Thank you. It’s an honour to have been asked to speak here today. Although looking at the h100 List this year, I’ve no idea why I’m presumptuously standing here; given the talent, creativity and achievements far surpassing my own within this room. But I’m also excited, and genuinely inspired, to be part of such a group.

I don’t know about you, but I find working in the arts often seriously discombobulating in either being a far-too-lonely and private endeavour one minute; an overwhelming public and intensely populated one the next.

This year’s nominees represent the wealth of innovative activity that makes British art, craft and design fresh and exciting. Artists and makers dominate the shortlist, and rightly so, but curators, an educator, and a journalist reflect the importance of public engagement with the visual arts, and the many ways in which this is achieved.

Dear RashDash,

I know you don’t like critics because Abbi read out a lot of reviews of famous Chekhov productions very fast, wearing a ruff and sequined hot pants. But I promise I won’t rate you out of five or patronise you with a gold star or give you a quotable soundbite to put on your posters. Even though I know you got four stars from The Times and the Guardian and the Stage because it says so on the back of the play text, which I bought because I had to take a piece of the show away with me.

On a recent visit to the Royal Academy, I noticed a tall, elegantly dressed man who spent quite some time admiring a square object attached to the wall. I wondered whether to tell him that far from being Russian avant-garde art, which was the theme of the exhibition, it was in fact the temperature and humidity control box.

Forty thousand choirs in the UK! Choral directors of the UK rejoice. Voices Now have finally published the Big Choral Census. They’ve put hard data to something we knew was true: there are loads of choirs and loads of people who love singing in them. Finally we can present government with solid evidence that meaningful investment into the art form will be money well spent. Surely a cause for celebration? Yes... but not entirely.

If history repeats itself, better hope that it corrects its mistakes as well. This year’s nominations for the h100 awards in publishing and writing reflect the welcome drive towards diversity and inclusion among Britain’s wordsmiths and the various agencies that give a platform to their work.

Technical innovators, industry role models and champions of inclusivity make up the shortlist of nominees in the games category for this year’s h 100 awards, an event that recognises the 100 most influential and innovative people across the breadth of the UK’s creative industries.

In the ever-expanding field of broadcast, it’s easy to get lost in the deluge of product raining down from swaggering global providers who sometimes seem to have more money than critical acumen.

One of the banes of music culture is over-categorisation. It always has been. The statement that there are only two types of music, good and bad, has been apocryphally attributed to a wide range of figureheads – most especially Louis Armstrong – but whoever said it first, the reason it keeps popping back up is there’s a truth to it.