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Andrew Clements, Guardian’s classical music critic, dies aged 75

Andrew Clements, Guardian’s classical music critic, dies aged 75

An outstanding critical voice, his deep knowledge and love of music was evident in everything he wrote The Guardian’s long-serving and much admired classical music critic Andrew Clements died on Sunday aged 75 after a period of illness. Clements joined the Guardian arts team in August 1993, succeeding Edward Greenfield as the paper’s chief music critic. His appointment was clinched by a personal recommendation to the editor from the late Alfred Brendel , who argued for Clements to get the job on account of his deep understanding of contemporary music. For the next 32 years, Clements ranged across all fields of classical music in his writing for the Guardian, and often beyond. Continue reading...

Hawaii: A Kingdom Crossing Oceans review – a feather-filled thriller full of gods, gourds and ghosts

Hawaii: A Kingdom Crossing Oceans review – a feather-filled thriller full of gods, gourds and ghosts

British Museum, London This retelling of Captain Cook’s death and the merging of two cultures is a trove of miraculously preserved wonders – but beware of the shark-toothed club! Relations between Britain and the Pacific kingdom of Hawaii didn’t get off to a great start. On 14 February 1779 the global explorer James Cook was clubbed and stabbed to death at Hawaii’s Kealakekua Bay in a dispute over a boat: it was a tragedy of cultural misunderstanding that still has anthropologists arguing over its meaning. Cook had previously visited Hawaii and apparently been identified as the god Lono, but didn’t know this. Marshall Sahlins argued that Cook was killed because by coming twice he transgressed the Lono myth, while another anthropologist, Gananath Obeyesekere, attacked him for imposing colonialist assumptions of “native” irrationality on the Hawaiians. It’s a fascinating, contentious debate. But the aftermath of Cook’s death is less well known – and the British Museum’s telling of it, in collaboration with indigenous Hawaii curators, community leaders and artists, reveals a surprisingly complex if doomed encounter between different cultures. Continue reading...

UK business confidence weakened and hiring fell at end of 2025, surveys find

UK business confidence weakened and hiring fell at end of 2025, surveys find

Rising costs and economic uncertainty take toll, in contrast to Keir Starmer saying Britain will start to feel richer UK business confidence weakened sharply at the end of 2025 and hiring fell amid rising costs and uncertainty about the economic outlook, according to key business surveys. Contrasting with the prime minister’s optimistic new year message that the country was about to start feeling richer again, the jobs market weakened, with full-time and temporary appointments falling in December, according to a study by the accountants KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC). Continue reading...