Innholdsfortegnelse for 29-04-19 i The Big Issue

STEP 1: If you’re using an iPhone or iPad, go to the App Store. If you’re on an Android device, go to the Google Play app. STEP 2: Search for ‘genARate’ and download the app to your device STEP 3: Open the genARate app, click ‘Start to Scan’ and hold your device’s camera over any page that displays this logo: STEP 4: Once your device’s camera has recognised the page, our exclusive content will appear right before your eyes.…

A group of Peers is suggesting stripping benefits from older people to give cash-strapped millennials a boost. Should we make pensioners wait a few extra years for the handouts? I think politicians should pay their way and help those who don’t have much. Raymond Hewitt, Facebook Many elderly have reduced mobility and can suffer with isolation and loneliness. Being able to get out and travel for human contact should be a critical need that free travel allows. Patsy Walsh, Facebook It shouldn’t be about taking from the elderly to give to the younger. It should be about the rich and the tax dodgers paying what they should be. Nicola Bobite Cookson, Facebook Rather than take it away from over 75s extend the bus pass to more people, struggling workers in…

May 17-19, Brighton Beach and various Brighton venues, £125 Cosmic Californian saxophonist, composer, bandleader and Kendrick Lamar collaborater Kamasi Washington is on a roll with his stunning second album Heaven and Earth, helping to take jazz to new places for a younger generation. He leads the line-up at Soundcrash, which relocates this year to a brand new location on the iconic Brighton Beach. The festival surveying all things funky and soulful elsewhere welcomes DJ Yoda, Craig Charles, Norman Jay and Gilles Peterson among others. funkandsoulweekender.com…

01 Factfulness by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund Stats guru Hans Rosling takes readers through why most things are much better than they think and why chimps in the zoo are more likely to be right about the state of the world than Nobel Prize-winners. 02 Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez An extraordinary book explaining how much of the world is designed for men rather than women and blaming the lack of gender-specific data for a lot of it. There’s an “I hadn’t thought of that” moment on nearly every page. 03 The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver Nate Silver made his name predicting the outcomes of US elections, but this book also covers the challenges of forecasting the weather, predicting earthquakes and his…

01 Enjoy cinema with a sense of occasion at Flatpack More than just a programme of screenings, Birmingham’s Flatpack festival is all about mixing up film with other art and entertainment forms. For instance acclaimed rave culture drama Beats (pictured) followed by a Nineties-themed party, Michael Cumming’s behind-the-scenes documentary Oxide Ghosts about Chris Morris’s legendary satirical comedy series Brass Eye incorporating a Q&A hosted by Stewart Lee, and Barbara Matijević’s dance-meets-theatre- meets-YouTube one woman and her laptop show Forecasting. Various venues, Birmingham, April 30-May 5; flatpackfestival.org.uk 02 Back the #MillionsMissing campaign for ME suferers A global movement calling for recognition and support for sufferers of chronic fatigue illness Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or ME, are taking to the streets – or demonstrating from their beds if they aren’t able to protest…

@ChrisGPackham  Some top work by @NaturalistDara @BirdgirlUK @Kaulofthewilduk @GeorgeUKSCN @Appletonwild and @SleemanSophie in this week’s @BigIssue on #ClimateCatastrophe @green_and_seen This week’s ‘Youth Climate Action Takeover’ edition of @beckymiller33 @FinlayPringle great column in the @BigIssue this week: “If they choose to do nothing then kids of my generation will replace them with something better which gives us a future which puts planet before profit.” Thank goodness for the youth #youthclimateaction @CarolineLucas Great to be interviewed by climate activist @SleemanSophie on Earth Day with The Big Issue’s Youth Climate Action takeover @BigIssue @1AndyOmega The way to stop polluting and exhausting CO2 into our atmosphere is to build up a more autarkic infrastructure – smart cities, efficient local area networks instead of promoting mass transfer of goods and people around the globe, particularly…

Disruptive technology with social impact is set to become a key player in the UK economy, with tech for good companies found to be worth £2.3bn. In a first-of-its-kind report, entrepreneurs’ network Tech Nation said the combined turnover of companies “tackling some of the world’s toughest challenges” was £723m in 2018. Nearly half of the 490 companies have just launched, demonstrating the crucial role startups play in tech for good’s growth. Tech Nation CEO Gerard Grech said: “While the profit motive remains high, millennials are increasingly driven by the desire to make a meaningful impact on society.” The report pointed to companies like CareRooms, which matches patients recovering from a hospital stay with hosts and spare rooms, and fashion upcycling app Depop. But there were calls for greater gender and…

Recently I have been revisiting the printer’s art. I’m about to launch a new quarterly called The Chapter-Catcher with a hopefully relevant strap line: ‘Towards a revolution in reading’. ‘Revolution’ is one of those words that can be applied to almost anything, if a promoter is determined to use it. When I was about 21 and only recently converted to progressive, non-racist thinking ‘revolution’ came via the handsome example of Che Guevara; only then to see a Che Guevara shop in Kensington High Street, around the corner from one of Richard Branson’s first attempts at selling stuff to the public. Branson and other shopkeepers wanted to tap into the implications of the angry student movements that were breaking out all over the world. The youthful zest for change had cash…

Tweets. Tweets. Tweets. Hard to avoid them in contemporary politics. But these were the real thing. Perched somewhere up in the branches of what I think are the London planes that line Millbank in the heart of the city, some squawking excitable things had somehow clocked it was nearly dawn. I had just stumbled out of the BBC’s Westminster newsroom. You know a late shift has gone on a bit when it is getting early by the time you’re out of the door. I was going to say it was the wrong side of three o’clock in the morning. But come to think of it, I’m not sure there is a right side of that time once it’s getting close. This is the most extraordinary time in my lifetime to…

August 31-September 1, The Downs, Bristol £55 / £39.50 The never-knowingly-underdressed Grace Jones heads up another impressive bill at The Downs. After partnering with the festival last year The Big Issue will be back for 2019. Say hello to our vendors on-site selling programmes, and drop in on the other events we’ll be involved with. Ms. Lauryn Hill, Loyle Carner, Idles and Neneh Cherry elsewhere appear at the Bristol one-dayer. This year it expands with a second, standalone show on the Sunday – ticketed separately – from British ska-punk legends Madness. thedownsbristol.com…

Everyone worries about getting old, yet no one wants to die young. Everyone worries about being old, yet no one actually wants to be young again. (No swapping out just the battered bits.) (Go ahead, ask around.) Average global life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900, yet this remarkable achievement is often framed as a disaster-in-the making. What’s going on? Underlying all the hand-wringing is ageism: discrimination and stereotyping on the basis of age. Ageism cuts both ways and younger people experience a lot of it, but older people bear the brunt. Ageing is not a problem to be “fixed”; it is a natural, powerful, lifelong process that unites us all. Ageing isn’t something annoying that old people do; it’s a journey each of us embarks upon the day…

Following a number of weeks where environmental protests have made the headlines, it’s perhaps a slice of luck for distributors Picturehouse Entertainment that it’s scheduled the release of Woman At War to land right now. After all, on the surface, this is a movie about a woman battling against the work of an Icelandic aluminium plant, and trying to interrupt its operations. With some success, too. Not that the film is just concerned with environmental matters, although it does open with some suitably stylish sabotage of power lines (there’s just a tinge of Katniss from The Hunger Games  up front). There, we meet Halla, a woman in her late forties or early fifties, played by Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir. She’s very much an environmental activist, but that’s a part of her life…

01 Why I like living in Cardiff There is so much to see We’ve got Cardiff Castle as well as the Millennium [since 2016 officially called Principality] Stadium. You can go up to Bute Park, what a lovely park that is. The River Taff runs all the way through it. We’ve got the three white houses – better than America – the City Hall, the Crown Court and the National Museum, all in granite and built in the early 1900s. 02 The best part of town Cardiff Bay The first migrants came into Cardiff on ships at Tiger Bay [as it was then known], one of the first places in the country, and there’s always been racial harmony. There are over 50 different nationalities down the Bay at the moment.…

A hand up, not a handout... Our sellers BUY every copy of the magazine for £1.25 and sell it for £2.50. 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. Poverty is indiscriminate… That is why we provide ANYONE whose life is blighted by poverty with the opportunity to earn a LEGITIMATE income. The right to citizenship… The Big Issue Foundation, our charitable arm, helps sellers tackle social and financial exclusion. Prevention… Big Issue Invest offers backing and investments to social enterprises, charities and businesses which deliver social value to communities.…

letters@bigissue.com Devon knows that’s a good idea While on holiday in Devon last week, I bought a copy of the magazine from a charming young chap on Exeter High Street and I was delighted to read the letter from Caroline Heaton [A nice exchange, Platform, April 8-14] who said she took her old copies of The Big Issue to the magazine exchange box at her local library, which of course is what I will now do now that I am back home in Hertfordshire. What a wonderful idea, not only for recycling reasons but also by introducing people to an interesting and inspirational magazine. Margaret Lambert, email On the money I was pleased to see this article about Rutger Bregman and his book [Pay binmen more than bankers, April 1-7].…

I spoke to my dog. It’s not the first time I’ve gone to him for some advice. I may have mentioned him before. He’s called Toastie. He’s a springer spaniel. He is the best and wisest dog of this, or any other, age. Don’t even try to argue. We were in the park. I’d thrown the ball, again. He brought it back, again. Then he started chasing some birds. Balls and chasing birds, finishing with a drink. Like an unreconstructed 1970s footballer. This is a record of the conversation: – Why, Toastie, are there a big number of mostly middle-aged blokes wanging on in long think pieces having a pop at Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old schoolgirl who can speak to foreign governments in a language that is not her own?…

Almost 1.6 million food parcels were given out by the Trussell Trust last year – and the finger of blame is being pointed at Universal Credit’s five-week wait for payment. The charity reported a 19 per cent rise in foodbank usage to the record figure between April 2018 and March this year as well as finding that a third of people needing emergency food received benefits that didn’t cover their living costs. Chief executive Emma Revie has been pleading with the UK government to scrap the Universal Credit payment delay and the benefit freeze as demand has risen over recent years. She warned it is a key driver pushing people into poverty and forcing them to turn to foodbanks to survive. But those calls have fallen on deaf ears. “What…

NAME: Sian Sykes PROJECT: Anglesey’s ‘plastic-free’ status IN BRIEF: Sykes left a career in advertising to reconnect with nature in her home of North Wales, but was horrified by the level of plastic pollution she found upon her return. After paddleboarding around the entirety of Wales and picking up plastic litter as she went, Sykes successfully led the campaign to get Anglesey classed as ‘plastic-free’ by Surfers Against Sewage – the first county to achieve this in the UK. “My mum raised me to be a little activist,” says Sian Sykes, the paddleboarding powerhouse behind Anglesey’s new ‘plastic-free’ status. It might feel timely given the controlled climate chaos driven through central London by Extinction Rebellion, but Sykes has had her eye on the environment all her life. Her mission took…

FESTIVAL LISTINGS MAY Brighton Festival May 4-26, Various venues, Brighton Ticket prices vary, some events free Malian singer, songwriter and guitarist Rokia Traoré is Guest Director this year of Brighton’s annual celebration of music, theatre, dance, circus, art, film, literature, debate, outdoor and family events, taking place at venues large and small all over the south coast city. brightonfestival.org Dogfest Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, May 11-12; Tatton Park, Cheshire, June 15-16; Ashton Court, Bristol, June 22-23 Ticket prices vary Dogs finally get the party they deserve. Going walkies to three different locations around England this summer, it’s a weekend of have-a-go activities for canines and canine owners and lovers alike, from Hay Bale Racing to the Great Dog Walk, the Fun Dog Show and Doga. Yes, that’s yoga for dogs. dog-fest.co.uk…

In one of the most talked-about televisual moments of the year, Kristin Scott Thomas, playing a successful businesswoman, tells Phoebe Waller-Bridge aka Fleabag: “Women are born with pain built in. It’s our physical destiny: period pains, sore boobs, childbirth. We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives.” This is the territory Constellations, Sinéad Gleeson’s first essay collection, inhabits. As a woman diagnosed with monoarticular arthritis and then leukaemia, Gleeson has endured more physical pain than most. That she has done so predominantly in Ireland, where the female body is still fiercely contested, is what makes her book shine so brightly. Gleeson’s writing sparkles from the get-go; she also has a gift for making her own, highly specific experience universal. In Blue Hills and Chalk Bones, she describes how the synovial…

Many films divide audiences, but the response to Where Hands Touch from British-Ghanaian director Amma Asante has been incendiary. The premise catches attention. A romance set in Germany during World War 2, mixed-race teenager Leyna (Amandla Stenberg) falls for soldier Lutz (George MacKay), but their attempts to live happily ever after are thwarted by fascism, racism and (spoiler alert) the fall of the Nazi regime. The climax has been critiqued savagely, a scene many compared to the genre’s clichéd emotional reunion in a crowded airport, except instead of running in slow motion towards the departure gate, it’s set in a labour camp. “By the end of the movie, my jaw felt unhinged from dropping so often,” concluded a review in the New York Times. On culture website Vulture, Hunter Harris…

You can go off people, can’t you? Once they made your heart race, you couldn’t wait to see them again and they were all you ever talked about. Now, though, well… they’re getting on your nerves, they might actually be a bit boring, and do you really need them in your life at all? And what on earth are they WEARING? This, it turns out, can happen with TV shows, too. There was a time when the ‘dum dum duh de dum dum’ theme tune of Game of Thrones both set me all a-flutter and put me instantly on red alert, like Father Jack when he heard La Marseillaise. What hideous depravity would old George RR Martin think of next? How did Cersei get her hair like that without access…