Category: 5. Entertainment

More than a third (36%) of people have had a row with a neighbour, according to research involving users of a property website.

Curtain twitching (70%), noise (78%) and parking spot poachers (71%) are among people’s top annoyances, according to Rightmove’s survey of more than 1,200 people, including homeowners and renters.

Neighbour behaviours deemed to be the biggest red flags were asking for Wi-Fi passwords (87%) and overflowing bins (71%).

Young adults aged 18 to 34 are particularly sensitive to noisy (82%) and nosey neighbours (73%), the research indicated.

People aged 55 and over (39%) and those living in the South East of England (42%) are particularly likely to have had disagreements with other locals, according to the study.

Avoiding neighbourhood disagreements is a top priority for six in 10 (60%) people when moving home, rising to nearly seven in 10 (69%) among people living in the East Midlands.

Prospective buyers are taking extra steps to dodge potential problems, including driving by the property at different times of the day to check for issues (59%), expanding their area search (58%), and checking local community groups online for any disputes (43%), Rightmove’s survey, carried out in May, found.

Colleen Babcock, a property expert at Rightmove said: “Neighbourly disputes are an inevitable part of community life, but our research highlights just how significantly these everyday annoyances can influence people’s decisions when moving home.”

Mary-Lou Press, president of NAEA (National Association of Estate Agents) Propertymark, said: “When buying a property, it can be essential to spend time researching and learning more about the immediate area that surrounds it.

“In addition to a comprehensive and physical look around the local vicinity during the day, the weekend and/or the evening, it can be helpful to strike up conversations with people, such as surrounding neighbours, if the opportunity arises.

“Online snippets of information might also help you make a better decision too, such as checking the rate of crime in a particular neighbourhood, the performance of schools and health-related services, or even running a car insurance quote to help with your financial planning.”

Erik Charlotte VonSosen has always talked of her craft in a nonchalant fashion.

I’ve often witnessed this whenever I see the L.A.-based designer. We go somewhere, maybe a crowded house party or a flea market, and someone strikes up a conversation. They may be a stylist, an industry insider or simply a courageous flirt, but a compliment on what Charlotte is wearing is inevitable. Sometimes she’s wearing a tightly laced corset, a wool minidress or a methodical two-piece set. But either way, she quickly responds to the flattery with a return compliment, an unpretentious, “Thanks, I made it,” and moves the conversation forward.

Though ever-changing, Charlotte’s stylistic instincts were clear from early on in our friendship. Her brows are almost always freshly bleached. A Victorian cameo typically clings to her neck as a choker and her industrial ’90s Jean Paul Gaultier handbag punctuates her daily wardrobe.

A few years ago, we took an art class together where she created an entire corset dress to simply use as a canvas. (The rest of us had settled for paper.) For our final critique, I offered to help lug her sewing mannequin across campus. As I fought gravity and refused to let the white fabric drag, my gut was telling me I had a front-row seat to what was developing into an undeniable, fashion-forward vocation.

Once the 24-year-old designer began sharing her clothing online, a little over a year ago, things started to change. With her Art Deco fireplace as a backdrop and an iPhone perched on a tripod, she stunned the internet with her outlandish silhouettes, statuesque poses and high-fashion innovation.

Her avant-garde exaggerated ruffles, engulfing puff sleeves and sporadic seafarer motifs have since been fast-tracked into the world of celebrity stylists, red carpets, music video sets and the stages of touring musicians. Emma Chamberlain, Christina Aguilera and Richie Shazam alike have been crowned with Charlotte’s signature sailor hats. The musicians Marina, formerly of the Diamonds, and Rebecca Black have both ordered custom looks — Marina put in for a brocade corset and taffeta bubble skirt to wear on Coachella’s main stage, and Black indulged her sailor-bride fantasies at the American Music Awards.

Many understand Los Angeles fashion as a scene that depends on fast trends and lengthy lines outside of sneaker stores. But as a born-and-raised Californian, Charlotte wants to satisfy the sprawling city’s need for extravagance.

“I don’t think I should have to move to make the rest of the fashion world or anyone feel more comfortable. L.A. has so much untapped talent that’s hiding because people think fashion in L.A. is a monolith of hype and trends,” said Charlotte.

I pick up Charlotte from her off-Wilshire apartment, like usual. She’s wearing overalls, half undone, oversize glasses, her golden hair tossed up in a messy bun with a stuffed sketchbook in hand. We set out to go fabric shopping at Fabric Planet in Venice. She’s on a mission to create an all-white lace look, complete with a bonnet, puffy sleeves and feathers, for her own creative fulfillment.

Cerys Davies: When you are making something for yourself, how does your creative process start?

Erik Charlotte: I will only start drawing when I have an idea. Sometimes a building I saw or someone on the street will catch my eye. I let the thought marinate for a few days, or I’ll write it down in my notes. Or an idea will come to me really quick. And then, if I don’t have my sketchbook, I’ll sketch it here.

Surrounded by bolts of fabric, she whips out her phone and swipes through a series of finger-drawn sketches in her notes app.

I only have a couple minutes to sketch before the idea changes. It needs to be as pure as possible. Sometimes, I’ll even get out of the shower to sketch something.

CD: It seems like you have a constant flow of ideas coming out of you. How do you know when it’s done living in your sketchbook?

EC: Once it becomes the most exciting idea. There’s always a couple things on standby.

The look [we are shopping for] has a lot of elements that I’m familiar with, like the puff-sleeve job, the bonnet and the inclusion of feathers. It’s all elements that I’ve already attempted and really liked — so, I’m Frankensteining them.

She lands on six different kinds of white lace, with plans to layer them. An employee comes up to double–check that she only wants one yard of each pattern.

I’ll give myself a challenge: One yard of each and they’re all really different textures — maybe each sleeve puff might even be different.

I like when things are so different that they can’t be replicated. Honestly, [with my work] things really can’t be, because there’s always tiny splotches of blood on my corsets’ lining. It’s such a physical labor that I’ll break half my nails or my hands will be full of cuts.

She opens her hands up to me, revealing Band-Aids and well-formed callouses.

For some reason, I can only cut with my left hand. I do everything else with my right hand.

CD: Have you always been like that? Ever since kindergarten?

EC: Yeah, they thought I was ambidextrous. But I could only use my left when using scissors. It’s strangely helpful, because I can position fabric and then cut it perfectly.

CD: That’s hilarious. It’s almost like cutting fabric is innate to you.

We continue to circle the racks with no real goal — looking for something that strikes up inspiration. Charlotte lands on a fabric with a white background, detailed with fine line drawings in blue.

EC: I’ve always wanted to do something with this, but Moschino has something similar. I don’t want to be too matchy-matchy.

CD: Is that something you think about a lot?

EC: I am influenced by a lot of people, but I don’t want to ever create something that looks exactly the same as something else. I get kind of paranoid sometimes because there’s always a billion things in my head. I actually have this whole crusade against Pinterest. I never use Pinterest, and I don’t do mood boards either, which is uncommon.

I want what I create to be translated exactly from the way I see things. If I were inspired by a fountain or a landmark, I wouldn’t be looking at pictures of it. I’m inspired by what it looks like in my brain. That’s what I’m putting on the page. I’m not looking at pictures of it and going back and forth. I’m thinking, what’s my mental recollection of this?

We keep doing laps around the store. She digs through the scraps and dreams of making a swimsuit. She grabs a zipper and spool of thread. Her eyes linger on the shelves of silks. A gray plaid sticks out. In the blink of an eye, she’s handing it to an employee and asking for six yards. She has a vision of making it into a skirt and wearing it to the bar that very night.

EC: Now I’m feeling a bit over budget.

The original budget was $300.

CD: What’s your final guess?

EC: I think it’ll be around $360, just because of the silk.

The final total was $359.61.

We make the journey back to her rent-controlled apartment. Every inch of the couch is piled high with pinstripe bustles and mountains of sailor hats. She lays out the plaid and begins to craft her outfit for the night. In between pinning every inch, she tells me about how her grandma taught her the sewing basics at 15, as she had dreams of being a drag queen.

CD: Do you consider yourself to be self-taught?

EC: For sure. It manifests in my technique studies, because I don’t know school-taught techniques. A lot of times people will ask me how I did a certain thing, and I don’t have an answer for them.

CD: Does being self-taught ever cause any tension within yourself and your work?

EC: Sometimes I get insecure about it. When a stitch isn’t working, or I mess up the seam, I’ll delegitimize myself a little bit and think I’m a fraud because I’m having people pay me for this. But sometimes it can be a real learning opportunity.

CD: How do you think your roots in drag culture informs what you create today?

EC: It’s where I get my affinity for exaggeration. I love an exaggerated silhouette. I always pattern my corsets with an exaggerated hip shape, because that’s the drag definition of what femininity looks like. I don’t think it’s my definition of femininity anymore, as a trans woman, but having that exaggeration still live somewhere in my work is a testament to drag culture. It’s how I spent my teenage years.

There are also so many queens who don’t know how to sew and can still do a whole re-creation of a Met Gala look with hot glue. In drag, you can do so much with such little material or proper experience. There’s no guidebook on what to do. I bring that same approach to fashion.

CD: Thinking back to your drag days, did you ever think you would end up as a designer?

EC: Not really. I was really set on doing drag. When I first moved to L.A., all I wanted to do was perform. But once I started my transition, I realized it wasn’t drag that I wanted. It was the womanhood and the power. The whole reason I was still doing it was because I loved being able to make the clothes. It was the only excuse I had to wear the clothes and keep presenting feminine. So, when I transitioned, I didn’t need an excuse. I could just start making what I wanted to and it didn’t have to be a costume anymore.

CD: How do you think your relationship to creating clothes has evolved since then?

EC: It almost feels like a calling or a necessity. Before it really felt like a hobby, I was so focused on getting my degree and trying to figure out how to be a person, but now my relationship to it is almost primal. I can’t imagine doing anything else. The thought of not being able to sell or make clothes is devastating. I know it sounds like it’s not that deep, but it is for me.

CD: Is it fair to say you’ve been reaching your goals faster than expected?

EC: I can’t believe that this is all real. It’s crazy — this is all stuff that I make in my apartment. But on the other hand, my vision for what I want has always been so clear in every decision that I make. Everything is really intentional, from the stylists I work with to the types of jobs I take on.

This has been my dream for a really long time. I’m in this dream, but I’m in the dream with a map. I have a general sense of where I’m going. It is definitely surprising and not what I would have expected, timeline-wise. It’s insane to be 24 years old and think that I need an assistant. But I don’t dwell on the surprise. Instead, I just take it in stride and keep aiming higher. It’s not even out of necessity per se, but more out of desire. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with dreaming a little bit bigger.

As Karin Slaughter talks about her new thriller book series, “We Are All Guilty Here,” she’s equally wry, reflective and ready take off on a whole new level.

Her success is formidable: 24 novels have sold more than 40 million copies and been translated into 120 languages. They include the Grant County series featuring Sara Linton, a small-town pediatrician and medical examiner, which was followed by another centering on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Will Trent. The Will Trent series is the basis for the hit ABC TV series starring Ramón Rodriguez that was recently renewed for Season 4. Add to that a half dozen standalones, including “Pieces of Her,” adapted into a 2022 Netflix series starring Toni Collette, and an upcoming Peacock adaptation of “The Good Daughter,” and Slaughter’s rise to the present moment makes sense.

Two things are striking when talking to Slaughter over Zoom from her second home near the small town of Blue Ridge, Ga.: One, the massive deep-purple bookshelves that cover the entire back wall of her office and almost dwarf the petite writer do not resemble the brag walls I’ve seen in some writers’ offices. Slaughter’s bookcase — which she reveals she designed herself — includes work by Southern writers she admires and champions. (More on that later.) Two, she seems very much at ease as she prepares to launch the new book in the midst of a grueling schedule to bring “The Good Daughter” to the small screen as a limited series next year.

Pretty impressive for a writer who mentions that, early on, she sold only three books at a book conference where she appeared alongside the late mystery legend Mary Higgins Clark, who sold “about 12,000 books.” Slaughter laughs at her exaggeration, but it’s clear that it was a humbling experience. “I was sneaking out the back with my tail between my legs,” she remembers, “and Mary caught up to me, took some cash out of her wallet and said, ‘I want to buy one of your books.’” It was an act of generosity that Slaughter has paid forward many times over as she’s bought the books of lesser-known writers and championed their work, both in the U.S. and the U.K. But Southern writers are where Slaughter’s heart is, her face lighting up as she talks about her favorites.

“My life changed when I read Flannery O’Connor,” she explains. “I was a very strange little girl who didn’t quite fit in and who wrote these really jarring, sometimes violent stories. The early ones were about my sisters being murdered or kidnapped or just disappearing. And the happy ending was always that I became an only child!” Joking aside, she adds, “People were telling me I was weird, that what I was doing wasn’t very ‘ladylike.’” But when a local librarian put a book of Flannery O’Connor short stories in her hands, something shifted.

“I was like, ‘Wait a minute!” she says. “O’Connor was very weird; she lived in a small Southern town like me. She never fit in. And she was famous for writing these short stories. She created a whole freaking genre!”

Later, reading Alice Walker, young Slaughter gained a deeper understanding of a world where slavery wasn’t as romantic as “Gone With the Wind” had led her to believe. “Walker’s writing was so eye-opening for me. That world was never presented to me, a little middle-class white child living in the South.”

The Atlanta child murders from 1979-81 had an equally profound impact on the fledgling writer, a voracious reader of novels across all genres. “It made me very aware of crime,” she says. “And not just the crime itself, but how it changes communities and people, even in my idyllic small town.”

How small was her hometown of Jonesboro in those days? “When I was growing up, there was a guy on the corner of our street who had been convicted of being a pedophile. Story was, he wasn’t sent to prison because he was a family man, and the prosecutors didn’t want to ruin his life.” Her fingers make air quotes to emphasize the irony of the perpetrator being favored over his victims, an injustice she’d rectify decades later in her fiction.

But the Atlanta child murders gripped the city and outlying suburbs like Jonesboro and changed her community’s worldview. “Before, we looked at bad people as ‘different,’ as a shaggy-haired stranger when we should have been looking at the guy on the corner,” Slaughter says.

She explores that truth in “We Are All Guilty Here.” Teenaged Madison Dalrymple, itching to escape with bestie Cheyenne Baker to the glamorous life in 2011 Atlanta, hates everything about her small hometown North Falls, including 70-year old Sheriff Gerald Clifton, whose “great-great — however many greats — grandfather” was a founding father of the county. The Cliftons, especially Gerald, are treated like royalty by residents: “Madison’s dad joked that everybody who wasn’t a Clifton either worked for the Cliftons or had been arrested by the Cliftons.”

Gerald’s daughter, Emmy, 30, is a sheriff’s deputy working the town’s Fourth of July fireworks show while trying to shake off an argument with her ne’er-do-well husband. In the process, she brushes off Madison, who seems desperate to talk. Hours later, Madison is missing, and a guilt-ridden Emmy, led by her father, joins other deputies racing against the clock to unravel the whereabouts of Madison and Cheyenne — with tragic results.

Like many of Slaughter’s novels, “We Are All Guilty Here” is not for the squeamish — she is steadfast in her mission to realistically depict violence against women as a way of warning them about the dangers that can lurk in even the most trusting of relationships. And it wouldn’t be a Karin Slaughter thriller without a few twists, not the least of which is a time jump from the disappearance of the girls until a second disappearance in North Falls 12 years later upends assumptions about the perpetrator of the first crimes and kicks off a new investigation involving an older and wiser Emmy and her son Cole, also a deputy sheriff, as well as Jude Archer, a mysterious, recently retired FBI profiler come to town to consult on the new investigation. It’s a structure that shows off the veteran crime writer’s meticulous plotting of a lot more than the crimes at hand.

“I planned all of it from the beginning,” she admits, relishing a discussion of some of the subtleties of the Clifton family dynamics that add depth to the novel. “And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t completely unaware of the Murdaugh family when I created them.”

The attention Slaughter gives to building out the world of North Falls and Clifton County in the novel also allows her to touch on issues of racism, xenophobia and homosexuality, territory also mined by other contemporary Southern writers she admires, including S.A. Cosby, Wanda Morris, Denene Millner and Connie Briscoe. “I’m writing my Southern experience, but I also live in Atlanta, a very diverse, multicultural and vibrant city,” Slaughter says. “I live in a state that has blood on its hands from the scourge of slavery. I live in a country that is still dealing with that. And I think that when you’re writing a complicated, psychologically driven story, you have to acknowledge those things. But I don’t think you have to jump up on a soapbox because readers will do their own work.”

Slaughter took on a new kind of challenge when she adapted “The Good Daughter” for NBC’s streaming platform. “It started just as a thought experiment to see if I could do it,” she says of the decision to write the “Good Daughter” script before the book was optioned for TV. “I didn’t want to waste anybody’s time.” But then Bruna Papandrea of Made Up Stories and Fifth Season came on as producing partners, and Peacock picked up the project straight-to-series.

For much of the production, Slaughter was the limited series’ lone writer and showrunner. Previously she served as an executive producer on “Pieces of Her” and “Will Trent,” but not in a hands-on way. “On the other projects, I read the scripts and gave feedback with varying degrees of acceptance and collaboration,” she says. But for “The Good Daughter,” Slaughter did almost everything, from script writing to making decisions on costumes and signing off on budgets.

While it sounds daunting for a first-timer, Slaughter took it in stride. “People forget that, as an author, you’re really running a small business,” she explains. “You’ve got to deal with contracts and business relationships with different publishers all over the world, so I felt like those skills translated. And there’s a lot of hurry up and wait on book tours with the media and press junkets and book signings, so the production schedule for ‘The Good Daughter’ was like being on a book tour for 71 days as opposed to two weeks!”

“The Good Daughter” is the story of Charlotte and Samantha Quinn, daughters of controversial attorney Rusty Quinn, who survive a brutal invasion of their home in rural Pikesville, Ga., that’s linked to one of their father’s cases. The shocking crime, outlined in the book’s opening chapter, is both violent and heart-wrenching, and it shatters the Quinn family and separates the sisters. Years later, they reunite when Charlie (as Charlotte is nicknamed), now a criminal attorney herself, witnesses another murder, this time a school shooting. When their father decides to defend the accused teen, it dredges up past traumas for Charlie and Sam as well as secrets Pikesville residents and the Quinn family have hidden for years.

Slaughter found “The Good Daughter” production exhilarating, working with many of the “Will Trent” crew members as they filmed on location in and around McCaysville and Blue Ridge, where the story is set. She credits the crew, a collaborative relationship with director Steph Green and great performances — by Rose Byrne as Samantha Quinn, Meghann Fahy as Charlotte Quinn and Brendan Gleeson as their father Rusty — with making her first time as a showrunner memorable. “Everybody really believed in this story. And I’m really proud that we were able to tell it through a woman’s lens; everything that happens in the series is only told from Sam or Charlie’s point of view. But it’s also the first show I’ve ever seen that has a survivor of gun violence as a main character.”

While Slaughter is mum on whether she’d undertake another showrunner role, she’s excited about what’s next, which definitely includes a second North Falls thriller. What’s it about? “Let’s just say somebody dies and we find out why at the end,” she quips before adding more seriously, “I know that doing all that-world building and work on my North Falls characters won’t pay off until maybe next book or three books from now. It took a lot of discipline to not reveal so much, but over 24 books, I’ve learned to be patient and trust that readers will want to stay with me for the ride.”

What is certain is that The Black Cauldron aimed to be a different kind of Disney film. “Ron Miller, the former CEO of the company and the son-in-law of Walt Disney, wanted the film to be a departure,” Neil O’Brien, author of After Disney: Toil, Trouble, and the Transformation of America’s Favorite Media Company, tells the BBC. “He wanted it to appeal to a teenage, young-adult audience, and deliberately went about making sure there were no songs in the movie that could turn off teenage audiences.” 

The Black Cauldron also had a PG rating, a first for Disney. “That’s standard now, but it was very progressive in that regard, pushing boundaries to where animation could be,” Mindy Johnson, author of Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation, tells the BBC. “It feels strikingly dark. The Cauldron-Born scene is probably more macabre than anything they’d done in the past,” Dr Sam Summers, lecturer in Animation at Middlesex University, tells the BBC. 

Clashes at the studio

But things were getting dark behind the scenes, too. A new generation of graduates from the California Institute of the Arts, or CalArts, such as Brad Bird and John Lasseter (who later became driving forces at Pixar, directing The Incredibles and Toy Story respectively), wanted to bring a fresh aesthetic to the studio. But this led to clashes with the old guard, who were keen to maintain the status quo. “There were a lot of competing factions when Cauldron was underway,” says O’Brien. The mood at the studio shifted from highly optimistic to concerned.

Based on a five-book 1960s series, The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander, adapting The Black Cauldron was a towering feat. “It was an epic narrative, and there were challenges winnowing that down in years of development,” says Johnson. It was also the first film to implement computer animation, including cauldron effects and a magical orb. And it was the first Disney film since 1959’s Sleeping Beauty to be in 70mm, which meant animators had larger and more expensive canvases to animate. They toyed with complicated and costly technology like a hologram system for cinemas to bring those born from the cauldron to life. 

Pusha T and Kanye West will likely never work together again. Despite once sharing a creative partnership, Pusha T has made it clear that their rift is far from over. When asked about the possibility of collaboration with Ye, the Virginia rapper firmly stated that those days are behind him.

Pusha T says he will never work with Kanye West again

Pusha T has shut down any speculation about reuniting with Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, making it clear their era of collaboration is over. In a new interview with The Guardian, the rapper reflected on the creative highs they once shared but firmly stated that those days are behind him.

When asked directly if he would consider collaborating with Ye again, Pusha T’s response was clear. He said, “Yeah, that’s in the past. That’s definitely in the past.” The rapper explained that he does not take past disputes lightly. He said, “If I diss someone, it’s a very real thing to me. I watch other rappers use disses as a gimmick and sh*t like that, but that ain’t what this is for me.”

During the conversation, Pusha T also highlighted good times at the G.O.O.D. Music era, saying, “Just as a rap aficionado, well, being there was special.” He went on to describe specific milestones, including the weekly G.O.O.D. Friday series, the recording of tracks such as ‘So Appalled’ and ‘New God Flow.’

The rapper added, “The albums I dropped during that time, like Daytona and It’s Almost Dry, they are very, very strong offerings. It goes without saying that me and Ye made great things together.”

The rift between the former collaborators has been evident for some time. Earlier this year, in an interview with GQ, Pusha T described Ye as a “genius” with exceptional intuition. However, he also admitted that their relationship had deteriorated. He claimed Ye “sees through my fakeness with him” and “knows I don’t think he’s a man.”

Originally reported by Disheeta Maheshwari on Mandatory.

The post Kanye West & Pusha T Aren’t Reuniting Ever Again appeared first on Reality Tea.

BBC Asian Network has announced a new schedule, including new presenters and a new show kicking in from Monday 1 September.

Among the changes, Asian Network will introduce a new show to the weekly schedule and welcome a new roster of presenters from across the UK.

Asian Network’s brand-new afternoon programme will air every Monday to Thursday 3pm-6pm, hosted by Jaz Singh, marking his first full-time role as a radio presenter. Jaz rose to prominence as a contestant on The Traitors and went on to host Asian Network Motivation as a rotational presenter as well as covering shows across the network. He has also presented a documentary on BBC Radio 4. The new show will feature a mix of music and entertainment, aimed at reflecting the interests and experiences of British Asian communities.

Jaz Singh says: “As a finalist on BBC The Traitors to now hosting my own live radio show with BBC Asian Network, I’m beyond grateful to the people that are putting their trust and time into me because this is a dream!! Expect the biggest tunes, good vibes and be prepared to see a side of me you’ve never witnessed before!”

Alongside Jaz, Harleen Nottay will join the station to present The Everyday Hustle (Monday, 6am-6:30am). An award-winning presenter, producer and reporter from Scotland with a focus on health, wellness and amplifying voices from the South Asian diaspora, Harleen has worked and presented on the BAFTA-winning series ‘Scam Interceptors’, Channel 4’s documentary ‘The £12 Million Rental Scam: UNTOLD’ and has made regular appearances on BBC One’s Morning Live. The Everyday Hustle looks at tips and tricks of navigating businesses and entrepreneurship for British Asians and the challenges and wins that come with this.

Harleen Nottay says: “I’m absolutely thrilled to be joining the BBC Asian Network team as the new host of The Everyday Hustle. It’s a real privilege to pick up the mantle and bring fresh conversations to the show – and I’m especially honoured to represent Scottish voices on the network.”

In further changes to the station, Midland based duo Kades and Mr.O will take over the Friday night show (9pm-12am) from DJ Limelight, who will continue to present Asian Network’s New Music Show every Wednesday, 8pm-10pm. Mr.O brings over 15 years of DJing experience, having performed in front of thousands of people and played alongside many global artists on a number of international stages. Mr.O started appearing on Asian Network in early 2025. Making her Asian Network debut, Kades has earned viral recognition for her genre-fluid edits and Asian-inspired remixes, achieving millions of views, and generating a combined following of over 300,000 on TikTok and Instagram. She has also shared her experiences as a woman of mixed heritage in music on platforms such as Cultured Chaos and EmpowerHER.

DJ Limelight says: “I’ve enjoyed over 18 years of doing weekend evening radio here on BBC Asian Network and feel now is a good time for me to move on and pass the weekend baton onto the next DJ. You can still hear me representing the culture on Wednesday evenings with the New Music Show on BBC Asian Network.”

Kades and Mr.O say: “We’re so excited to be joining the Asian Network family and can’t wait to bring our energy to Friday nights! It’s an exciting time for the station, and we’re honoured to be part of the new chapter.”

Ahmed Hussain, Head of Asian Network, says: “We’re entering an exciting new chapter at Asian Network, and I’m thrilled to welcome our new presenters to the team. Jaz Singh’s new afternoon show is a key part of our commitment to celebrating British Asian voices and music culture. His energy and charisma are infectious, and I’m confident he’ll quickly become a familiar and much-loved presence in our listeners’ daily routines.

“It’s also vital that we continue to reflect the diversity of our audiences across the UK, so I’m proud to see new talent joining us from different regions. I can’t wait to hear what Jaz, Harleen, Kades and Mr.O bring to their shows.

“A huge thank you to DJ Limelight for his incredible contribution to Friday nights. We’re delighted he’ll continue to champion new music on Wednesdays.”

These rafts of changes follow on from the network’s move to Birmingham in April 2025, part of the BBC’s Across the UK strategy.

The new schedule begins from Monday 1 September.

GD2

Follow for more

With his nape-prickling vocal-fried whispers switching up to heartfelt roars, Chino Moreno has one of the most distinctive voices in rock history, and he has led Deftones for more than 30 years of cerebral yet mosh-ready alt-metal. As the band release their 10th studio album Private Music, he’ll join us to answer your questions.

Moreno has been there from the very start of Deftones in the late 1980s, playing with two high school friends, guitarist Stephen Carpenter and drummer Abe Cunningham, in a Sacramento, California, garage. The lineup settled in 1993 and they were signed by Madonna’s label Maverick just as the nu-metal sound of Korn was taking off, but while Deftones had a similarly groove-driven style, they set themselves apart from the larky, laddish end of the genre with a dark and dramatic sound – and of course those chilling Moreno vocals.

Third album White Pony was their double-platinum commercial peak and is seen as one of the classics of millennial metal, but the band have kept the quality control high and new generations of fans rolling in, and their most recent albums Gore and Ohms have each earned wide acclaim.

Moreno has found time for a number of side projects – Team Sleep, Palms, Saudade, and a number of releases with industrial pop project Crosses – and next up is the first Deftones album in five years, trailed by gigantic single My Mind Is a Mountain and follow-up Milk of the Madonna. The band will then return in February 2026 to play a series of UK arenas.

Ahead of the album’s release on 22 August, Moreno will join us to answer your questions on anything across his life and career – post them in the comments below before 6pm BST on Wednesday 13 August. His answers will be published online on 21 August and in print in the Film & Music section on 22 August.

Singapore is celebrating its 60th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule on 9 August, a pivotal milestone in its storied modern history, which includes Japanese occupation during the Second World War and a brief merger with neighbouring country Malaysia.

This year’s celebrations, dubbed SG60, include a slew of nation-wide economic incentives, community outreach programmes, as well as an annual parade.

Various cultural institutions across the island are also involved. On 17 July, National Gallery Singapore launched SG60’s signature programme dedicated to Singapore’s art history with Singapore Stories: Pathways and Detours in Art, a long-running exhibition featuring more than 400 works of art and artefacts spanning from the 19th century to the present.

The museum is housed in the former supreme court and city hall buildings with their famed colonial architecture, facing a historic field known as the Padang. Since its inception in 2015, Singapore Stories is the first major rehang of the museum’s key permanent galleries focusing on Singapore’s art history.

Adele Tan, a senior curator at National Gallery Singapore and the lead curator of Singapore Stories, tells The Art Newspaper, “We reduced the exhibition footprint given over to British colonial imagery related to coastal and topographical surveys”, which was part of the first iteration of the permanent gallery.

She also explains that The Esplanade from Scandal Point (1951) by the writer and artist John Turnbull Thomson, who was also the British government surveyor of the Straits Settlements, was placed as the first work in Singapore Stories to provide a “more complex picture of Singapore and representing the multicultural, convivial, polyglottic space at the Padang/Esplanade that was already there in the 19th century.”

Tan says the curatorial team endeavoured to include “a diversity of voices and practices”, such as lesser-known names and works alongside practices by major artists in Singapore,” in an effort to acknowledge “entrenched historiographic systems of recognition.”

Nonetheless, the Singapore museum veteran Kwok Kian Chow, the founding director of Singapore Art Museum and National Gallery Singapore, from 1993 to 2011, believes there is still a “significant disconnection between mid-20th century anticolonial art and subsequent art trends in Singapore.”

According to Kwok, decoloniality in Singapore art is notably disconnected from Global South art trends that deconstruct colonial history on their own terms. He cites the Indonesian contemporary art collective ruangrupa’s work as artistic directors for Documenta 2022 as an example of decoloniality in art from Southeast Asia. In contrast, “decoloniality in Singapore art emerged mainly as part of a global art discourse trend that is still largely led by the West,” he observes.

Syed Muhammad Hafiz, a former co-curator of exhibitions at National Gallery Singapore, agrees: “I think this is largely a reflection of the state of our scholarship in Singapore and goes beyond the discipline of art history.”

According to the curator, if Singapore fails to acknowledge that colonialism resulted in more ruptures than continuities in its cultural history, then the country’s ideas, movements and events will be derivative from the West. On the other hand, he adds, “if you look deeper and beyond, you will know that the polities in this region previously already had their way of doing things and systems of thinking.”

Running since May, the National Museum of Singapore’s Once Upon a Tide: Singapore’s Journey from Settlement to Global City, invites visitors on a journey through the country’s 700-year history, from a bustling 14th-century port to an advanced economy. Alongside virtual projections, 350 artefacts illustrate how the sea and river shaped Singapore’s evolution through a constant flow of people, goods, and ideas from around the world—long before globalisation.

Meanwhile, the ArtScience Museum, located at the tourist attraction Marina Bay Sands, opened SingaPop! 60 Years of Singapore Pop Culture (until 28 December), curated by the prominent Singapore composer, playwright, and filmmaker Dick Lee.

The exhibition traces the evolution of Singapore’s pop culture from its distinctive Singlish language and hawker food culture to television and music including Lee’s hit song Fried Rice Paradise. The song was originally released in 1974 and formerly banned on national radio for its use of Singlish, cited as improper English at the time. Today, Lee’s SingaPop! exhibition includes a section where visitors can test their Singlish skills.

Lee says, “Singapore’s reputation as a dynamic futuristic city has blossomed in recent years, and the island has been included in many a bucket list. However, little is known about our culture and identity, other than the obvious and visible signs of modernity and multiculturalism. My wish is for SingaPop! to address this in a fun, light-hearted way…”

Since gaining independence from the British in 1965, Singapore’s cultural institutions have been struggling with a paradox: despite a Western caricature of Singapore as an authoritarian state, a notion persistently popular with leading Western democracies flagrantly enacting their own crackdowns, there also exists a wariness in Singapore’s cultural landscape about antagonising gate-keepers in the West.

As long as Singapore’s arts scene keeps seeking recognition or acknowledgement from Euro-American institutions, “we are still trapped, whether we realise it or not,” Muhammad Hafiz says.

Gauri Krishnan, who was part of the pioneering curatorial team of Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum in 1993, asserts that, “In response to the enduring effect of Western colonial hegemony, I would like to see trends arising from the Global South traveling to the West rather than art trends arising always out of the West being adapted in the Global South.”

The lineup has been announced for one of the largest-scale benefit concerts for Palestine since the intensification of conflict after 7 October 2023. It takes place at Wembley Arena in London on 17 September.

Brian Eno is overseeing Together for Palestine, which brings together British and Palestinian artists at the 12,500-capacity venue to raise funds for Choose Love, a British charity working with 23 partner organisations in Gaza to deliver food, medical supplies and other support.

The Palestinian musicians Adnan Joubran, Faraj Suleiman and Nai Barghouti are scheduled to perform alongside Eno and a host of top UK artists: Bastille, Cat Burns, Damon Albarn, Greentea Peng, Hot Chip, James Blake, Jamie xx, King Krule, Mabel, Obongjayar, Paloma Faith, Rachel Chinouriri and Sampha, with “one-off contributions” from Rina Sawayama, PinkPantheress and Riz Ahmed.

Eno said: “In the face of the horrors of Gaza, silence becomes complicity. Artists have always helped societies to point out injustice and imagine better futures. That’s why this concert matters. It’s time for us to come together – not just to raise our voices, but to reaffirm our shared humanity.”

Khaled Ziada, founder and director of the London Palestine film festival, is producing the event alongside Eno and Tracey Seaward, the film producer who also produced the 2012 London Olympic opening ceremony.

Ziada said: “In a world where governments and mainstream media have fallen silent in the face of genocide, this gathering becomes a chorus of resistance – where artists and communities come together to grieve, to rage and to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinian people.”

Singer-songwriter Chinouriri, who supported Sabrina Carpenter on a recent tour, called on other musicians to “join me in building a bridge to victims in Gaza and beyond, we must break through the privilege of our bubble and speak with truth and justice”. Albarn said: “Pacifism is an action. Peace is an action. To live peacefully requires vision and commitment … I am grateful for this opportunity to act in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

The production design of the event is being handled by Es Devlin, the Olivier and Tony award-winning stage designer who, as well as working in theatre, has designed huge pop shows for the likes of Beyoncé, the Weeknd, U2 and Lady Gaga.

Devlin is collaborating with Palestinian artist Malak Mattar on Together for Palestine, and said the Wembley Arena stage “will express the rich beauty of Palestinian culture”.

Eno has been a longstanding supporter of Palestine and the cultural boycott of Israel.

In 2017 he had a dispute with Nick Cave over the cultural boycott, with Cave characterising the boycott movement as “people that are trying to shut down musicians, to bully musicians, to censor musicians, and to silence musicians”. Eno replied: “This has nothing to do with ‘silencing’ artists – a charge I find rather grating when used in a context where a few million people are permanently and grotesquely silenced.”

North Island, Seychelles
 — 

Nicolas Louys steps inside the primary suite of an 8,000-square-foot villa in the Seychelles and immediately points to the bed.

“I’m led to believe that we have the biggest mattress in the Indian Ocean. And there’s a story behind it,” he says with a laugh.

Louys is the deputy general manager at North Island, one of the country’s most exclusive resorts. As he looks at the bed, which is more than twice the size of a king mattress, he recalls how an extremely tall guest visited years back and found the existing king-size mattress to be a bit small.

“On his second visit, we personalized his mattress without letting him know and surprised him. And it’s been this size [ever since],” he explains, adding that they change the mattress every five years.

Louys was asked multiple times if this visitor was a professional basketball player. But despite repeated attempts over the course of two days to get him to reveal a name, he doesn’t budge. He responds with mischievous smiles and laughter instead, dodging each question with charm. The island’s non-disclosure agreements bind him to protect guests’ privacy – which is one of the island’s most appealing qualities.

North Island is a luxury resort that aims to find a balance between opulence and the great outdoors. It’s located about 15 minutes away from the Seychelles’ main island by helicopter, which is the preferred mode of transport for guests. The private island has just 11 villas. Ten are nearly 5,000 square feet, but Villa 11 is almost twice as big.

Despite the size, Villa 11, which is also known as Villa North, is meant for two guests. It has only one bedroom, along with a study, private kitchen, plunge pool and multiple outdoor seating areas. Prices for this villa start at 13,000 euros, or approximately $15,000, a night, according to Louys.

Each of the island’s villas come equipped with an iPad and iPhone, which guests can use to call their personal butler for requests both big and small, day or night.

“We say, ‘any venues, any menus, anytime.’ I’ve had guests wake up at four o’clock in the morning and they want have their breakfast. They want to stick with their time zone from back home. So we accommodate it,” Louys says. “If you’re paying that price tag to come to this environment, you expect to… have that service that you experience back home.”

Given the island’s price point, Louys says that many guests are usually either well-known public figures or business executives who are accustomed to private chefs and butlers. Both British and Hollywood royalty have reportedly honeymooned on the North Island, and a number of celebrities have allegedly visited as well.

Louys, of course, can’t confirm either way.

“I’ve read a lot of reports about this kind of information. I’ve read many articles of various high-profile clients being at North Island, but I’m not too sure if they did or not,” he says with a smile.

North Island’s hefty price tag affords guests a luxurious vacation. But it also helps fund the island’s ongoing conservation work.

Long before 11 villas dotted North Island’s beaches, a Seychellois family established a plantation on the island in 1826. For over 100 years, farmers grew a variety of crops and raised livestock. Along with the plants and animals that were purposely imported, invasive species accidentally arrived as well. Eventually, this activity began wreaking havoc on local wildlife.

“They had the brilliant idea of bringing cats over because they thought it’ll kill rats that were obviously a problem for them… but actually the cats quickly jumped on the native birds,” explains Mathilde Le Gressus, North Island’s conservation coordinator.

“And after, they thought: okay, the cats didn’t work, so we can try with an owl – the huge white European owl that we find in Europe. And they also attacked the native birds. So it was just a combination of things that made it worse and worse and worse.”

Throughout this period, the plantation’s main crop was dried coconut, known as copra. As the copra industry began to collapse in the 1970s, the farm was abandoned, leaving domestic animals running wild. This phenomenon wasn’t unique to North Island – similar stories echoed across the country.

In 1997, a South African company and private shareholders purchased North Island, intending to both revive its biodiversity and develop a luxury resort. This coincided with a national island restoration program, in which the government partnered with non-profit organizations and private islands. The coalition worked towards removing invasive species, paving the way for native plants and animals to make a comeback.

North Island symbolically called its conservation program the Noah’s Ark Project, which is fully financed by the resort’s revenue. After a yearslong effort to eradicate rats, the team slowly began reintroducing endangered wildlife. Today, sea turtles nest on the shores. Aldabra Tortoises roam freely. And hundreds of birds that were once on the verge of extinction chirp away in the trees.

This symbiotic relationship between luxury tourism and conservation is a growing trend, according to Xavier Font, a professor of sustainability marketing at the University of Surrey, in the UK. There is always potential for greenwashing in this space, Professor Font explains, along with concerns such as carbon emissions from flights and displacing local communities. But he’s quick to point out the many ways in which high-end properties can benefit the environment if managed correctly.

“We can always look at this and be critical, but what could happen to some of those locations had they not been managed in this way?” Font says. “Would it be better if there was no tourism at all? Or would it be better if there was another type of tourism, maybe more volume of tourism?”

Back at Villa 11, Louys points out handmade glassware from the Netherlands that decorates the room. He highlights the Hermès toiletries. And at the foot of the bed, he presses a button hidden on what appears to be an upholstered storage bench, giving rise to flatscreen TV.

Each villa comes equipped with a personal golf cart, and the following day, Louys hops in his own. He’s searching for the island’s local celebrity, an Aldabra Tortoise named Brutus.

In 2003, the Noah’s Ark Project brought 15 of these giant tortoises to join the few that survived North Island’s plantation. About 170 roam the island today. Most tend to stay in a particular spot, but Louys explains that Brutus likes to wander everywhere. Because of his adventurous spirit, he’s had a few accidental run-ins with golf carts and now wears small white reflectors on his shell so drivers can see him at night.

These reptiles can live for well over a century. Louys says Brutus is at least 150, meaning he’s witnessed both the island’s farm and restoration. He’s also met many of the island’s well-known guests over the years. And given Louys’ professionalism and commitment to privacy, curious visitors have a better chance of getting Brutus to spill the beans than anyone else.

“He has seen all of the famous and non-famous [people] that have stayed with us,” Louys says with a chuckle as he pats the tortoise’s head. “And if you manage to convince him, he will tell you all the stories.”