Latest news with #culture
The Independent
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
The foodie French town that's less than two hours from London and is perfect for a weekend break
On the Eurostar from London, you can be in Lille faster than it takes to travel to Margate, making it ideal for a chic long weekend away sampling the region's best food and drink and enjoying the festival atmosphere. The French city has been under the rule of various entities, including Flemish, Burgundian, and Spanish Netherlands, as well as Romanesque-Moorish, Gothic-Classical, Neo-Renaissance, and Art Nouveau styles. The buildings and monuments of these eras fit together like pieces of an elegant puzzle. The sheer amount of lavish buildings is almost indecent and you will spend hours taking it all in. Stroll the city's pedestrian-friendly boulevards and the narrow streets that spider out in Vieux Lille (Old Lille), and stop for a long lunch in Place aux Oignons (named for the delicious smell from it's estaminets – cafés, bars or bistrots typical to Northern France). This year, as every three years, Lille is hosting Lille3000, a legacy of the city's stint as European Capital of Culture in 2004. The arts and culture Fiesta programme runs until 9 November 2025, and there are parades, performances and exhibitions to enjoy and explore across the city and sprawling metropolitan area. Venues are deliberately diverse, and include Gare Saint Sauveur, a former goods train station; the grand 19th-century Palais des Beaux-Arts; and the vast Tripostal, a converted 1950s mail sorting office. The Pom Pom Pidou exhibition at the Tripostal is Fiesta 's flagship event, where specially curated artwork borrowed from the closed-until- 2030 Centre Pompidou in Paris is ordered chronologically, around themes that represent the entire 20th century – a gargantuan task that has been wonderfully executed. Over three colourful floors, work by artists like František Kupka, Henry Valensi and Marcel Duchamp evoke movement and joy, and demonstrate how 20th century art turned everything upside down (see the legs-in-the-air Le mannequin by Alain Séchas on all the posters: this artwork that questions the traditional was chosen to represent the exhibition). Lille3000 is just one part of the urban regeneration that has been ongoing in Lille since the 1990s, when industrial decline meant mass unemployment and widespread poverty. Today, the city has invested in public transport and cycle routes, revitalised former industrial buildings and revamped its historic buildings. It's a laidback place to spend time doing not much more than dropping into an art gallery, browsing the second-hand book market in the handsome Vielle Bourse (Lille's old stock exchange) and wandering the trails in the lush green Parc de la Citadelle. If you can muster the energy, climb the 400 steps of the Lille Town Hall Belfry, a Unesco World Heritage Site, with panoramic views across the city. You'll want to dedicate a lot of your time in Lille to food and drink. Nibble a sweet vanilla waffle at Méert (one of the oldest pastry shops in the world), try a Welsh (a beer-soaked bread with cheddar cheese, ham and mustard) or beef stew cooked in beer at an estaminet, or enjoy dinner at one of the oh-so-cool restaurants flanking Parc Jean-Baptiste Lebas. You won't go wrong with a seafood extravaganza at minimalist Krevette from Michelin star chef Florent Ladeyn: start with oysters with ginger and move on to sea bass in basil and garlic with a little wild cauliflower, or asparagus with rhubarb shavings, or silky soft tuna tartare, then finish with creme brulee topped with horseradish. It's an adventure, paired with incredible wines. The foodie scene in Lille is excellent and you'd need to return for many, many long weekends to wade through all the brunch spots and cafés – oddly (and perhaps comfortingly?), many of them with British names, like Made's Garden by Mademoiselle, Nuts! and Wally's Coffee. And to drink? If Paris is all wine bars, then Lille is brewery tap rooms – there are more than 250 in the Lille region. The city is the capital of French Flanders, and its Flemish history means a close cultural as well as physical relationship with Belgium, and with craft beer. Célestin, a microbrewery in Old Lille, traces its roots back to 1740 and is probably the oldest in the city, and some nice choices in the old town include La Capsule at 25 Rue des trois Mollettes and Bettignies (of the Brussels Beer Project) at 3 Av. du Peuple Belge. If you're interested in the history of beer making in Lille, then take a walking tour with tastings with L'Échappée Bière. In December, Lille hosts a gorgeous Christmas market, and on the first weekend of September, the city centre is taken over by 'La Braderie', one of Europe's largest flea markets. And of course, there's the Fiesta until November this year. But honestly, the Hauts de France capital is more about strolling through interesting streets to find a restaurant for a long lunch, then a quiet bar for a refreshing beer and a spot of people watching. English language guided tours of Old Lille are typically available on Saturdays at 11am – book in advance with the. Rachel Mills was hosted by Hauts de France Tourisme and Hello Lille, and stayed at L'Arbre Voyageur How to get there Eurostar trains travel direct from London St Pancras to Lille, from £39 one-way. Where to stay A great budget option is JOST Hostel Lille Centre. For a comfortable mid-range option on the edge of the old town, look no further than Hôtel l'Arbre Voyageur. To push the boat out – with a spa – book historic L'Hermitage Gantois.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Amsterdam is celebrating 750 years – here's how to enjoy a summer weekend in the city
Amsterdam is a city that celebrates individuality, encourages quirkiness and delights in difference. It has a long history of riches and rebelliousness. The glory-days of the 17th century, the über-cosy 1800s, the counter-culture explosion of the 1960s – they've all left tidelines along Amsterdam's canals: opulent gables, Rembrandt and Van Gogh, barrel-lined cafés, gardens of rare blooms, marijuana-selling 'coffeeshops', and Miss Marple bicycles. Now Amsterdam is sweeping into a new Golden Age, making a fresh mark with galleries, sharp shops, award-winning restaurants and hipster cafés. Bristles of audacious architecture have shot up round the city edges but the cobweb of gable-lined canals is still at its heart, with funky stores in the criss-crossing alleys of Negen Straatjes, new galleries to the west in the Jordaan, world-class museums and chic boutiques south around Museumplein, a market and further foodie paradise in De Pijp, and hot new quarters opening up all the time. And here are our other Amsterdam guides, providing inspiration for hotels, restaurants, shopping, bars and cafés, attractions and free things to do (plus the best hotels near Amsterdam airport). In this guide: What's new in Amsterdam this summer Festivities: Amsterdam turns 750 Amsterdam has been celebrating the lead-up to its 750th anniversary all year, with a vast programme of exhibitions, festivals, concerts and more. On June 21, 15km of the city's ring road close for all-day celebrations, including DJ sets, street food and choir performances. Other anniversary events include a free Isamu Noguchi exhibition at the Rijksmuseum until October, showcasing the renowned sculptor's works. An Amsterdam Eats exhibition is also on at the Allard Pierson Museum until early September, that walks through the history of the city's culinary scene. Concerts: Sounds of the Future From August 15 to 24, venues along the canals – homes, gardens, terraces, concert halls, churches and outdoors – host the Grachtenfestival. Amsterdam's rising young musical talent take to the stage to perform classic and jazz concerts in alluring settings. It's the place to hear those who are teetering on the brink of fame. Museum: Photography exhibition Huis Marseille makes imaginative use of its two quite exceptional 17th-century canal houses (complete with ceiling paintings by Jacob de Wit) in Memento, running from June 28 to October 12. More than 100 photos from its rich photography collection track the changes, tangents and curious surprises of photography over the past 25 years.
Forbes
a day ago
- Business
- Forbes
Why Profit Isn't A Plan, It's A Pattern Of Behavior
Profit is behavioral getty Profit doesn't begin with a business plan. It begins with behavior. Just as culture emerges from how people interact each day, profit reflects the accumulated patterns of those interactions. Leaders at companies like Toyota, Patagonia, and Southwest Airlines have long understood this. They didn't just chase margins. They shaped momentum. Behavior is biology in motion. And profit is what often follows. Profit is not a destination to be reached. It is a signal—one that reflects the health of an organization's behavioral system. Teams that operate with clarity, accountability, and coordination tend to create more consistent value. That value becomes measurable over time, not just in performance, but in financial outcomes. This framing aligns with research on reflective practice and behavioral economics, where outcomes emerge from accumulated decisions rather than singular events. If dysfunction, ambiguity, or reactivity becomes routine, the system will degrade. In that case, even a strong strategy will underperform. It's not just the product or the plan. It's the pattern. Behavior flows outward from the center. The leader is the first mover, setting the tone through moment-to-moment signals, spoken and unspoken. These signals shape the behavioral norms of their inner circle, whether that's an executive team, a board, or a founding team. This core team acts as the first system of amplification. How they coordinate, resolve conflict, make decisions, and follow through becomes the behavioral reference point for others. Over time, these inner patterns scale across the organization. The result isn't just alignment. It's the emergence of behavioral norms, the unspoken rules that govern how work actually gets done. This is the behavioral biology of organizations: leaders send signals, teams create patterns, and organizations encode those patterns into norms. And from those norms, performance, financial and otherwise, emerges. The Leadership Biodynamics model describes three behavioral channels that form relational DNA: warmth, competence, and gravitas. Each plays a distinct role in shaping how people experience one another and how those experiences cascade through a team or organization. These aren't fixed traits. They're signals. Visible, perceivable, and powerful. Research in neuroscience and social signaling shows how cues like tone, posture, and timing influence not only perception, but physiological responses such as oxytocin and cortisol release. These biological shifts change how teams function in real time. Behavior drives profit getty If profit emerges from behavior, then improving behavior improves performance. Here are five ways to start: Culture tells you who you are. Profit tells you what that means in the market. Most leaders focus on outcomes, but overlook the system that creates them. From sending signals to shaping systems, behavior is the lever that scales impact—from leader to team, to organization, to ecosystem. If you want different results, don't just change your strategy. Change how your organization behaves. Because in business as in biology, it's not the plan that drives the outcome. It's the pattern.
Fast Company
2 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
IRL > Algorithm: The Future of Socialization
Jeff Beer speaks with Giles Hedger, the global consumer planning director at Diageo; Rachel Rix, the chief growth officer at Ketchum; and James Kirkham, the founder and CEO at Iconic, about how AI and algorithms are making culture vanilla.
The Verge
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Futureproof
AI tools are flooding the culture ecosystem — and no corner of the arts space is immune. In this series, we're looking at the ways artists are embracing AI, pushing back on it, or trying their best to find an equilibrium with a new technology that's both sweeping and destabilizing. We talk to perfumers questioning the looming automation of scent creation, fanfic writers pushing back on archive scrapers, and illustrators replacing the AI that once replaced them. The tech isn't going away. Here's how artists are starting to deal with it.
