Arts funding cuts in the UK have bitten deep. The Arts Council has lost a third of its funds, forcing it to axe some of its projects and scale down others. In this atmosphere of austerity, arts fundraising needs to go into overdrive to save some of Britain’s best cultural assets from extinction.
Shaan Patel is such a driven and high-achieving person that his claim to boost anyone’s SAT score by 200 points or more carries some credibility. From humble beginnings growing up at his parents’ motel in Nowheresville, Nevada and attending the local public school which had a dropout rate of 40%, he graduated from Yale with an MBA and USC with an MD. And his own SAT score on the way there? A perfect 1600, after starting out with only an average score. This lends weight to his claim that he can boost anyone’s SAT score by 200 or more, because he boosted his own by several hundred points.
International luxury goods group Kering owns brands such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Boucheron, Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen. Possibly stemming from the company’s origins in the timber industry – or perhaps in spite of them – since 2012 it has been committed to a sustainability plan that aims to minimise its impact on the environment. This includes avoiding PVC in manufacturing operations, sourcing gold from ethical providers, and purchasing its leather from responsible and verified sources.
It’s funny how the contestants on TV baking shows like the Great British Bake Off always seem to have plenty of creative ideas and expert baking skills. The results on the day vary – otherwise there wouldn’t be a show – but they all seem to have been studying, learning and baking like crazy before getting on the show and receiving their first challenge.
With music education facing extinction in UK schools and budget cuts leading one prominent musician to proclaim the situation ‘child abuse’, at least it’s good to know that some of our friends across the pond are getting it right, at least in one major city. Chicago schools are generating high levels of student engagement through allowing them to form their own mariachi bands.
Where would we be without toys? If we were never allowed to use fascinating objects as springboards for our imaginations, our brains would fail to develop properly. We project ourselves onto toys, explore the world with them, learn with them. We discover cause and effect, relationships, and our own identities through toys. From Ancient Mesopotamia to Toys ‘R’ Us, children have constructed their realities with the help of tangible playthings, either made for them by their parents or made by the children themselves out of what’s lying around.
Why exactly did the apocryphal apple fall on Isaac Newton’s head? That’s what Newton wondered, and set out to discover why. Many of us wonder in the same way about why things happen, but don’t have time to dedicate our lives to getting to the bottom of it. Most of us don’t have a nuclear reactor or particle accelerator in our garden shed. Here’s a course for armchair physicists around the world who want to be told how it all works by people who have done all the hard thinking.
With the UK having voted to leave the European Union and right-wing leaders in Europe and around the world celebrating the decision (when this was written), it might be a good time for future leaders, administrators and businesspeople to deepen their knowledge of International Relations. In an atmosphere of growing nationalism, diplomacy and knowledge of world affairs are skills that might be in higher demand.
How can we be free in a world of jobs, debt and alarm clocks? What’s the best way to live life from moment to moment? If we don’t decide this ourselves, the pressures of life are sure to fill up those moments for us and we risk being left without a sense of peace, purpose or pleasure.
‘The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.’
Have you ever wanted to solve a crime? It seems to be a common fantasy – stepping into the shoes of a flinty-eyed detective, assessing the evidence and leaving no stone unturned to tighten the net around the criminal until he is forced to confess. These days a lot of that work is done via forensic science. There are quite a lot of games on the Google Play and Apple Stores based on forensic TV shows like CSI and NCIS in which you analyse the evidence to deduce who committed the crime.
