Professor Alice Roberts: Is Music a Civilising Force?

BBC Radio 3, iPlayer: "Professor Alice Roberts chooses to look thousands of years back in human and pre-human history for signs and signals that music was not so much a civilising as a humanising force. Her exploration takes her to ancient archaeological sites where traces of early instruments have been found and the evidence of shifts and re-shapings in our pre-hominid ancestors which suggest some kind of musical interaction long before language developed".

I think Professor Roberts will be fascinated by Christopher King's forthcoming book, Lament from Epirus . An Odyssey into Europe's Oldest Surviving Folk Music

They share an interest in prehistoric flutes found in caves, the origins of music as holistic symbolic communication and as an aid to survival, group bonding, mating and the expression (and soothing) of grief.

On French Etiquette

An educational video - revise the rules!

European Economic Area workers in the UK labour market

A report from gov.uk


Sector impact responses

Dorchester, Dorset: Plans to build on Dorchester green spaces

Dorset Echo - 'Back to the drawing board' for plans to build on Dorchester green spaces


Cheers from residents as councillors vote against building homes on Dorchester playing fields, Dorset Echo

The Value of Cultural Relations: A Literature Review

A report on the importance and value of cultural relations (pdf) 

"The Cultural Value Project is a joint research project commissioned by the British Council and the Goethe-Institut. It aims to build a better understanding of the impact and value of cultural relations in terms of their ability to make a difference, in particular to supporting stability and prosperity in societies going through substantial change.

This Literature Review draws on a detailed investigation of the existing academic literature on cultural relations in German and English. It forms the introduction to on-going work deploying a new mixed-methodology approach to investigating the value of cultural relations, with a focus on their impact in societies in transition. The literature review is the first output of the project. It is the independent work of the Open University and the Hertie School of Governance, and does not necessarily represent the views of the Goethe-Institut or the British Council. The final results of the project (completed in summer 2018), and of the close collaboration between the Goethe-Institut and the British Council, will be of particular importance as Germany and the UK strengthen their ties with their neighbours - and also with each other".

March for Our Lives (Nina-Maria Reports); Washington DC

Director of Global News Coverage, Feature Story News, overseeing daily news-gathering, deployments and editorial output for TV, digital & radio networks worldwide

See Report:

https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/977705481270566912

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 @ChristineMCNA Mar 25

3/ @NinaMariaPotts in #WashingtonDC to sum up the mood and motivation across the #MarchForOurLives