celebrity, television and happiness

The celebrity autobiography has become as familiar a part of Christmas as mince pies and tinsel so I guess it’s no surprise to see the musings of Ant and Dec, Jeremy Clarkson, Frankie Boyle, Peter Kay, Chris Evans, JLS, Jo Brand, and Cheryl Cole topping the hardback non-fiction best-sellers list.  Celebrities have become the über-class.  Why do [...]

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Expressive Lives

August is a good time to catch-up on some of those reports that have been languishing in the reading tray.  I’ve been dipping into Expressive Lives, a Demos collection of essays exploring the changing nature of cultural engagement. In his essay, David Lammy MP, argues that technological and social changes are making the ‘expressive life’ [...]

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Settlers, Prospectors and Pioneers

Last week, together with a number of other colleagues I met with the Campaign Company to learn more about some of the very interesting work they have been doing with outer London boroughs on community cohesion issues. They take a ‘values modes’ (VM) based approach, making use of cultural dynamics. VM is mapping system that [...]

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High culture and hip hop

The launch of the Mayor of London’s new cultural strategy at the end of November was widely reported, in part because of Boris Johnson’s comment that art chiefs should stop patronising young people by targeting them with hip-hop and movies rather than high culture. Elsewhere on this community of practice colleagues have pointed to the [...]

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