Culture coach: the week's essential arts stories

• The Government has performed a U-turn on tax relief (BBC website) for charitable donations. Fifth policy climbdown this week, say Randeep Ramesh and Juliette Jowit . Our Polly Toynbee won't like it . But lots of people in charities and the arts will. • Michael Haneke's Amour took the Palme D'Or at Cannes. Not a surprise: it was nearly everyone's nearly favourite film, though some felt that the memorably barking Holy Motors, by Leos Carax, should have taken the big prize for its extraordinary vision. Also Cannes-related: a really entertaining interview with the star of Ken Loach's The Angels' Share Paul Brannigan, though I doubt it will warm the hearts of the chiefs of Glasgow City Council. • Against the odds, debut novelist and Latin and Greek teacher Madeline Miller took the Orange prize for fiction – the last year of the mobile company's sponsorship . I wrote about why this represents a great moment for classics . Sarah Crown interviewed her on our podcast. In other classics-related news, Antigone has been given an amazingly confident, assured production by the still 29-year-old director Polly Findlay at the National Theatre. Chapeaux, madame. • North of the border, controversy on the new arts funding regime: David Greig has got everyone talking with his open letter to Creative Scotland . Trust between artists and the funder is "haemorrhaging day by day", he says. More on Storify . In better news, there is optimism about the Edinburgh international film festival's first edition under Chris Fujiwara and the Edinburgh festival fringe announced its line-up . Director Kath Mainland admitted that, while 22% of of ticket sales are from London visitors, only 2.5% of tickets are sold to Glaswegians. • BBC Radio 4 is doing a big Ulysses day for Bloomsday, 16 June, with a five-and-a-half-hour-long adaptation of the novel running through the schedule. Learning from the success of Radio 3's immersive programming, I wonder? Certainly benefitting from Ulysses's recent exit from copyright. Press release here. • The Serpentine pavilion, designed by Ai Weiwei and Herzog & De Meuron, was unveiled. Jonathan Glancey (now writing for the Telegraph) enjoyed it . Unable to leave China, Ai collaborated with the Swiss architects via Skype. • In need of something instantly cheering? Look at Jenny Colgan's blissful compilation of scary/sad French children's book covers. My favourite is Le Poids d'un Chagrin - The Weight of Disappointment. Eat your heart out Proust, Sartre et al. • Long read: an extract from Jonathan Franzen's new book of essays , Farther Away, to be read in conjunction with Stuart Kelly's stinging review of the volume .