Culture

GIVEN the tricky environment faced by businesses now: according to philosopher Martin Cohen in his new book (Rethinking Thinking: Problem-Solving from Sun Tzu to Google) published this week, there’s a great need for rethinking old assumptions. Take Twitter, for example. If you should pop over to Twitter today, you will soon realise that opinion is…

What attracted you to the whisky industry, and how did the Ardross dream come to be realised? Frankly, I am not too sure! I would like to say it was a purely analytic, rational process that brought us there but explanations after the fact too often give an illusion of linearity in decision-making. The reality…

Why did you want to get into acting? Because I loved it and I loved the other people doing it. I had a strong sense that life was too short to spend it doing something you didn’t love so I feel very fortunate – in this tricky profession where you’re reliant on others to employ…

Science and technology advances at an ever-increasing rate and that requires us to adjust to its advantages and dangers. We are all adjusting to changes brought about by the use of AI but an even bigger change is upon us. It is the extraordinary developments of neurotechnology. With neurotechnology we can expect major advances in…

Few people know more filmmakers and screenwriters than Elliot Grove. Elliot is the founder of Raindance Film Festival (1993), the British Independent Film Awards (1998), and Raindance London Film School (2007). He has produced over 700 short films and five feature films: the multi-award-winning The Living and the Dead (2006), Deadly Virtues (2013), Amber (2017),…

What is this exhibition/collection about?  I have been putting more focus on the sculptural nature of my works in previous shows. In my upcoming show “Open your Seed”, I explore more of the narrative aspect, the potential stories my seeds have been telling, which I did not listen to enough for the past years.  I…

How did you first become involved in the auction industry? My introduction to the art world was by involuntary osmosis. My father had developed an almost obsessive interest in country house sales and antique shops – with some of my earliest memories being squashed between bubble-wrap and blankets in the back of a Volvo estate…

Today, I stand at the helm of the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) as its first woman Executive Director and CEO in a time of considerable social upheaval and change. The COVID-19 pandemic has given us all a new lens through which to view our past, our present state, and our future. It has altered our…

Australian-born Jennifer Guerrini Maraldi is the founder of JGM Gallery, the London-based leading specialist in contemporary British & Australian Aboriginal art. JGM Gallery offers a rolling calendar of exhibitions throughout the year. The gallery is in Battersea, next to the Royal College of Art. Jennifer’s art career started in her hometown of Melbourne, where she…

Dreweatts auctioneers is to thrilled to offer the private collection of David Winston, Restorer and Conservator of Pianos to HM the Queen. The collection includes 26 exceptionally rare and important pianos dating from the 18th century to present day. This landmark sale will take place on Thursday, September 23rd, 2021. Amongst those expected to achieve…

So – we are promised a full ‘review’ of the pandemic and ‘lessons to be learned’ some time in 2022.  Dominic Cummings has even offered his extraordinary version already. No promises of what will be reviewed, or who will conduct the review have yet been offered but we can guess that it will be more…

In 1870, more than four thousand years after it was built, the Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt was still the world’s tallest man-made structure. By 2010, only 140 years later, there were more than 10,000 buildings taller than the Great Pyramid. Something fundamental changed between 1750 and 1800 and it changed in Britain. Since…

The idea of women as weak has always bemused me. Perhaps it’s because I grew up a head taller than most boys at school, perhaps it was because I was reared on stories of women who never let a little muscle get in their way. I was often told about my mother’s political heroine (and…

The nation was gripped with sadness following the passing of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh – Britain’s longest serving consort of a British monarch. Prince Philip was indeed an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life. He was the epitome of public service who devoted his entire life to Crown and…

How has your upbringing in Buenos Aires influenced your approach to filmmaking? Yes, it had a lot of influence because Buenos Aires is very far away. There was no internet, no communications so whatever you got was nothing to do with what could be the truth or the facts. There was misinformation. But the movies…

‘Old Age is honourable’ – so says the old proverb. Do we still believe this today? Of the many sad outcomes of this year’s battle with the Coronavirus, perhaps one which bodes most ill for the future is the divide which has opened up between the old and young in our society. The numbers are…

In the one hundred years that women have taken seats as MPs in the House of Commons, vast progress has been made for women’s rights both within and outside of Parliament. At the beginning of 1919, no women MPs sat in the Commons, despite legislation being passed in the previous year enabling women to serve…

As the world begins to come out of lockdown businesses from across the globe are beginning to reopen, readjusting to the new normal we all now face. Strong leadership has never been more important as companies look for that competitive edge that will help them navigate through all the uncertainty. Alex Ellinis, founder and director…

Africa has always had a place in my heart, especially my motherland Ghana. There have been countless charities set up to help and develop the continent in so many different ways. From education to clean water, to fair trade and live aid. Although these charities have had an incredible impact on different parts of Africa,…

I was appointed General Director of Scottish Opera, Scotland’s national opera company and largest performing arts organisation, in 2006. The Company was founded in 1962 by Sir Alexander Gibson, who wanted ‘to lay the treasures of opera at the feet of the people of Scotland’, and inaugurated with a production of Madama Butterfly at the…

The Wiener Holocaust Library has existed for over 80 years. How much has it changed since its beginnings? Alfred Wiener set up the Library in 1933 living in exile in the Netherlands. Facing the growing Nazi menace, Wiener ultimately chose to ship the organisation and its collections to London, just before the war. Once there,…

I believe mental health is the last great taboo in business and breaking it is central to creating a more prosperous and resilient society. If we fail then people will continue to suffer in silence. They will continue to fall back on the ever present self-destructive ‘coping  devices’ of alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling and eating…

‘The dial monument at the center of ‘Seven Dials’, Covent Garden is the main focal point of the area, each street leading off the round about hosts a different personality with a fantastic variety of brands on offer. Packed with independent boutiques, international fashion labels, heritage brands, beauty salons, men’s grooming specialists, traditional pubs, cool…

“I love man as my fellow; but his sceptre, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.” Mary Wollstonecraft, A vindication of the Rights of Woman, written in the year of Marie-Louise’s birth Today, we…

Hello Henry, you have achieved some remarkable feats. Have you always had an adventurous streak? My parents run a small travel business, so that inquisitive nature was with me from an early age, but it really all began after I left school and travelled to Kenya to work as a guide on a riding safari.…

The phrases ‘corporate hospitality’ and ‘hospitality industry’ make me uncomfortable. They seem to come from the dictionary of double-speak, loaded with contradiction that threatens to pervert our civil society. Hospitality must never be commercial or industrial – quite the reverse. It is generous and intimate: present in the sincerity of a smile, the twinkle of…

Why are the WMAs important? The World Media Awards are hosted by the World Media Group, a strategic alliance of the world’s leading international media brands, and together we represent a strong quality environment for advertising going forward. Our role is to be the champion of high quality and trusted journalism. With the back drop…

What happens if we do bust the 1,000-gigaton carbon budget? We can still bring  concentrations of those gases back down to a level that sustains a stable climate. We won’t get back quite the climate of the last 500 years, but we can shoot for one that future generations can adjust to. We have some…

I entered the world of executive recruitment with the perspective I gained over twenty years in the boardroom.  My journey along the corridors of corporate power demonstrates how tough it has been for the boardroom to reflect the ethnic and gender diversity visible in today’s society.  I do not believe this is a deliberate strategy…

How did you get involved with the Gulf? When the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the two great Mosques, launched his interfaith initiative in 2008, the then Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, reached out to invite me to the first interfaith gathering convened by King Abdullah and the…

The endless arm wrestling over Brexit has meant that Britain has been eyes down since June 2016, preoccupied with the backstop, the deal or no deal, and the internal agonies of the Conservative Party. The opportunity costs in terms of pressing domestic issues neglected are obvious. Much less discussed has been the long term future…

What initially led you to become a Sculptor? When did you know it was the medium for you? My grandmother was a successful sculptor, so there were no huge taboos to break, the family home was full of her work, though she died years before I was born. For a while, till my early thirties,…

The position of Bodley’s Librarian is one of the top librarian jobs in the world. Richard Ovenden took the job in 2014, becoming the twenty-fifth curator of the legendary Bodleian Library in Oxford.  As such, he is responsible for the largest university library in the UK and one of the major research libraries in the…

Between 1947 and 2007 Eileen Ford created the largest and longest lasting model agency the world has ever seen, famed for its blonde and slinky beauties whose thighs would stretch for miles. If you booked a Ford model, you got Ferrari and Porsche glamour—with Rolls-Royce prestige and prices: Jerry Hall, Lauren Hutton, Christie Brinkley, Christie…

Anniversaries are helpful to put things into context. Give or take a year or two it’s 100 years since world war one started, 50 years since Winston Churchill died, 40 years since the UK joined the then Common Market and its been just over 25 years since the Berlin Wall fell. After that the Soviet…

As Chairman and President of the enormously successful Trump Organization, how do you see the business evolving over the next ten years or so? For example will you be branching out into other industries to seek growth or stick to your current mainstays? That’s hard to determine. I’m always open to possibilities, and we have…

A little over a year ago Sir Peter Bazalgette, Chair of the Arts Council, made an important plea for fair funding of diversity in the arts. I believe he is right and my experience as Chair of the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal tends to confirm it. Until we unveiled the statue of Mary Seacole…