Innholdsfortegnelse for 1-8-2016 i The Big Issue

WE BELIEVE in a hand up, not a handout... Which is why our sellers BUY every copy of the magazine for £1.25 and sell it for £2.50. WE BELIEVE in trade, not aid… Which is why we ask you to ALWAYS take your copy of the magazine. Our sellers are working and need your custom. WE BELIEVE poverty is indiscriminate… Which is why we provide ANYONE whose life is blighted by poverty with the opportunity to earn a LEGITIMATE income. WE BELIEVE in the right to citizenship… Which is why The Big Issue Foundation, our charitable arm, helps sellers tackle social and financial exclusion. WE BELIEVE in prevention… Which is why Big Issue Invest offers backing and investments to social enterprises, charities and businesses which deliver social value to communities.…

Last week I climbed a hill in Scotland called Lochnagar. At 3,786 feet it’s a Munro – a Scottish peak of more than 3,000 feet. I’ve now climbed two. The first was on the way to Lochnagar. I was there to mark the birthday of a friend and to be with him as he completed the set of Munros – all 282. I have some distance yet to climb. It was glorious. The walk in took us through bog and scaling rock over a decent sized ridge. The view from the top of Lochnagar will stay with me forever. West over hills I cannot name towards an unseen Ben Nevis and beyond, east towards Aberdeen and the coast, the great Cairngorms, older than the Alps, rising around. Later on, in…

As we approach Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, I’ve watched many trailers of We’re The Superhumans on Channel 4. Those of us who have inflammatory bowel disease are not seen as Superhumans. Yet coping daily with the everyday is a superhuman achievement. It’s difficult to plan ahead and affects everything in your life – what you eat, your work, social life, relationships. Why? Well, your life is ruled by your bowel movements. Uncontrollable bowel movements, pain, extreme tiredness, vomiting and more – it’s hard. You look fine but you’re not. It’s not visible. It’s not obvious. Many people cope with the disease in silence. There is a lot of fear and stigma from other people. This is hard for the many who are trying to cope. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is…

“The well-wishers outside the new style of posh hotel showed a different kind of London” The Saturday just gone saw the 50th anniversary of the English team winning the World Cup. After the match the centre of celebrations was outside the Royal Garden Hotel in London’s High Street, Kensington, next to Kensington Gardens. Inside Bobby Moore and his team were getting over the game and about to have a big slap-up meal in the luxury hotel. I was about five miles west in Richmond pushing my newborn baby around in a pre-war pram cock-a-hoop at the result, though up until that time someone who football had passed by. Masses of celebrating people were associated with war’s end; for instance Victory in Europe Day that took place 21 years before. Or…

“My dad banned me from watching disability sport on TV” At 16 I was planning the great escape. I was living at home with my parents but I told my dad I needed to become a wheelchair basketball player and he wasn’t happy with that. He thought I should become a doctor or a lawyer or something boring like that. So I thought, the only way I’m going to get to do what I want to do is leave home. So I did. I did have concerns beyond basketball. I was desperate to get a pair of Pepe jeans with braces from a shop in Oxford Street called Mash. And I would have loved to have been popular with the ladies but if I’m honest I think I was…

Rowling’s creations are already a spellbinding force in popular culture but the magic’s not finished yet. The play The Cursed Child is just one new chapter in the expanding empire. Over the next few months, new editions of the Harry Potter books will be published, with the adventures reimagined in incredibly evocative and detailed drawings by Jim Kay. “I was just terrified,” said Kay about the pressure of taking on the world-famous wizard. “I don’t think, ‘Oh, how can I please everybody?’ You just think, ‘How can I please the author?’ That’s all you can do: Please the author, and please yourself. Then if other people like it, that’ll be a bonus.” Fortunately Rowling expressed her approval, saying: “Seeing Jim Kay’s illustrations moved me profoundly. I love his interpretation of…

If you kept your eyes open as you roved the East End of London for 24 hours, who would you meet? A butcher, a doctor, a high-diver and a homeless woman named Pippa – who are just four of the 24 people snapped by photographer Tom Oldham on the longest day of 2016. He toured the East End, from Bethnal Green to Walthamstow, and Smithfield market to Whitechapel Mission – where he met Pippa (below) – photographing one person each hour to capture the diversity of lives being lived side by side. Tom published the results in a free newspaper handed out at Tube stations in the East End, and also hopes to exhibit them in an open, public space. Find out more at tomoldham.com…

DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL MOZART Glyndebourne Director David McVicar’s original-period vision for this Mozartian gem allows its genius to speak for itself, offering a ‘mesmerising, sensitive ... outstanding’ portrayal of Enlightenment-era fascination with the East that is both ‘exquisitely acted and sung’ (The Guardian *****). DVD | BLU-RAY POLIUTO DONIZETTI Glyndebourne Glyndebourne has brought to light a long-overlooked winner in Donizetti’s Poliuto, delivering ‘a superb musical performance’ (The Telegraph) offering ‘lucent accounts of the principal roles and an incandescent London Philharmonic Orchestra, under Enrique Mazzola’ (New York Times). DVD | BLU-RAY SAUL HANDEL Glyndebourne Glyndebourne’s Saul stole the summer and had critics raving. The Guardian (****) applauded ‘virtuoso stagecraft’ from director Barrie Kosky in his debut production there, calling the show ‘a theatrical and musical feast of energetic choruses,…

Harry Potter: The Artifact Vault by Jody Revenson celebrates the imaginative objects of the wizarding world and grants readers a behind-the-scenes look at the inventions, publications and props that brought the Harry Potter films to life. Inside are rare art and design concepts, behind-the-scenes photographs and film stills. Fans will get an insider’s view of the workings of a Sneakoscope, the countless design drafts for Salazar Slytherin’s Horcrux locket, and much more. The compendium is beautifully bound in a debossed leatherette case that also includes two bonus inserts: a poster of The Black Family Tapestry, and a booklet reproduction of the The Tales of Beedle the Bard film prop. We have five copies of The Artifact Vault (out now from Titan Books), each worth £24.99, to give away. To be…

Home truth Views on Jason Petch’s article [July 18-24] about the catch 22 of hostel life, where it pays to be unemployed… I’ve been homeless eight years and won’t go near the hostel system. Of the two I did use my experience wasn’t good. One for a fortnight proved to be noisy and contentious and the other stank of heroin within 15 minutes of the staff closing the door. I’d love a little place to call home but can’t sign on as dogs aren’t allowed in the dole office and I’m buggered if I’m gonna risk leaving her outside. Thank God for The Big Issue is all I’m gonna say. Ralph Church It’s exactly the same in Norwich and the hostel is charity run, charging a fortune with staff that…

SHOW ’EM WHO’S BOSS Street paper vendors in Nashville demonstrated that the street is their workplace by selling magazines from behind an office desk on their regular pitches. The #BossNotBum campaign saw sellers of The Contributor, including Sharon (pictured), being desk-bound for a day. The Contributors boss, Brady Banks, said: “We are creating economic opportunity with dignity and refer to our vendors as micro-entrepreneurs so people understand what they do is an important job.” A HOME FROM HOME Homesharing, where lonely elderly people rent rooms to young professionals either free or at cheap rates in return for an agreed programme of companionship and support, has received a major boost in the UK, with £2m of cash from the Big Lottery Fund and Lloyds Bank Foundation. Homeshare International, which operates in…

Over the past few weeks, children across the UK have been celebrating the start of the summer holidays, free from school and homework until September. For most of their parents, however, work and other commitments continue as normal – except now they have the extra task of finding holiday childcare. More than a fifth of families use holiday clubs or play schemes. As well as allowing parents to continue their commitments after the end of the school year – perhaps working, looking for work, studying, training, additional caring responsibilities – holiday clubs provide a safe, child-centred environment where children can form friendships, take part in a range of activities, gain new skills and experiences, and be better prepared for the following year. Holiday childcare is also essential for wider society.…

“It is hard to imagine the shock when the grandchild is informed the life they’ve been living isn’t theirs” They’ve had happy or miserable childhoods but they know who their parents are. Their name, their place and date of birth – they never give it a second thought. Then one day, they discover it is all a lie. This is what is happening in Argentina to young people who are now finding out they are the children of the disappeared. During Argentina’s last and brutal dictatorship, as many as 30,000 people deemed to be ‘subversives’ were pulled off streets, kept in clandestine torture centres, then dropped from military aircraft into the sea. Among the disappeared were pregnant women, eliminated after giving birth to babies that were given away to friends…

After reading Laura Brown’s letter re homelessness in Edinburgh, I thought I needed to reply [July 25-31]. My husband and I were in Edinburgh recently and it shocked me how many people were on the streets. I agree The Big Issue has helped a lot of people but isn’t it time the government stepped in to help these vulnerable men and women? People say they are beggars but if they can’t get a home they can’t claim benefits or get a job as they need an address to put down on applications and without money they can’t get a home. To stay in a hostel they have to pay, so what are they to do? My husband spoke to one of the men who was so grateful that someone had…

When I was upbraided as a youngster for wearing odd socks, I couldn’t understand why socks had to match. Especially given the nature of the universe and launderettes. It is almost impossible for a pair to stay together. I wrote a poem about it: “Every sock can tell a story / they have ambitions of their own. When I’m out with two old favourites / sometimes one does not come home.” The humble sock has been around for thousands of years but you don’t get documentaries on BBC Four about them. Fashion doesn’t deal with them. So for my Museum of Socks, I have been researching. No one knows who wore the first pair but I have one of Alexander the Great’s socks, and a sock that may have belonged…

1. THE ROAD Cormac McCarthy This sleekest of literary speculative thrillers ever written is a meditation on the love that makes mankind push on in the face of unimaginable devastation. 2. JURASSIC PARK Michael Crichton This is the biggest idea book of all the big idea books ever to be conceived, and is a testament to Crichton’s immense imagination. 3. THE BRILLIANCE TRILOGY  Marcus Sakey This trilogy, set in a world that feels technologically five minutes ahead of our own, could not be more timely, and will probably, sadly, never stop being timely, considering it’s about man’s fear and persecution of those who threaten us with their difference. 4. THE MARTIAN Andy Weir I have no idea how Andy Weir knows so much about how to survive being accidentally abandoned…

There’s something reassuringly retro about Blossoms that goes beyond their sound, steeped as it is in a distinctly northern English form of gently psychedelic melodicism, from Echo and the Bunnymen to The Charlatans. As the only indie guitar band that look capable of a mainstream breakout in 2016, they’re an echo of an age not long ago, circa 2005, when lads in leather jackets with long hair and guitars were in the ascendancy. It’s no bad thing at all that such bands’ time has largely passed – the vast majority of them were dreadful. But it makes this Stone Roses-endorsed Stockport five-piece, who have released a string of instantly refreshing vintage keyboard-licked singles since 2014, easier to root for knowing that they’re rarified in an age dominated by London-centric solo…