return it in Cheltenham? A public library in every shopping mall?

The Times

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3499971.ece

Libraries could be brought into the 21st century by locating them in shopping centres and offering loyalty cards and cinema ticket rewards for visits, the Culture Minister said yesterday.

Prix Pictet

http://www.prixpictet.com/

The World’s Premier Photographic Award in Sustainability

The Arts

The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-and-architecture/news/modern-public-artworks-are-crap-says-gormley-this-is-how-it-should-be-done-791922.html

Antony Gormley made his name as the creator of grand sculptures with his monumental Angel of the North. So it may surprise many artists attempting to emulate his success to hear that he has condemned the current crop of modern public artworks across the UK as "crap".

The Evening Standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/article-23448049-details/Now+for+the+big+picture/article.do

Lunchtime in Soho, and the Photographers' Gallery is packed. Earnest students with bulky camera bags stand in front of John Davies's paradoxically beautiful English landscapes - monolithic tower blocks, industrial wastelands, urban nightmares - and appraise each image solemnly.

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b94beb4a-e650-11dc-8398-0000779fd2ac.html

With some fellow journalists, I was taken for a tour earlier this week of Heathrow airport’s Terminal 5, the biggest free-standing building in the UK, it may surprise you to know, and part of a long-overdue effort to transform the hellish ritual of air travel into something more civilised. The entire operational system has been designed with the passenger in mind, we were told. There are 96 check-in kiosks. The interior space is vast: five levels of 10 football pitches each, to use the vernacular form of measurement.

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/44470f02-e734-11dc-b5c3-0000779fd2ac.html

It is the home of the feisty prima donna and the £250-a-bottle champagne. Butlers serve fresh lobster at your table during the interval and a best seat in the orchestra stalls can set you back £190.

The Financial Times

http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=art%2C+actually&aje=true&id=080301000196&ct=0

John Martin, director of the Art Dubai fair, which opens later this month (March 19-22), can't contain himself. His Emirati event, which launched last year, is bigger - more than 400 galleries applied for the 70 selling slots this year, up from 41 dealers in 2007 - and Martin says he knows why. "Dubai is a key stopping point between India, east Europe and Africa. It's also a financial hub and a tax-free haven which is important for collectors," he says excitedly.

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/graphic/0,,2259295,00.htmlThis is my drawing studio near the Eurostar track as it snakes into the new London terminal. It is part of the studio that David Chipperfield designed for us four years ago. I still cannot believe that we have such a good place to work: silent, light, solid. You reach it up its own staircase next to the big studio.

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/design/story/0,,2263632,00.html

No nation on earth is changing so swiftly as China. A remarkable exhibition at the V&A tells the story of the designers busy reimagining their country

The Times

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article3525935.ece

Plans to abandon digital radio technology by GCap Media, Britain’s largest commercial radio group, have been put on ice because of a takeover bid for the owner of Capital 95.8.

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/15/artsfunding.politicsandthearts

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2266222,00.html

You can whack them with a shovel. You can shoot them, poison, stab or throttle them. You can threaten their families and you can hound them in the press; you can put them down any way you like, but some artists refuse to stay down. What does this tell us? That artists are the undead? Or, worse, that criticism is in crisis?

Liverpool

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3507204.ece

Amid the elegant Georgian terraces that run off Hanover Street, rising up the hill from Canning Dock, you can still get a sense of Liverpool's mercantile past: a lost age of transatlantic trade, civic pride and merchant princes

Booker Prize

The Guardian

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2263616,00.html

The Booker Prize is a characteristically British combination of a great sporting fixture and a cultural jamboree. Autumn after autumn, it stirs up literary debate and makes people who would otherwise go to bed with a biography or a thriller open a novel, probably by someone they've never heard of.

Margaret Hodge

The Times

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article3482980.ece

Margaret Hodge blundered into a Downing Street rebuke and a hail of criticism from the arts world yesterday after criticising the Proms for attracting too narrow a section of society.

Cities and Architecture

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/mar/10/travelnews.uk

The Art Deco style Midland Hotel on Morecambe's promenade, designed by architect Oliver Hill and opened in July 1933, which is to open in June after a multi-million pound refurbishment. Photograph: Don McPhee

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/architecture/story/0,,2263615,00.html

It is one of the most seismic changes the world has ever seen. Across the globe there is an unstoppable march to the cities, powered by new economic realities.

Thanks, Supra Universal Consciousness for 40!

Dear Friends, we are thankful to the Supra Universal Consciousness for having brought me to 40! The gift to you is Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885-6) by John Singer Sargent. Enjoy! DK

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885-6) by John Singer Sargent

The Papers

Non – Dom’s

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/51eefac0-e58b-11dc-9334-0000779fd2ac.html

London’s lord mayor on Wednesday night warned the government that some of the City’s biggest wealth creators were preparing to leave Britain because of the planned tax crackdown on non-domiciled UK residents.

The Arts

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2260352,00.html

Everybody loves a big show. But do Britain's huge exhibitions live up to the hype? Jonathan Jones on how populism and sloppy curating are destroying our galleries

Daily Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/28/nart128.xml

A philanthropic art dealer has sold his £125 million collection of modern paintings, sculptures and drawings to the nation - for the £26.5 million he paid for them.

The Olympics

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a9122320-e344-11dc-803f-0000779fd2ac.html

The International Olympic Committee looks set to raise more than $1bn (£510m) from worldwide sponsorship in the four-year period culminating with the 2012 London Olympics.This would be the first time it has breached the $1bn barrier, confirming the Olympics' enduring appeal as a marketing vehicle for multinational companies.

The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/joan-bakewell/joan-bakewell-the-art-in-our-collections-is-for-display-not-for-sale-789313.html

Every so often a new dawn: the art world woke on Thursday knowing that a brand new collection has just passed into public ownership. Anthony d'Offay, who for some 40 years has lived art and loved art, now puts his collection of 725 works within reach of us all. The works – one of the finest collections of contemporary art in public hands – are valued at £125m.

The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/museums-marketing-and-money-the-fine-art-of-empirebuilding-789366.html

Visit the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan today and you will see that it is still a place where things happen. Construction tools bang and clatter behind a scaffolding curtain that heralds a $29m (£15m) renovation that will be completed this summer while inside a startling new exhibition by the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang fills the spiralling rotunda with cars suspended in mid-air like flies in a web.

Margaret Hodge

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4.shtml?fm

Sky Arts

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/mediamonkey/2008/02/sky_news_gets_back_into_shape.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=516682&in_page_id=1770

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23440092-details/The+Newscracker+suite:+Sky+enlists+ballet+dancers+to+make+presenters+more+authoritative/article.do

Papers

The Super Rich and Tax

The Daily Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/02/22/do2202.xml

Forget the bleating: some people have never had it so good. These people have Gordon Brown to thank for his largesse, but now they are turning on him for having the temerity to want to restore a sense of justice to Britain's woefully unfair approach to taxation

The Evening Standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23440568-details/Axe+nodom+tax+or+City+will+suffer+says+Livingstone/article.do

Ken Livingstone has hit out at Alistair Darling's plans to tax "non-doms", warning it could drive investment away from London.

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/001b8c84-db65-11dc-9fdd-0000779fd2ac.html

Wealthy foreigners who live in London, and who legitimately choose to take advantage of Britain’s absurdly generous tax regime – the so-called “non-doms” who are much in the news at present – have made an extravagant contribution to the culture of the UK.

ACE Grants

The Stage

www.thestage.co.uk/inthepaper

Brands

The Financial Times

http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=soprts+sail+out+of+fashion&aje=true&id=080219000048&ct=0

They go together like, well, monogrammed luggage and the first-class cabin of an ocean liner. Yet next time the America's Cup, sailing's premier prize, is contested, Louis Vuitton is destined not be there.

The Arts

The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-and-architecture/news/pop-artist-attacks-disgraceful-price-inflation-785589.html

One of Britain's most eminent artists has criticised the "distasteful" trend for ever-rising art prices – just days before a leading auction house launches a sale that could fetch more than £72m, smashing all records for the contemporary art market.

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/670ec920-dc31-11dc-bc82-0000779fd2ac.html

A winter evening at the Sir John Soane's museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields and a group of affluent twenty- and thirtysomethings is being given a candlelit tour. Occasionally the blue flickering of BlackBerry screens competes with the warm glow of the tapers, but mostly the guests are rapt with attention as the guide explains how Soane, Georgian architect and lover of art and antiquities, built up his extraordinary collection

The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-and-architecture/features/the-baltics-guide-to-bluffing-how-to-become-an-art-expert-in-six-hours-783544.html

The Daily Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/21/bmkenyon121.xml

With a knighthood in the New Year's Honours and a distinguished 30-year career as a music critic, controller of Radio 3 and director of the Proms, Nicholas Kenyon, at the ripe age of 56, could have been excused for taking early retirement and devoting himself to writing the book he's long been contemplating on the early music revival.

The Daily Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/21/bmbrits121.xml

Sir Paul McCartney put aside his problems in his personal life to receive the coveted award for outstanding contribution to music at the Brit Awards.

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2257889,00.html

Tate Modern has brought the playful, pervy panache of Duchamp, Man Ray and Picabia to life, says Adrian Searle

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/news/story/0,,2257874,00.html

A 21-year-old playwright is to join theatre history as one of the youngest writers to have a debut play performed in London's West End.

The Daily Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/19/baphoto119.xml

Lucy Davies reviews the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize at the Photographer's Gallery

The Evening Standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23440748-details/Creative+Britannia+...+costume+college+and+5%2C000+arts+apprentices/article.do

An academy for costume and set design will be established and London is to host the world's first creative business conference - billed as a cultural Davos.

The Olympics

The Evening Standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23441549-details/IOC+sponsorship+to+hit+%241+billion/article.do

The International Olympic Committee is set to make over $1 billion in sponsorship in the run-up to the 2012 Games. It is to set a new record for cash gained for selling the rights to be associated with the London games. The figure - equivalent to £510 million at current values - reflects the unprecedented interest in London 2012.

Charities

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a379eab6-df56-11dc-91d4-0000779fd2ac.html

Charities' investment returns have fallen and "could be substantially improved" to boost income, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations will say today.

The Arctic Commons: Last Giant Oil Frontier or Environmental Catastrophe?

Dear Friends, the Arctic sea bed holds billions of barrels of oil and natural gas -- up to 25% of the world's undiscovered reserves according to the US Geological Survey. Oil experts are calling the region the next Saudi Arabia. There is rising access to the trillion dollars in oil and natural gas reserves beneath the semi-frozen sea. Is it right to profit from this bounty... continues.

The Papers

Arts & Business

Arts Industry – Rich should give more says hodge, New record high for sponsorship

The Stage – Hodge says arts’ culture on dependency must end

The Princes Trust

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/feb/14/jsainsbury.monarchy

Sainsbury family is in a bitter dispute with Prince Charles' flagship charity over its use of a £2.5m bequest intended to help young people from poor rural communities find work. Annabel Kanabus, the scion of one of Britain's wealthiest dynasties, has demanded that the Prince's Trust repay £1m and waive its right to a further £1.5m bequeathed to it by her son, Jason Kanabus, who died suddenly from cancer last summer, aged 30

Ed Vaizey – Creative Industries

Arts Flagship Going Nowhere – Ed Vaisey on Green Paper (strategy document) on Creative Industries

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3358697.ece

Individual Giving

Raise £1 billion a year – making individual giving a norm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/daniel_finkelstein/article3359660.ece

The Arts

Venus banned from London’s underworld - London Underground has decided Venus is likely to offend rather than enchant the capital's weary commuters.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2256043,00.html

Welcome to theatreland - Banned by the state, the Free Theatre of Belarus performs in secret locations and texts the venue to audiences. Every play could be their last.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/drama/story/0,,2255989,00.html

Cruel Brittania – Government gives with one hand and takes away with the other?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article3359700.ece

The Times

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article3365841.ece

The creator of an inflatable sculpture that killed two people after breaking free of its moorings was charged with manslaughter yesterday.

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e0f92a38-d8f7-11dc-8b22-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

The sceptics said it was a monumental waste of money, an artistic folly that would make a laughing stock of Gateshead. Ten years on, now that the “Angel of the North” is recognised worldwide as a powerful image of its home region and is visited day and night by admirers, it is difficult to recall that the much-loved sculpture ever attracted such controversy.

The Times

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article3353365.ece

A £200 million national film centre. A permanent home for fashion shows in London. Funding for avant-garde film projects. A Davos-style arts and finance conference. These are among a range of commitments to the arts being set out by the Government next week.

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/91b247cc-d5da-11dc-bbb2-0000779fd2ac.html

We all know how powerful “word of mouth” is . As every West End theatre producer will tell you, the most effective medium for this is the London taxi driver. Not only do tourists and Londoners rely on cabbies knowing the way to any venue but their advice and opinions on what to see and do in London are equally sought after. I know of taxi drivers taking passengers to the correct gallery when the only information they’ve been given is the name of a particular work of art.

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a37b4926-d69e-11dc-b9f4-0000779fd2ac.html

Records tumbled, bidding was frantic and a series of masterpieces found new homes: the London art auction season confounded expectations again this week, performing strongly against a background of nervousness over the world economy.

The Independent on Sunday

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/replace-trite-and-trashy-statues-with-trees-780105.html

They were erected as timeless monuments to the great and the good; statues and sculptures paying tribute to lives of achievement and sacrifice. But many of the memorials springing up around Britain are being condemned as trite, "sentimental" and poorly executed.

The Observer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/feb/10/9

The UK is at the top of a global market where the creative industries represent a multi-billion-dollar growth sector. Although international comparisons are difficult, a recent OECD study of five major creative economies found the UK to have the highest share of GDP accounted for by the creative industries - ahead of Canada, the US, Australia and France.

Tax

The £30,000 question: Will proposed tax on Britain's super-rich really force them to leave the country?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-16330000-question-will-proposed-tax-on-britains-superrich-really-force-them-to-leave-the-country-781519.html

The Times

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article3338001.ece

The British public will miss out on seeing some of the greatest works of art in the world because of the Government’s tax plans for nondomiciled foreigners, the director of the Tate said yesterday.

The Financial Times

Scotland

The Scotsman - Scotland's Eden is buried after lottery bid rejection

http://heritage.scotsman.com/heritage/Scotlands-Eden-is-buried-after.3588563.jp

An ambitious plan to create a new national showpiece for Scotland is in crisis after an application for £25m of lottery funding was turned down.

Miscellaneous

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3365862.ece

According to George Bernard Shaw: “A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honourable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” It is certainly more likely to confer im- mortality, no matter how inglorious.

The Papers

Arts Council Cuts

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d461d130-d131-11dc-953a-0000779fd2ac.html

Arts chiefs yesterday bowed to pressure by sparing 15 organisations earmarked for grant cuts, following a public campaign that saw critics brand this year's funding allocation a "strategic catastrophe".

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3292028.ece

The most sweeping review of English arts funding since 1945 has resulted in nearly 200 theatres, galleries, dance groups and other cultural bodies losing essential government grants.

The Evening Standard – The Bush Theatre Saved by Stars

The Daily Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/02/narts102.xml

A series of high-profile campaigns have forced the Arts Council into a partial climb-down to reprieve 17 of the theatres, orchestras and dance groups whose grants it threatened to axe.

Bloomberg

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aMNilrNYn_j8

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- U.K.-based companies invested a record 172 million pounds ($342 million) in the arts in 2006, up 10 percent from the year before, a survey released today shows.

London Underground

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article3284419.ece

The Barbican can pack in 2,000 people for a concert. Almost 3,000 classical- music fans can squeeze into the Royal Festival Hall. And Brixton Underground station? 30,000 pass through it every day - and all get a loud blast of the classical stuff whether they like it or not.

National Lottery Shortfall

The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/camelot-and-its-finances-lottery-fund-for-good-causes-is-facing-1631bn-shortfall-777540.html

The National Lottery operator Camelot faces a £1bn shortfall in the money it has pledged to give to good causes by the end of its licence next January. The news last night prompted fears of a funding crisis for the arts and good causes which are already suffering from poor ticket sales and money diverted to the 2012 Olympics.

Regeneration

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d29a67e-d053-11dc-9309-0000779fd2ac.html

On April 28 last year Folkestone was shaken to its foundations. At 8am, an earthquake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale struck just off the coast, cutting power to thousands of homes, leaking gas into the streets, evacuating hundreds and closing schools

Papers

Private Investment Survey

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7c825640-ced6-11dc-877a-000077b07658.html

Banks and companies are spending record amounts on the arts, music and theatre as they seek to boost their brand, motivate workers and develop links with the cultural world.

Arts Council Cuts

The Financial Times – Arts & Business

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/39d233ac-d051-11dc-9309-0000779fd2ac,s01=1.html

A scheme that has helped pump £1bn ($1.9bn) of private sector investment into the arts over the past 20 years is to be axed as a result of Arts Council England cuts, due to be announced on Friday.

The Sunday Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3257291.ece

THE Arts Council has been forced into a partial climbdown to reprieve about 25 of the theatres, orchestras and dance groups whose grants it had threatened to scrap.

The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre/news/arts-council-gives-11thhour-reprieve-over-funding-cuts-774858.html

It was set to be the bloodiest cull of the arts for more than half a century. But, in a dramatic 11th-hour reprieve, Arts Council England has been forced to reconsider potentially devastating funding cuts for dozens of organisations.

Arts

The Evening Standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23434861-details/Sir+Norman%27s+last+picture+show/article.do

Sir Norman Rosenthal, the flamboyant head of exhibitions at the Royal Academy, is to step down from his post.

The Times

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article3267116.ece

He won the £25,000 Turner Prize last year with a video of himself dressed in a bear costume. Yesterday Mark Wallinger was shortlisted for a commission worth more than £2 million.

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3266428.ece

Evelyn Rothwell was one of the most distinguished oboists of her time and, as Lady Barbirolli, cared loyally and unselfishly for her husband, Sir John Barbirolli, especially during his years as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra.

Architecture

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2247936,00.html

Chandigarh, built on the baking plains of northern India, is one of Le Corbusier's greatest achievements. But does the city deserve World Heritage status? By Jonathan Glancey

The New Culture Secretary

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/28/media.politicsandthearts

Andy Burnham chose a school in north London to launch his career as culture secretary last week, after he landed his "dream job" in the reshuffle triggered by Peter Hain's resignation. It was an apt location in many ways, given those in the media industry who point to how much Burnham has to learn about an industry in a state of upheaval.

Live from the Royal Festival Hall

Live Blogging starts at 8:25am

This morning, Arts & Business will be announcing the headline figures from the Private Investment in Culture Survey - one of our most important research projects.

Join Lloyd Davis, one of London's blogging and podcasting pioneers, who specialises in live-blogging events and helping people to boost their effectiveness by making the most of the social web.

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Hi! I'm Lloyd, I'll be live-blogging here. Uppdates appear in chronological order.

08:24: At the Results Launch for the PICS 2006/07 at the RFH in London. The room is filling up, and the level of hubbub is rising.

08:27: All the speakers have arrived - collective sigh of relief - presentations are loaded, sound is checked, stage is ready. Coffee, croissants and conversation.

08:34: Presentations are due to start soon

08:42: Today we'll be hearing from: Baroness Helena Kennedy, Colin Tweedy, Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Andrew Whyte and Paul Myners.

08:44: Audience taking their seats.

08:45: Helena Kennedy: Welcome to the 06/07 Private Investment in Culture Survey Launch. We started doing this in 1976 - when Private Investment in Arts was £600k - it *has* risen! For the first time this year we're looking at the State of the Market with emerging trends.

08:47: Coming to the end of the funding round, a significant time. We have a new secretary of state and a new chief exec of Arts Council. Colin Tweedy's going to take us through the headlines this morning from the Survey report. We'll then hear from Andrew Whyte (who "holds the Arts Council together" *laughter*) and then Paul Myners chair of the Tate and many other things. Then we'll have a Q&A

08:49: Colin Tweedy: Delighted to see you all. Thank you for coming.

08:50 One of our major new pieces of work is the State of the Market essay but we're also publishing other pieces including essays on Liverpool and on Risk.

08:54 Private investment reached £599.45million - the best achievement in the European Union. Europe's best mixed economy - this is a record 10.7% growth above inflation. Private investment equals one-third of public spending on the arts. Cash sponsorship up 18% Individual giving up over 10%. One of the most important aspects - we've only been monitoring it since 2002 but now a major plank in private arts funding. Trusts and Foundations also up - though arts support is sometimes hidden here in for example education.

08:56: Top 50 organisations take 62% of total private investment.
Private Investment accounts for 50% of turnover in 10% of culture organisations. and makes a higher proportion of income for smaller organisations than larger ones. but has more than doubled as aproportion of overall income for the largest 13 orgs since 2002 from 8% to 19%.

08:58 London takes the largest share with £382m - obviously it's a magnet for private money, but we're determined that the whole of the UK should have better relations between arts and the private sector. Liverpool Capital of Culture will be subject of one of our essays this year, but we're hoping to see improvement in next year's report.

08:59: Breakdown by Artform - movement between art forms. Theatre, Museums, Crafts and Festivals all up over 20%. Dance Libraries and Opera all down by 30% or more.

09:03 State of the Marketplace - we're trying to get below the headline figures to understand what's really going on - the nature of the intersection between culture and commerce which is evolving and we want to understand that better. We're seeing new forms of income generation hopefully seeing more sustainable skills-transfer rather than simple direct funding. We're also seeing the rise of commercially motivated collaborations beyond philanthropy or social investment for example personal development, marketing campaigns while the property sector where privately funded arts projects are working to create public benefit in the built environment.

09:04 Outlook - we're expecting an economic impact of course, though there's a lag because of budget cycles, but there are large capital projects - confidence is strong and the recognition that support for the arts has to have a business rationale. Arts organisations in response are becoming more confident in articulating their value. The private sector is not a replacement for public money and should always complement it - private money is attracted to places where public investment already exists. This is going to be a challenging funding environment. The 2012 Oympics still feel like an elephant in the drawing room. We're eager to keep looking for positive win-wins with the Olympiad to make sure the commercial sector can contribute.

09:08 We want to work together - let's be bold, believe in the arts, champion the contribution of the private sector. *Applause*

09:10 Welcome to the Minister, Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP.

09:20 I'm grateful for this opportunity. I'm really pleased to see the positive trends, but my ambition is to achieve a step change in private giving, going further and faster, new and different ideas to make a dramatic improvement.

It matters, because a mixed economy in the arts really works. Philanthropy and public subsidy has created our cultural landscape but this has created something of a culture of dependency among arts organisations. If we put all our eggs in one basket we'll always be at risk. I want us to develop a stronger mixed economy with more investment and longer term stability. If we do that we can compete more effectively on the world stage. there are many great givers in Britain and we've seen the generosity in the report. However there are also some worrying stats. US giving as a propn of GDP is more than double. Corporate giving to the arts has halved in 5 years as a propn of the total point. I'm also concerned about the concentration of giving in London.

So I've started some work in the Department looking at private funding. There are some greate examples of good work but I think there are things we can all do to make a real difference. We need a new approach among cultural bodies - towards a model of social enterprise rather than charitable dependence. Let's get rid of the word subsidy and talk about investment. Let's get back to the real meaning of philanthropy and move charities to social enterprises. We must explore what more government can do to support private giving more. we've given tax incentives but there are other parts of Nicholas Goodison's report that need to be implemented.

My view from talking to private donors is that recognition is really important and we are bad at saying thank you and expressing gratitude for private giving. We also need to transform the attitudes of those who give. Bill Gates talked about creative capitalism last week in Davos and this is a relevant theme for the arts as much as for poverty. We need to see how we can encourage more generous giving if more individuals recognised the benefits of giving back to society. Our shared ambition must be to create an environment where investment back in community is seen as important and where philanthropy is seen as a badge of pride rather than paternalistic.

09:22 Paul Myners is stepping back to allow Q&A to go ahead.

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Q - Arts Industry Magazine: what incentives for industry would work?

A - PM The inspiration for business is the same as for individuals - the arts are fundamental to a country's understanding of itself, it gives a focus to youth and gives an opportunity to balance out materialism. We've seen it again and again with sponsorship of great exhibitions that have captured people's imagination. Companies are seeing that it's good investment of shareholder money and good for their employees. Why do we do it? Because it releases us to have more freedom to tell the story of art to a wider audience. we raise 60% of our funding at Tate from non-governmental sources. That's part of harnessing business energy - businesses want to be associated with success.

Q - MLA- I'd like to echo that - the Tate model needs to get out to regional organisations - there's a training mission, we need all staff to understand business and recognise the power of entrepreneurialism.

A - HK yes training is one of the central planks

Q - LSO - I'm particularly interested in this idea of creating a new generation of philanthropists. Does the panel have thoughts on changing the culture.

A - MH I do think it's also about ordinary punters too. Part of what we're embedding at DCMS is the importance of culture and heritage in making communities attractive to live in. Training is really important too especially outside of London. Looking outward and looking at how else you attract funding.

AW - individual givers want to be on the side that's winning, so one of the challenges is to be more confident in talking about how successful we've been and how much better we could be. One of the factors of London being seen as such a success has been the strong mixed economy in provision as well as in funding. So we need to make more that story. It's not either public or private, it's both/and. We need to create a virtuous circle building on that confidence

PM - The largest donation per visitor are in Liverpool - our donation boxes are crap. If I could get every one to donate another 3p that would equate to £1m in a year. How do we get them to give more. Tax incentive is worthwhile. I'm glad to hear Goodison mentioned again. There are lots of perversities in the system that need to be ironed out, but finally we must recognise giving and encourage it publicly.

Q - Institute of Practitioners in Advertising - can we have a competition to design a new cash box? Done! How does the money in Advertising count towards investment?

A - CT very important - though we don't want to skew the figures, we do need to analyse what other contributions to culture is provided by business. On the state of the marketplace report we do look at this and we'll continue to do so. Very exciting times - eg Sony Bravia ad.

Q - The Times - Interested in saying thank you with medals - can we expect more knighthoods for philanthropy.

A - MH We're exploring it :)

Q - Daily Telegraph - there's a dearth of good fundraisers - how do we train people to do that better?

A - partly its reticence to ask for money. MH - we can do something to support training and capacity building. We've got to ensure that there are opportunities to train - Train to Gain programmes have money available. CT - it is our job to do this and one of the things we're doing is to celebrate the people who do amazing things and are paid a ridiculously small amount. PM - It's also how the whole team works to build relationships.

Q - Museum of London - I do want to ask the Minister if the transformation in the Higher Education sector can be replicated in the Arts sector.

A - MH We've got a good CSR settlement - I'm conscious of the HE success, and now I'm optimistic for getting more money out of the Treasury.

Historic Houses Association - The headline figure is great. I'm interested in how the Minister will look at wider public arts benefit regardless of provision.

The end

Related Links

Powerpoint presentation illustrating the figures.

Live Blog - Private Investment in Culture Survey Results

The Private Investment in Culture Survey (PICS) is one of Arts & Business' most important research projects which provides valuable insight into how much businesses, individuals and trusts and foundations invest in the cultural sector.

On Wednesday 30th January 2008 we will be announcing the headline figures from the survey in a launch event attended by the Minister for Culture, Creative Industries & Tourism and the Interim Executive Director, Arts Strategy at the Arts Council. Alongside the launch event, we will also be hosting a live blog which will feature the headline figures hot off the press. Join us online for updates and ongoing discussions during the launch. The live blog will begin at 8:25am and will conclude at approximately 9:45am. Comments will be welcome both during and after the event.

Speakers

Baroness Helena Kennedy, Chair of Arts & Business

Colin Tweedy, Chief Executive of Arts & Business

Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Minister for Culture, Creative Industries & Tourism

Andrew Whyte, Interim Executive Director, Arts Strategy at the Arts Council

Paul Myners, Chair of Tate, Land Securities and the Guardian Media Group

Daily Papers - 23rd January

Arts Council Cuts

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c77bdb54-c61f-11dc-8378-0000779fd2ac.html

It promises to be the best news many arts leaders will have heard in years. On February 1, 80 arts organisations will learn that they are to receive regular funding from Arts Council England for the first time.

The Times

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/whats_on/article3191802.ece

Of all the 200-odd organisations about to have their Arts Council grants cut, the most astonishing victim is Birmingham Opera Company. Year after year I travel to Brum in the hope of being provoked, disturbed, exhilarated and refreshed by Graham Vick’s company and its unique, community-based approach to opera. I am never disappointed.

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1f226790-c48d-11dc-a474-0000779fd2ac.html

Nicholas Hytner, the director of the National Theatre, has launched a scathing attack on Arts Council England for its handling of this year’s grant allocation, which saw almost 200 institutions have their funding withdrawn.

The Daily Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;jsessionid=LOV52C1MFQS5DQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/arts/2008/01/18/btdead118.xml

It comes as a shock to realise that I have been covering the small but invaluable Bush Theatre for almost 30 years. Housed in a tiny room above a rowdy pub in Shepherd's Bush, it is a venue that has punched consistently above its weight, discovering exciting new writers, attracting outstanding actors, and playing a major role in keeping British theatre fresh and vibrant

The Sunday Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article3215284.ece

Here in Chipping Norton, there is a picture-perfect little theatre. It’s exactly the same as a London theatre, with a balcony and a bar, only it’s much, much smaller. You really do feel, as you perch on your primary-school chair, gazing on the Punch and Judy stage, that you are locked in a Cotswold-stone dolls’ house.

The Evening Standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/article-23433103-details/Don%27t+let+art+go+down+the+pan/article.do

Naive is the only word for Sir Brian McMaster's report on fostering the arts, naive the only word for the Culture Secretary's enthusiastic response to it.Yet again we have had an inquiry by a man who certainly knows nothing of the visual arts, and yet again we have an equally ignorant and inexperienced minister who sooner or later will be moved to fisheries or returned to the back benches - culture has never been a stepping-stone to greatness in any of our governments.

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/adcd47ca-c56f-11dc-811a-0000779fd2ac.html

Iam due to meet Dame Vivien Duffield in her surprisingly modest office in central London in mid-morning and, although there is a difference of about eight zeros between the value of my personal assets and those of the characters she normally hangs out with, I am leaving my chequebook at home. Just in case.

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3227676.ece

What is the Arts Council for? When I was on its drama panel a few years ago, that seemed easily answered. As far as the English theatre was concerned, it was to ensure that the public got its fill of exciting, provocative and instructive work. It was to launch the promising, encourage the excellent and so serve the future as well as the present

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article3226908.ece

Sir, One of the 194 organisations threatened with the withdrawal of its grant by Arts Council England is the Early Music Network. British musicians have long led the world in the historically informed performance of Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music, and the EMN has been a vital advocate and facilitator in this field since 1977

Costa Book of the Year

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aeb957e8-c941-11dc-9807-000077b07658.html

The £30,000 ($59,000) Costa Book of the Year award was won on Tuesday night by A. L. Kennedy, the novelist and stand-up comedian, for her fifth novel, Day.

The Arts

The Times

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/leisure/article3215547.ece

The Independent

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article3359080.ece
You've heard of underground writers but Luc Grateau's work gives the term underground artist a new meaning. Every day for three years, the artist has used old Métro tickets to create miniature portraits of fellow passengers in Paris.

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2245186,00.html

At last, Russia's treasures have arrived at the Royal Academy. Adrian Searle wanders among gorgeous Matisses, hideous Renoirs, crucial Picassos and a feast of oddities

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2244685,00.html

Spanish artist Juan Muñoz sculpted figures that felt powerfully alive - yet strangely absent. Adrian Searle is moved by a retrospective of his late friend's work

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d4c1f466-c56f-11dc-811a-0000779fd2ac.html

When the likeable Texan athlete Michael Johnson ran his two finals, in the 200m and 400m, in the Olympic Games of 1996 in Atlanta, he wore a custom-made pair of lurid gold running shoes.

Architecture

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/architecture/story/0,,2244258,00.html

Floating mosques, amphibious cinemas, houses that rise with the water ... as floods return to Britain, Steve Rose meets some Dutch architects who may have the answers

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d37ee226-c56f-11dc-811a-0000779fd2ac.html

They are beautiful pictures of sometimes hideous places. The Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky’s views of large industrial quarries round the world can be read in many different ways – as monumental landscape photographs, environmental reportage, a form of highly emotive autobiography ... Whichever way you choose to receive them, they are magisterial.

Miscellaneous

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/libby_purves/article3227648.ece

Genghis Khan or Jacqui Smith? Tricky choice. One is a polite Nu-Lab minister in a sensible suit, the other founded the Mongol empire with fire and the sword. On the other hand, Genghis's eventual boast was that “a virgin with a bag of gold around her neck could walk naked from one end of the realm to another without being attacked”.

Daily Papers

British Council cuts

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2241282,00.html

Martin Davidson's response (Letters, January 15) to the anxieties raised by many leading artists and others concerning the future of the arts departments at the British Council is disingenuous.

Voluntary Organisations

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jan/16/public.benefit
Voluntary organisations will soon have to prove they are a benefit to the public, and today's guidance aims to show them how. But have the difficulties that emerged from the change been addressed? By David Brindle

Arts

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/architecture/story/0,,2241582,00.html

The Thames is about to get a taste of west Africa. On February 5, a flat-pack house designed in 1951 by French engineer Jean Prouvé is being relocated to a new spot in front of Tate Modern, where it will be open to the public as part of an exhibition about Prouvé's works at the nearby Design Museum.

Kudos

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/14/television

Daily Papers - 15th Jan

Arts Council Cuts

The Guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2240467,00.html

It is the biggest cull in the arts council's history: some 200 organisations have until tomorrow to tell it why they shouldn't suffer massive funding cuts - and possible extinction. Laura Barnett meets six companies facing a grim future

The Arts

The Times

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/poetry/article3186301.ece

If the developers who want to build 6,000 eco-homes near Felix Dennis’s country mansion had studied his career, they would have realised that underestimating him can be unwise.

Daily Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;jsessionid=LVGCTYD0SNELHQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/arts/2008/01/15/bttheatres115.xml

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article3187686.ece

A scaffold went up on Portobello Road, then a tarpaulin. Unnoticed by streams of passers-by, the artist known as Banksy slipped into his temporary hide and painted furiously for most of a Sunday morning. Then the hide came down, and where there had been bricks, mortar and indifference, there was art.

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/865dc16e-c30e-11dc-b617-0000779fd2ac.html
London is driving the growth of the international art market, helping to double its value in just four years. A report commissioned by the European Fine Art Foundation underlines the capital's contribution to worldwide art sales - worth €43.3bn in 2006, a rise of 95 per cent from 2002's figure of €22.3bn and the highest total ever recorded.

City Bonuses

The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b3584d62-c30c-11dc-b617-0000779fd2ac,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fb3584d62-c30c-11dc-b617-0000779fd2ac.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ft.com%2Fsearch%3FqueryText%3Dcity%2Bbonuses%26aje%3Dtrue%26dse%3D%26dsz%3D

When the credit squeeze struck last summer, the widespread view on Wall Street and in the City of London was that the five-year boom in investment banking bonuses had come to an end. If large banks had suffered losses, it seemed logical that their highly-paid employees would share the pain

The Olympics

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article3187459.ece

It is no great surprise that the Government could be £1 billion adrift on its forecasts of what the Olympics sites could fetch after the London Games have been held in 2012. To try to guess property prices ten years ahead is an almost impossible game. Nevertheless, the assumptions made by Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingstone about site values were made at the peak of the property boom, and now look wilfully optimistic.

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3187845.ece

Britain faces a £1 billion black hole after the 2012 Olympics because of “ludicrous” property price projections backed by ministers, it emerged last night.