The Pogues on life after Shane: ‘He wasn't always drunk. He worked hard'
It is hard to imagine the Pogues without Shane MacGowan. The writer of such lachrymose classics as A Pair of Brown Eyes, Sally MacLennane and, with Jem Finer, the seasonal standard Fairytale of New York embodied the spirit of the London-Irish band: the wildness, the booziness, the literary and poetic intent underlying it all. Yet here I am in my office in London Bridge with Finer and Spider Stacy, who founded the Pogues with MacGowan in 1982 and have resolved, in the wake of the singer's death in 2023, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their classic album Rum Sodomy and the Lash with a global tour. Nobody could take the place of MacGowan, so Finer and Stacy have enlisted various singers from a
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
London's V&A Storehouse museum lets visitors get their hands on 5,000 years of creativity
A museum is like an iceberg. Most of it is out of sight. Most big collections have only a fraction of their items on display, with the rest locked away in storage. But not at the new V&A East Storehouse, where London's Victoria and Albert Museum has opened up its storerooms for visitors to view — and in many cases touch — the items within. The 16,000-square-meter (170,000-square-foot) building, bigger than 30 basketball courts, holds more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 archives. Wandering its huge, three-story collections hall feels like a trip to IKEA, but with treasures at every turn. The V&A is Britain's national museum of design, performance and applied arts, and the storehouse holds aisle after aisle of open shelves lined with everything from ancient Egyptian shoes to Roman pottery, ancient Indian sculptures, Japanese armor, Modernist furniture, a Piaggio scooter and a brightly painted garbage can from the Glastonbury Festival. 'It's 5,000 years of creativity,' said Kate Parsons, the museum's director of collection care and access. It took more than a year, and 379 truckloads, to move the objects from the museum's former storage facility in west London to the new site. Get up close to objects In the museum's biggest innovation, anyone can book a one-on-one appointment with any object, from a Vivienne Westwood mohair sweater to a tiny Japanese netsuke figurine. Most of the items can even be handled, with exceptions for hazardous materials, such as Victorian wallpaper that contains arsenic. The Order an Object service offers 'a behind-the-scenes, very personal, close interaction' with the collection, Parsons said as she showed off one of the most requested items so far: a 1954 pink silk taffeta Balenciaga evening gown. Nearby in one of the study rooms were a Bob Mackie-designed military tunic worn by Elton John on his 1981 world tour and two silk kimonos laid out ready for a visit. Parsons said there has been 'a phenomenal response' from the public since the building opened at the end of May. Visitors have ranged from people seeking inspiration for their weddings to art students and 'someone last week who was using equipment to measure the thread count of an 1850 dress.' She says strangers who have come to view different objects often strike up conversations. 'It's just wonderful,' Parsons said. 'You never quite know. … We have this entirely new concept and of course we hope and we believe and we do audience research and we think that people are going to come. But until they actually did, and came through the doors, we didn't know.' A new cultural district The V&A's flagship museum in London's affluent South Kensington district, founded in the 1850s, is one of Britain's biggest tourist attractions. The Storehouse is across town in the Olympic Park, a post-industrial swath of east London that hosted the 2012 summer games. As part of post-Olympic regeneration, the area is now home to a new cultural quarter that includes arts and fashion colleges, a dance theater and another V&A branch, due to open next year. The Storehouse has hired dozens of young people recruited from the surrounding area, which includes some of London's most deprived districts. Designed by Diller, Scofidio and Renfro, the firm behind New York's High Line park, the building has space to show off objects too big to have been displayed very often before, including a 17th-century Mughal colonnade from India, a 1930s modernist office designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and a Pablo Picasso-designed stage curtain for a 1924 ballet, some 10 meters (more than 30 feet) high. Also on a monumental scale are large chunks of vanished buildings, including a gilded 15th-century ceiling from the Torrijos Palace in Spain and a slab of the concrete façade of Robin Hood Gardens, a demolished London housing estate. Not a hushed temple of art, this is a working facility. Conversation is encouraged and forklifts beep in the background. Workers are finishing the David Bowie Center, a home for the late London-born musician's archive of costumes, musical instruments, letters, lyrics and photos that is due to open at the Storehouse in September. Museums seek transparency One aim of the Storehouse is to expose the museum's inner workings, through displays delving into all aspects of the conservators' job – from the eternal battle against insects to the numbering system for museum contents — and a viewing gallery to watch staff at work. The increased openness comes as museums in the U.K. are under increasing scrutiny over the origins of their collections. They face pressure to return objects acquired in sometimes contested circumstances during the days of the British Empire Senior curator Georgia Haseldine said the V&A is adopting a policy of transparency, 'so that we can talk very openly about where things have come from, how they ended up in the V&A's collection, and also make sure that researchers, as well as local people and people visiting from all around the world, have free and equitable access to these objects. 'On average, museums have one to five percent of their collections on show,' she said. 'What we're doing here is saying, 'No, this whole collection belongs to all of us. This is a national collection and you should have access to it.' That is our fundamental principle.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
AI plundering scripts poses ‘direct threat' to UK screen sector, says BFI
Artificial intelligence companies are plundering 130,000 film and TV scripts to train their models in a raid on copyrighted material that poses a 'direct threat' to the future of the UK screen sector, according to the British Film Institute. In a wide-ranging report analysing the benefits and threats posed by AI to the UK's film, TV, video game and visual special effects industries, the BFI also raises fears that automation will eliminate the entry-level jobs that bring in the next generation of workers. It says the 'primary issue' facing the £125bn industry is the use of intellectual property (IP) to train generative AI models without payment to, or permission from, rights holders. The UK creative industries want to see an 'opt-in' regime, forcing AI companies to seek permission and strike licensing deals before they can use content, and the government is currently in the process of considering what legislation to put in place. 'AI offers significant opportunities for the screen sector such as speeding up production workflows, democratising content creation and empowering new voices,' said Rishi Coupland, director of research and innovation at the BFI. 'However, it could also erode traditional business models, displace skilled workers, and undermine public trust in screen content.' While the report acknowledges the technological benefits of AI – such as being able to de-age actors and improving the authenticity of accents, as was used controversially in Adrien Brody's Oscar-winning film The Brutalist – it also cites fears of job losses. Tasks such as writing, translation and some technical visual effects and character animation can now be automated, 'prompting fears of obsolescence among professionals' amid concerns that AI could take over the jobs once done by the sector's youngest workers. 'AI's ability to automate tasks raises fears of job losses, particularly for junior or entry-level positions,' the report says. 'Training and upskilling are seen as essential to prepare the workforce for AI integration.' However, the report, published in partnership with Goldsmiths, Loughborough and Edinburgh universities, warns of a 'critical shortfall' in AI training provision. 'AI education in the UK screen sector is currently more 'informal' than 'formal',' the report says. 'And many workers – particularly freelancers – lack access to resources that would support them to develop skills complementary to AI.' More than 13,000 creative technology companies are based in the UK, including more than 4,000 businesses focused on applying emerging technologies across film, games and other creative subsectors. London is the world's second largest hub after Mumbai for visual effects professionals globally, home to leading businesses including Framestore, whose credits include Avengers: Endgame and the BBC's adaptation of His Dark Materials. The report also acknowledges that AI is likely to significantly benefit the industry by lowering barriers for creators 'regardless of budget or experience'. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion 'This could empower a new wave of British creators to produce high-quality content with modest resources,' it says. The 45-page report makes nine recommendations including establishing a market for IP licensing and training, the development of 'market-preferred, culturally inclusive AI tools' and more investment in the sector and skills training. The report was also produced in conjunction with the CoStar Foresight Lab, the £75.6m national network of laboratories that is developing new technology for the industry. 'AI offers powerful tools to enhance creativity, efficiency, and competitiveness across every stage of the production workflow,' said Jonny Freeman, director of CoStar. 'From script development and pre-production planning, through on-set production, to post-production and distribution. However, it also raises urgent questions around skills, workforce adaptation, ethics and sector sustainability.' Last week, the BBC director general and the boss of Sky criticised proposals to let tech firms use copyright-protected work without permission, while Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, tried to reassure the creative industry that it would not be harmed by future AI legislation. 'We approach you with no preferred option in mind,' she said, delivering a keynote speech at the Deloitte Enders conference. 'We are a Labour government, and the principle [that] people must be paid for their work is foundational. You have our word that if it doesn't work for the creative industries, it will not work for us.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Brit awards swap London for Manchester to ‘invigorate' show
It has been one of the high points of London's music calendar for almost half a century, but the Brit awards has confirmed it is ditching the capital and moving to Manchester next year. The celebration of British music will be held at the Co-op Live arena in 2026 and 2027 – its 50th anniversary – as part of plans to 'invigorate' the show, organisers said. Next year is the first of three years of Sony stewardship for the Brit awards, responsible for some the UK's most famous music moments led by northern acts, including Jarvis Cocker mooning at Michael Jackson in 1996, Chumbawamba dumping a bucket of ice water over the then deputy prime minister John Prescott in 1998, and Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner's literal mic-drop after his speech trashing the music industry in 2014. Organisers said moving the Brits to the home of the legendary Haçienda club and Factory Records 'perfectly captures the spirit and energy' of the event. The chair and CEO of Sony Music UK & Ireland, Jason Iley, described it as a 'very exciting time'. 'Moving to Manchester, the home of some of the most iconic and defining artists of our lifetime, will invigorate the show and build on the Brits legacy of celebrating and reinvesting in world-class music,' he said. 'Hosting the show in Manchester, with its vibrant cultural history, perfectly captures the spirit and energy of the Brit awards.' Sign up to The Guide Get our weekly pop culture email, free in your inbox every Friday after newsletter promotion The Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, pointed to the 'unparalleled music heritage' of the city, which has spawned artists such as Oasis, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and Take That. 'Greater Manchester has an unparalleled music heritage known around the world, and this summer will play host to some of the biggest gigs on the planet,' he said. 'That was only made possible by our strong commitment to new talent and giving emerging artists the opportunities to make their name. 'Celebrating the Brit awards right here in the home of 24-hour party people is the next chapter in its story and you can be sure that we will help them do it in style.' The move is part of a wider trend in the music industry towards celebrating the north of England as being responsible for some of the world's biggest music stars past and present. The MTV European music awards were held at Co-op Live last year, and the Mobo awards has spent its last two years in the northern cities of Sheffield and Newcastle. The Northern music awards, recognising homegrown talent, are in their second year after their inaugural event in Manchester in 2024.
