Andrew Candish

UK arts funding over the last 15 years:

2010:
Arts Council cut by 30%
Culture funding cut by 50%
UK Film Council closed

2022:
London arts funding cut by £56m

2025:
DMCS budget cut by 15%

Yet last year the Arts generated £126b for the UK economy, making them the UK’s fifth largest industry.

A HUGE THANK YOU

Archive legend, and a trustee of the Film is Fabulous! Trust, Sue Malden, has a message for everyone who has supported the team with donations, pledges, and positivity.

Please share.

At the height of Dalekmania, Daleks would have to arrange elaborate travel plans, including decoy vans and body doubles, to keep throngs of screaming fans at bay. Some days, the crowds outside Riverside Studios were so large, Daleks would have to film their scenes at home.

Are they Krynoid pods? Yikes

Every time I hear a crow I think, “Mr ‘ollis?!”

Another Film Collection

Over 1,000 films from a former industry professional are being collected by the Film is Fabulous! team on Tuesday. These will be catalogued and preserved.

More Info: filmisfabulous.org.uk/documenting-...

Film is Fabulous are doing such vital work. They need support from people like us who care about preserving media, to help assess, transport, catalogue, store and acquire film collections.

Donate if you can afford it! 🙏 filmisfabulous.org.uk/the-film-is-... ⬇️

The 3,000-year-old story hidden in the @ sign In Taiwan they call @ "little mouse". It's "strudel" in Hebrew, "dog" in Russian and "monkey's tail" in Dutch. The @ sign is a mirror, and its story goes back thousands of years.

Love this

www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

Happy International Coffee Day! A German word that describes a coffee substitute, usually made from barley malt, is Muckefuck. It essentially means "rotting wood mulch" and can also describe any weak coffee. So next time someone makes you a bad coffee feel free to say "What the Muckefuck is this?"

Glorious

"It's terrifying."

🚨 AUDIO ARTISTS LIVING IN FEAR OF AI

This weekend's article in The Telegraph featuring Equity Audio's #MarcusHutton and @equityuk.bsky.social Screen & New Media's #LaurenceBouvard.

Thank you to both for highlighting this issue so eloquently.

www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/actors-...

“That’s a whole different kettle of fish” in other languages...

5. This is flour from another sack (Spanish)
4. That’s another pair of sleeves (French)
3. These are another pair of wellies (Polish)
2. That’s a cousin from a different auntie (Malay)
1. This is a different dish of cabbage (Hungarian)

Letter: 18 September 1915 By the Lake,In The DugoutFlanders,18 Sept ’15 My dear Jimmy Thanks so much for your fine letter which arrived yesterday. We are very busy just now building dugouts for Head Quarters to live in for …

"You must come and see our dugout. It is a treat as we have a wooden floor in it and cover the ceiling and walls with canvas to prevent the mice throwing soil on us."
For the rest of this letter from George in a #WW1 #WesternFront #dugout see georgefergusonliverpool.wordpress.com/2025/09/19/l...

In the last few years my workplace has lost a lot of staff with international heritage. It’s less interesting, less delightful.

9 September 1915 The Liverpool Scottish were not all heroic – sometimes the soldiers did ‘silly things’. This from the West Sussex Gazette.Bernard Price, a big lad, of the Liverpool Scottish, did a sill…

"Whistling for London taxis was banned, people were forbidden to loiter near bridges, it was an offence to buy alcoholic drinks for other, and fines were issued for making white flour instead of wholewheat." More on crime in #WW1 georgefergusonliverpool.wordpress.com/2025/09/09/9...

Letter: 12 August 1915 In the Trenches 12 August 15 My Dear Brother, We are still up in the trenches but are to be relieved tomorrow night. We have had lovely weather while we have been up here the only fault is that the…

Letter from George in the trenches to his seven-year-old brother "The Huns sent a few shells over this afternoon searching for our artillery and smashed our ration cupboard and dirtied our clean plates." georgefergusonliverpool.wordpress.com/2025/08/31/l...

Acting is mostly auditioning, so turn yer phone off…

3 August 1915 [George’s diary for this period has not survived, so this blog post focuses on what the Liverpool Scottish were doing at this point.] The Penrith Observer of 3 August contained a detailed acc…

'On reaching the German trenches, the British were naturally pleased to find coffee, which had been kept hot in a huge Thermos flask, as well as cognac, cigars and cigarettes.'

More on the #LiverpoolScottish on the 1915 #FWW #WesternFront at georgefergusonliverpool.wordpress.com/2025/08/03/3...

An English phrase for describing two things (or people) that are completely different is “like chalk and cheese.” A similar phrase in Czech is jako nebe a dudy. It means “like heaven and bagpipes.”

Group of people stand outside Parliament with a banner that reads Red Line for Gaza.

Killing children. Starvation as a weapon of war. Targeting aid workers. These are all RED LINES. Many more have been crossed by Israel.

As the UK gvmt breaks for summer, we demand it takes action to end its complicity in these atrocities in #Gaza bit.ly/RedLine__Mosaic
📸 Andy Aitchison / Oxfam

23 July 1915 Left London 23rd 5am At Lpool 10am [This entry was added to 22 July rather than forming a complete entry.] Commentary At 8am on 22 July, George was in a trench. A little more than 24 hours later he…

Left London 23rd 5am
At Lpool 10am

George is home on leave for the first time since November – hoorah! More at georgefergusonliverpool.wordpress.com/2025/07/23/2...

Post a gif of who you wanted to be as a kid

Equity President, Lynda Rooke, shares some wise words outside the High Court this morning.

We now wait for the judgement in the coming weeks.

Win or lose, Equity will always keep fighting for our members.

Equity challenges Spotlight's fees in High Court Equity’s legal challenge against casting directory Spotlight is officially listed to be heard at the high Court on 15 and 16 July 2025.

Today is the day.

We're at the High Court as Equity's case against Spotlight's fees is heard.

Read about the case: tinyurl.com/EquityCourtCase

Lovely info here on how British soldiers used local place names in the trenches

Why are Spotlight's fees a 'tax on hope'?

Ahead of our upcoming legal case against Spotlight, Equity Vice-President Jackie Clune breaks down exactly what the ‘tax on hope’ is and why we’re fighting for fairness in our industry.

Far more mundane. It’s the horrible heat ;)

Needing a duvet is a distant memory

14 July 1915 Fine sunny morning Heavy rain in the afternoon Move off to firing line at 7pm Long weary marchup to the line through teeming rain. Enter through long commun ication trench many chaps miss floor boa…

Fine sunny morning
Heavy rain in the afternoon
Move off to firing line
at 7pm Long weary march
up to the line through teeming
rain. Enter through long commun
ication trench many chaps
miss floor boards + fall
in mud + water. [...]

More at georgefergusonliverpool.wordpress.com/2025/07/14/1...

Word of the day is ‘swullocking’, from 19th-century East Anglian dialect: sultry, sweltering, and sudiferous (sweat-inducing).