Innholdsfortegnelse for 13-05-19 i The Big Issue

01 Get all 209 female MPs’ portraits in a limited-edition book Following their exhibition in Parliament last December to mark the centenary of women’s suffrage, the 209 portraits of all current female MPs (including Rotherham member Sarah Champion, left) each captured by a different female photographer – among them The Big Issue’s Louise Haywood-Schiefer – have been collected in a limited-edition hardcover book. Featuring a foreword by women’s rights activists and writer Helen Pankhurst, it’s on sale via Kickstarter. kickstarter.com/projects/209women/209-women 02 Back the Tiny Changes charity for Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison To mark the first anniversary of Frightened Rabbit singer Scott Hutchison’s suicide, his family – including his brother and bandmate Grant – have announced the foundation of a charity in his honour, titled after one of his most…

The story of Joy Worrall is both desperately sad and also enraging. Joy Worrall was an 81-year-old woman who took her own life last November. Due to a DWP “error” (their word) she was stripped of her pension and, having no money and a fierce pride, she decided there was no way out. She was found dead in the Rhes-y-cae quarry in Flintshire. Details of what led Joy Worrall to this end were revealed last week at the inquest into her death. Joy had come into a small inheritance in 2014. Being an honest woman, she notified the Department for Work and Pensions. In 2017, when her pension was reassessed, the DWP froze her entire pension, instead of pension credits. She was left with no income at all. She worked…

“I really believe in fiction, in being called upon to witness. If we don’t look at things which frighten us or make us uncomfortable or sad, how can we ever change them?” If he hadn’t turned out to be such a good writer, Damian Barr could have been a very effective cult leader. He’d also have been a force to be reckoned with as a lawyer, a motivational speaker, or a salesman (ideally of books, wine or fresh chicken eggs). He is often described using words like irrepressible, infectious, whirlwind; when the subject is something he feels passionately about – and Barr has many passions – his zeal is evangelical. Today, gulping down coffee in that magnificent house of books, Glasgow’s Mitchell Library, he is as fervid as ever, explaining…

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.…

Homelessness: The reality I have never written to Big Issue before. I have been homeless since leaving school. Getting a council flat made no difference to me. If anything it made things worse. I was alright at first, overjoyed in fact, but the responsibility of it all became too much. I could not settle and eventually gave it up. I got trapped in a benefits nightmare. If I found a job, my CV meant it would always be low-paid, and then I would be unable to afford the rent, council tax and utility bills for a flat. I am back sleeping rough and sofa-surfing, at the mercy of the best and worst of humanity, and it looks like I will be doing this for the rest of my life. Homelessness,…

No, there isn’t. All of the stories stem from the same study and also the same quote. Total Jobs’ survey found that 76 per cent of workers want physical contact banned, ranging from workplace hugs as greetings, up to kisses on the cheek and more unsavoury behaviour. As for the handshake, it was billed as “the nations’ preferred choice of workplace greeting”. The study found nearly half (45 per cent) of workers in their forties and fifties prefer handshakes, only 35 per cent of those in their twenties favour them with two fifths (41 per cent) preferring no physical contact when greeting colleagues or clients. Similarly, Kate Palmer, an associate director at HR consultancy Peninsula, is the sole person quoted in all the stories. And even she seems pretty lukewarm…

IT’S NOT QUANTITY THAT’S BAD – IT’S CONTENT Reports released this week suggest that the amount of time spent on social media is not what’s doing significant damage to young people’s wellbeing. It’s the content being consumed that matters, as well as the context of each user’s existing mental state. For some, viewing images of heavily edited models may be a harmless pastime. For others it may trigger thoughts of self-hate and even eating disorder relapses. Our relationships to social media are personal and complex, and what feels empowering to one person may represent oversharing and harmful validation-seeking to another. MAKE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA FEED A SAFE AND NON-TOXIC PLACE As a writer whose career began online and who uses social media to find work, I understand that it can…

On December 7, tens of thousands of people (plus special celebrity guests including Will Smith and Helen Mirren) will take to the streets across the world to raise millions to tackle homelessness. The organisers of the World’s Big Sleep Out insist it will do for the issue what Live Aid did to increase awareness of poverty and famine, bringing a global spotlight to a global problem. That’s a big aim. Here’s all you need to know about the event… and the part Big Issue vendors played at the very beginning of the story. WHO IS BEHIND THE WORLD’S BIG SLEEP OUT? In 2012, Josh Littlejohn opened Social Bite, a sandwich shop in Edinburgh. Instead of being just about making money, the aim was to solve social problems, but initially, homelessness…

It is possible to understand the motivation of the fraudster who stands to get flthy rich if he can pull it off – say, Bernie Madoff – or who urgently needs to cover his backside when things go wrong – think Nick Leeson. As they say,behind every great fortune lies a great crime. It becomes a little harder to fathom the actions of someone with more abstruse motives. Such is the case with Robert Parkin Peters, who spent the entirety of a long life attempting to insinuate himself into religious and university posts for which he lacked any qualification. His relentless efforts – the dizzying extent he went to, again and again – to set himself up as a figure of repute in universities and churches of various denominations across…

There are echoes of The Godfather and Narcos in Colombian arthouse epic Birds of Passage, looking at the rise of the drugs trade among the indigenous Wayuu people, starting in the late Sixties and loosely based on real events. But it is like nothing else you’ve ever seen; rich, beautiful and wildly mysterious. If you caught directors Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego’s last film, Embrace of the Serpent, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Birds of Passage is in cinemas from May 24…

I In my house there is no other live television event as hallowed, as cherished and as worthy of decanting a sharing bag of posh crisps into a big bowl than the Eurovision Song Contest. My wife being Swedish it could hardly not be – Swedes take Eurovision so seriously that their entrant selection competition, Melodifestivalen, is the most-viewed TV show in the country. But over the years I’ve become hooked in my own way. In the annual transnational bitch-fest, I derive not only premium entertainment, but hope for humankind. I like to think of Eurovision as a yearly act of intercontinental catharsis – a safe, inclusive and tolerant forum in which to snark and laugh at our neighbours and ourselves in a camply good- natured manner that vents hostilities…

@kennreyn Private accounts (finsta) have been great a resource for talking about/normalising forms of mental health care for me. Friends have shared their stories with therapy, medication, etc. that gave me the courage to pursue those myself. @JohnnyNeurontin Twitter both can give me pretty bad anxiety and connects me with the political and social communities I'm a part of and that helps lessen isolation and loneliness. I think it's about managing it so there's a balance, like how most stuff is. @madelinegombis Def a huge help. Social media has always served as a reliable meter for my anxiety. When I’m at my best, I don’t post as often bc I’m self-validating and self-confident. When I am at my worst—full of self-doubt, full of body hatred and intellectual insecurity—I post impulsively.…

A Big Issue vendor from Germany has been left fuming after missing out on the chance to vote in the European elections because his registration form arrived too late. Long-time seller Horst Liedtke, 56, has lived in the Birmingham area for 20 years and received a letter from the city’s council on Saturday May 4, dated the previous day, advising him that he had to register by completing the EC6 form and returning it on Tuesday May 7. But Horst, who is registered to vote in local elections, was unable to post the form back due to the early May bank holiday. “I think this is done on purpose to strip us of our right to vote,” said Horst, who sells The Big Issue on Solihull High Street. “How else…

As I got out of the car, a downpour of hail hit. Outside the hospital, other cars stopped and dropped off. A chainsaw destroyed the tree left in the front of the hospital, the only one that could be seen for acres around. A large pack of smokers and vapers were broken up by the hail. And a general feeling of worried crisis seemed to grip the people passing in and out of the hospital doors. Inside, a gaudy shop sold sweets, crisps and tabloids, and a nearby cafe dispensed tea, cakes and burgers. Volunteers told me where to go. I walked the length of the hospital and through further indications of ill health: people pushed in wheelchairs by nurses and theatre staff wearing the now-traditional bright green colours associated…

“My artwork changes from week to week,” says frequent Street Art contributor Mary, who submits her pieces via London homeless charity the 240 Project. “I am inspired by events happening daily in my life. Like I have just given up smoking and I battle with my mind regularly. “I enjoy working in different mediums and I find pleasure in colour. I would love to have my own studio and run workshops for homeless and disadvantaged people in London with an ongoing gallery. “It’s great that The Big Issue gives me opportunity to showcase my work as it helps me develop and makes my self-esteem improve and my depression ease. With every artwork I produce the pain gets easier.” BOOKS Delving into Britain’s dark past Damian Barr FILM Nineties rave drama…

01 A Night to Remember by Walter Lord  Lord depicts the sinking of RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912. His book is still considered as a definitive resource about RMS Titanic and is based on interviews of survivors. 02 Jacques Cousteau’s Calypso by Jacques-Yves Cousteau A well-detailed study of Cousteau’s famous ship. The book is enlightened with many technical details, drawings and beautiful expedition pictures. 03 QE2, The Cunard Line flagship, Queen Elizabeth 2 by Ronald and Sam Warwick Fourth edition of this best-seller written by Commodore Ronald Warwick and his son Sam. The new edition presents the colourful history of the Cunard Line and the ship’s full history, including construction and launch, service in the Falklands War, the sale to Carnival, etc. 04 Oceanic by Mark Chirnside  A complete…

They say that you spend your twenties worrying about what other people think about you, your thirties learning not to care and your forties realising they weren’t ever thinking about you in the first place. Other people are too busy worrying about their own stuff to be thinking about the ins and outs of your meaningless existence. I saw a mate in the supermarket the other day and completely ignored him. He saw me too but it was clear that neither of us were in the mood to talk so arrived at a telepathic understanding to just walk straight past each other. It felt like the grown-up thing to do. In my twenties I would have stopped and staged a tiresome five-minute conversation, straining to be amusing about or interested in…

People are demanding more from their energy providers. We want to know where the electricity and gas is coming from, how clean and renewable it is and how much it is going to cost us. And with good reason too. Greta Thunberg and the Extinction Rebellion protests that brought London to a standstill last month have turbocharged the conversation on climate change. Prices have also shot up – Ofgem announced that the default tariff price cap would increase by £117 in January while even poverty-battling charity Citizens Advice recognised the price rises as “inevitable”. But perhaps more people fed up with the Big Six and paying more to heat their home could ask another question: how can energy firms do more to help the communities they power? That final question…