30 January 2025

Cardiff University Music department closure

https://www.change.org/p/save-cardiff-university-school-of-music?recruiter=22236645&recruited_by_id=1391b750-1c52-0130-8219-3c764e048845&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf&utm_medium=facebook&utm_content=fht-490398259-en-gb%3A9

 

The petitioner, Hannah Saayman writes:

Cardiff University has announced that the School of Music is set to close amid cuts to staffing. This awful decision is once again a way to cut the arts in Wales and will have a lasting impact on the arts scene throughout the UK. As well as this, staff who work incredibly hard, have expertise that is rarely found and put their hearts and souls into making the School a vibrant, welcoming place are at danger of losing their livelihoods. Not to mention present and future students who will be affected by these cuts. We cannot let this happen and we cannot lose OUR School. 

I graduated from the School of Music with a Bachelor of Music in 2020. I always felt welcomed, at home and was always learning new things constantly. Music has so many transferrable skills that I have taken into jobs with me so far and I know many of my course mates and peers either have careers in music now or use their music degrees in their current roles.

If you are SICK of our arts subjects being at threat and the wonderful Cardiff Uni School of Music’s threat to closure PLEASE SIGN and SHARE to all alumni, present students, staff and your local community.

https://www.change.org/p/save-cardiff-university-school-of-music?recruiter=22236645&recruited_by_id=1391b750-1c52-0130-8219-3c764e048845&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf&utm_medium=facebook&utm_content=fht-490398259-en-gb%3A9

Garry Humphreys writes:

My daughter is a Cardiff English graduate but nevertheless during her time there had the experience of playing, as a cellist, in the University Symphony Orchestra and in the Chamber Orchestra and singing with the Chamber Choir which included a visit to China! This must surely enrich the lives of students beyond the specialized departments and bring together those from different disciplines? The closure of the Royal Welsh College’s junior department, the reduction in the number of overseas students (a significant source of income, one assumes) and the current St David’s Hall situation (and the authorities’ pathetic attitude to it) all add up to a pitiful reflection of the arts in Wales’s so-called capital city.

25 January 2025

From the Church Times, 24 January 2025

Brimstone and Trump

From Mr Peter Dillistone

Madam, — There may be a lot wrong with the Church of England at present, but having watched the inauguration of Donald Trump yesterday and heard the fire-and-brimstone support for him from the Church over there, I have to say that I am glad that I live in England.

PETER DILLISTONE


10 January 2025

From The Independent

Ian Hislop praised for ‘perfect’ takedown of ‘contradiction-riddled’ Elon Musk

Jacob Stolworthy

Friday 10 January 2025

Ian Hislop has been praised for his takedown of Elon Musk after the controversial figure’s explosive row with Sir Keir Starmer.

On Wednesday (8 January), Have I Got News for You panelist Ian Hislop who edits satirical magazine Private Eye appeared on Andrew Marr’s LBC show and questioned Musk’s intrusion into UK politics.

“He’s riddled with contradictions, and at some point I am hoping that even his followers will begin to notice that from sentence to sentence, he makes no sense,” he said.

“So when you get Musk pretending to be a champion of women and young girls, and then he calls Jess Phillips an ‘evil witch’ – I mean, how is that on a scale of medieval misogyny?”

Hislop complained that “it’s impossible to avoid” Musk’s misinformation as “he has enormous power” due to his wealth.

He also said that the X/Twitter owner’s reach is helped by “people who have been persuaded over the past five years or so that the mainstream media hasn’t covered any stories and that the only people who have noticed anything happening in the world are people sitting in their bedrooms and sending messages to each other”.

Hislop noted that reporters are currently “spending half the time pointing out stories that aren’t true”.

“It’s an amazing feat of deception,” he told Marr, adding that the troubles began when Musk called British diver Vernon Unsworth - who aided in the rescue of a Thai soccer team and their coach from a cave system in 2018 – a paedophile.

“I think he thought from then on, ‘I can say anything I like, it doesn’t have to be true – it’s better if it’s not true – and no one will stop me’, and that’s what’s happened,” Hislop said.

An additional fan of Hislop’s said he had “nailed it perfectly".