“The 2011 Carbuncle Cup for Britain’s “ugliest new building” has been awarded to the £600m MediaCityUK. This concatenation of anaemic buildings is the controversial new regional headquarters of the BBC, and home to the media studies faculty of Salford University.”
Tag: 09.01.11
The Future Of Books (What Future?)
“The public now expects and demands its media to be free. Digital books will be easily pirated and shared. We’re already seeing a decline in advances to authors from publishers, which in turn leads to less production of challenging books. The trend toward self-publishing and promotion, claims Morrison, only accelerates the drift toward free content.”
Nigel Kennedy On His Controversial Career
In his mid-fifties, Kennedy is still capable of behaving like a hotel-wrecking rock star from the Woodstock generation. How does he regard his thirtysomething self in hindsight? “If I hadn’t been like that, I’d just have been some f—er being exploited by the British music establishment playing for 150 quid a night, y’know?”
Waterstone’s Drops Its Three-Books-For-The-Price-Of-Two Deal After Ten Years
The British bookstore chain was recently sold. “Managing director James Daunt has vowed to shake up the chain amid flagging sales and customer dissatisfaction. Many publishers have welcomed the move to abandon the 3-for-2 promotion which has dominated the shops’ sales in recent years.”