The UK must embrace culture at a time when working together is “more necessary and more urgent than ever”, the BBC’s director-general has said, as he launched a UK-wide creative partnership. As he announced Culture UK with the arts councils of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Lord Tony Hall called for Britain to become the world’s most “culturally engaged and creative country, where everybody, wherever they come from, can take part”.

The native language of Wales is one of the oldest languages in Europe, dating from the 6th century when it emerged from a related Celtic language. Today, Welsh is fluently spoken by about 300,000 people. But certain letters of the 28-character Welsh alphabet have never been available as part of a contemporary digital typeface.

The Welsh Government has committed to establishing an equivalent to Creative England as part of its bid to become the "most creatively active nation in Europe". Welsh economy and infrastructure secretary Ken Skates pledged to set up the body, called Creative Wales, in a new report that sets out a vision for Wales' cultural future. 

The U.K. has pledged to transition to at least 15 percent renewable energy by the year 2020 [...] the completion of such a prestige project would not only help the country meet its stated goal, but would usher in a new era of eco-minded design, and inspire other communities in search of new sources of green energy to cast their eyes, and their turbines, out to sea.

What kind of relationship would Scotland have with the rest of the UK if independence were to happen? UK Chancellor George Osborne says Scotland and the rest of the UK would become foreign countries. However, Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond says that to Scots England, Wales and Northern Ireland would never be foreign.

Wales doesn’t get more Welsh than this northern market town. Business and conversations between friends here are conducted not in English but in Welsh, the language spoken by some 80 percent of the local population. For the past 40 years, the town has been a stronghold of Plaid Cymru, the nationalist party whose stated goal is eventual independence.

The bookshops are stocking up, the hotels undergoing spring-cleans and the pubs preparing to welcome guests keen to follow in the footsteps of Wales's most famous poet and hellraiser. Admirers of Dylan Thomas are expected to descend in droves on South Wales this year not just from across the UK but from the US, Europe and the far east to join a year-long celebration marking the centenary of his birth.