Issue 43 | April 2026

Author

Owen Kelly
April 01, 2026

Welcome to Miaaw Monthly: the monthly newsletter that comes out every month on the first Wednesday before the first Friday of the month. Confused? You will be.

And we should politely inform you that the newsletter arrives courtesy of Beehiiv.com - just in case you have any thoughts of doing your own newsletter and want to know who to approach.

Work on our new-this-year Podbean.com website continues at the speed of fairly nifty molasses, and the first visible fruits should arrive sometime towards the end of April. Once we have the initial changes up and running we will start the laborious process of updating all the episode guides for our old podcasts to the new format.

PODCASTS FOR APRIL 2026

Friday April 3

Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse | Episode 85

In an episode called AGI, Claude & creativity, Rebekah Cupitt and Owen Kelly discuss the possibility and likelihood of artificial general intelligence; the true nature of Claude, the relationship (if any) between artificial intelligence and creativity, and the place of democratic values in all of this.

They also discuss the meaning of the word excode.

Friday April 10

Parallel Streams | Episode 4

In the fourth episode of Parallel Streams we listen to episode 52 of Ferment Radio, with Kirsty Hendry and Aga Pokrywka.

Ferment Radio is “a podcast series that takes you deep into the fascinating world of microbes. Through fermentation and transformation, we develop new recipes for living on a broken planet”.

Friday April 17

A Culture of Possibility | Episode 63

Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso have hosted a podcast for over five years but they had never met face to face (“in real life” as we used to say) until late last month. They met at the ICAF Festival in Roitterdam, where they had been invited to give a joint lecture.

In Episode 63 of A Culture of Possibility, we hear this lecture play out exactly as it happened.

Friday April 24

Echoes and the Unsaid | Episode 4

In this episode of Echoes and the Unsaid Jo Gibson and Sophie Hope talk to a group of people involved in the BA Performance and Creative Enterprise (PACE) Programme that ran from 2015-2021 at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

They discuss the background to the course, and reflect on how it challenged the structures of the conservatoire.

A THOUSAND WORDS

The opening night of the ICAF Festival. Photo by Arlene Goldbard

THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD

Slow News

Delayed Gratification is a magazine produced by a group called Slow News, who we have mentioned before.

They have just announced that:

It took us 15 years, but we have finally joined the world of podcasting. The new series is called, quite simply, Delayed Gratification, the Slow News Podcast, and you can find it by searching for that title wherever you usually get your podcasts (head here if you're on Spotify, or here for Apple Podcasts). 

Episode one focuses on the news of September 2025, the final month covered by the current issue. It's hosted by Rob and the guests are Emily Hart, who wrote the fascinating issue 60 article about Colombian mercenaries in Ukraine, and James Montague, who wrote an in-depth piece on the aftermath of Israel's bombing of Hamas targets in Qatar.

Episodes two, three and four of the DG podcast will be about October, November and December respectively – and that's the quarter to be covered in issue 61 of Delayed Gratification. We're working hard right now on getting it finished, and it'll be sent to subscribers and shops later in the month. To ensure you get your hands on a copy – and to support our reader-funded independent, original Slow Journalism (we don't take advertising in DG) – you can subscribe here. 

Conference Call

We are aware that the amount of money available for presenting at (let alone merely attending) conferences has in many cases dropped to zero or less.

Nonetheless for the one or two who still have the possibility of attending a conference or two, here is one that came to our attention recently.

Social Theory, Politics and the Arts are holding their 50th annual conference at Ohio State University, and the deadline for applications is May 6. You may also apply for a conference scholarship.

You can see the five new tracks for this year's conference on the official STPA conference website.

Ireland’s basic income for artists became permanent

This comes from the February 14th edition of the Positive.News weekly newsletter.

A basic income scheme for artists that launched during the pandemic to kickstart Irish culture was made permanent this week.

Offering participants a weekly stipend of €325 (£283), the €25m (£21m) pilot helped more than 2,000 artists, although many more applied. According to an independent study, the scheme generated €100m (£87m) in “social and economic benefits” to Ireland’s economy.

Elinor O’Donovan (pictured) is among the artists to have been accepted onto the scheme, which was launched by the Irish government in 2022.

“Before I started receiving it, I was working part-time as a receptionist just to be able to afford my rent. I was thinking about moving to a country where I might be able to afford to live a bit cheaper,” she told Positive News.

“Now I work full-time as an artist. [The scheme] has given me the flexibility that the job of an artist requires and has allowed me to take risks. I’ve gone into film and I was able to pay other people to work with me on it.”

Although limited in scope, it’s the world’s first basic income scheme to be made permanent.

This serves as a good example of almost-UBI in action.

Some of us might think that the next step should involve widening its remit to make it available to everyone: to actually make it universal. Then those from the pool of “everyone” who wish to pursue a life as an artist will have the means to do so, as they should; as will those who wish to pursue a life of baking, dancing, mapping their local woods, or spending all day in a nearby pub.

Which, we might say, are also arts.

And next month…

The May edition of Miaaw Monthly will appear in your inbox on Wednesday, April 29 with the first podcast of the month arriving just two days later, on May 1.

Believe that and you’ll believe anything!