Innholdsfortegnelse for 07-12-20 i The Big Issue

In the run up to Christmas, we’ve turned the Big List into the FEELGOOD List – a repository of simple, everyday reasons to be cheerful, selected by our readers (and a few by us). We want to share the simple and effective things that help put a smile on all of our faces. Got a Feelgood List of your own to share? Then tweet us @BigIssue or email editorial@bigissue.com Restore the faith with The Vicar of Dibley Lucky 13 years aǽter Geraldine Granger last gave a sermon from St Barnabas (not counting some Comic Relief skits) Dawn French sticks the dog collar back on in a series of 10-minute mini-episodes beginning this week, musing on life – and chocolate – during lockdown. The Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown airs on…

VENDORS After a few weeks of uncertainty and vendors unable to sell on their pitches, most are now back. In some cases – due to health concerns and in some parts of Scotland still locked down – vendors may not have returned yet. Our staff is working closely with each vendor to make sure it’s safe to be selling and that there is extra support to make up for reduced earnings. As ever, we are providing masks and hand gel, and encouraging vendors to follow guidelines. If you can, please support your local vendor by buying The Big Issue from them. PITCHES Towns and cities across the country are quieter than normal so our teams are moving vendors to pitches where they have the best chance of selling magazines, depending…

• Make a list of other companies in your sector to approach. If the sector has been hit badly by Covid-19, make a list of other sectors you want to work in and the transferable skills you have to appeal to employers • Where are the senior people that you have worked with successfully in the past? Why not reach out and let them know how much you enjoyed being part of their team. They may be a great advocate or even have a role for you • Make sure your LinkedIn profile showcases what you do and where you have been and start to build a great network. If you are new to it start by looking at and learning from other people’s profiles from your chosen sector and…

IN mid-March, beloved children's author Michael Rosen started suffering flu-like symptoms. Just as he started to recover, his health severely declined. NHS 111 advised his wife, Emma-Louise Williams, to keep him at home. Seeking a second opinion from a friend who was a doctor saved his life. Rosen spent the next seven weeks in intensive care, six weeks hooked up to a ventilator. He was given 50/50 odds, at best, of survival. While the country was adjusting to lockdown, news of Rosen’s condition brought the severity of the virus home. The former Children’s Laureate, now 74, was a fixture of many of our school days, and as we grew up we discovered that beyond the nonsense rhymes there was another side. Born into a first-generation Polish family, always a bit…

Frustrated by a lack of action on climate change by people in power, Greta Thunberg was just 15 when she skipped school to stage a lone protest outside the Swedish parliament. She sparked a global youth movement that saw millions of children swap the classroom for the streets, instantly pushing the crisis to the top of the political and public agenda. When crucial UN climate talks, called COP26, due to be held in Glasgow last month were delayed for a year because of coronavirus, young people from 52 countries came together online to hold their own ‘Mock COP26’. They discussed carbon reduction targets, education, health, and green jobs – showing adults what could be achieved if they were the decision-makers. TURNING PASSION INTO ACTION While protesting and the internet have…

The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart In a move that immediately gives it some distinction amongst the hardly-uncrowded shelves of music biopics and documentaries of recent years, The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart opens with one of its subjects – Barry Gibb – effectively cautioning you against trusting it. It’s an arresting opinion – the wraparound for the documentary – that sees Gibb pondering being basically the last brother standing to offer his take on the story. The Bee Gees were, of course, a music group active from 1958 through to the early 2010s. At heart three brothers – Barry, Robin and Maurice – with a fourth brother, Andy, set to join them but for his untimely death, their story is also…

Asnow crystal can take on many unique and beautiful forms. The solid state of the water molecule, it is just part of water’s endless cycle around the world. Just so, a single unit of meaning – one word for snow – offers an approach to new places, a clear path of understanding to travel forwards along. Tracking words across many languages and cultures can be a powerful way to overcome the borders that are going up around the world. Even under lockdown in a pandemic, it is still possible to voyage around the world through dictionaries. Jammu and Kashmir is a place so beautiful it is widely known as ‘Heaven on Earth’. Snow falls on the peaks of the westernmost ranges of the Himalayas, and in the glaciers on their…

PITCH: Virgin Money, Darlington Monday-Friday 9am-5pm I’ve been so desperate to get back on my pitch. It’s been a struggle this time around because I’ve had vet bills for my dog but I’m getting there now. I’ve been itching to get back out there to be with my customers. I started The Big Issue when I was young, I lost my mum to cancer and then I moved from the West Midlands to the North East in 1999. I’ve been here ever since and sold the magazine on and off so it’s been a long time. I do miss it when I can’t be on my pitch, it’s a big part of my identity. I’ve seen a few of my regular customers over the past month when I’ve been out…

In March 1885, more than 80,000 people paraded through Leicester carrying a child’s coffin and an effigy of the scientist and vaccine pioneer Edward Jenner. Though he’d been dead over 50 years, Jenner was still the focus of their ire. Jenner had created the smallpox vaccine, kickstarting an arm of medicine that would save hundreds of millions of lives. And they were part of the Anti-Vaccination League. Leicester, it seems, was a stronghold. The reasons for opposition were mixed; some were on religious grounds, some people didn’t trust the medicine and some felt it curtailed their personal liberties. And here, 135 years later we stand in a very similar place. The anti-vaxxer movement grows and the fertile fields of Facebook and other parts of social media allow groundless conspiracies to…

Hubbub and O2 • 2,000 smartphones with unlimited minutes and texts plus 6GB of data per month for 12 months SocialBox.Biz • Hundreds of free refurbished laptops and tablets to people who need to stay connected to support workers through the pandemic Live Unlimited • £7,500 in wifi dongles, laptops and tablets for young care leavers Vodafone • 250,000 data SIMs with 30GB data allowance for 90 days • Free data for NHS workers • Unlimited data, calls and texts for £10 a month (usually £35) for those who have lost their jobs during the Covid-19 crisis Crisis and Tesco Mobile • £700,000 of phones, devices and connectivity to homeless families so far, with plans for that to reach £2.4m by 2023…

Who didn’t I work for? From my work memory I recreate my brief time in the counting house of Debenhams as we witness its decline into troubled waters. Back then, aged 19, I masqueraded as some kind of clerical assistant. All I remember though is that I was royally punched on the nose and knocked to the floor by a short, powerful man who objected to my antisemitic joke, back in those days when I was an unreconstituted racist. This ended my time at the Debenhams empire of department stores, and in some ways the punch on the nose may well have led me towards my later conversion to anti-racism. The demise of Debenhams and Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia empire drives home the change in the way we shop. But…

This year, as our friendships were challenged and restricted like never before, millions of us took comfort and found joy in watching comedians Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse fishing and chatting by the side of rivers across the country. Serious issues – mental health, physical health and older men’s reluctance to seek medical help – were discussed, bread was broken, jokes were shared, insults were liberally exchanged as we watched their deep bond grow ever deeper. After a sweary hurry-up text from Whitehouse, we are joined on a Zoom call by Mortimer, who offers old-school Party Ring biscuits and haircare tips, before casting his eye around his pal’s front room. “Why haven't you got your fire on, Paul? And what's that in the corner of the room? It looks like…

A hand up... Our sellers BUY the magazine for £1.50 and sell it for up to £4 at Christmas time. Not a handout… Vendors earn a legitimate income, and gain valuable social and employability skills. With your support now, we can continue to do so now and in the future. The right to citizenship… The Big Issue Foundation, our charitable arm, helps sellers to 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.…

Jon Bon joy Great magazine last week [November 23]. The articles by Jon Bon Jovi were really inspiring. The sudoku was hard enough to keep me involved over three days and was another little factor that helped me through a few dark days in Cumbria. Thanks! Phil, email @poppyjoywatson It’s not officially Friday until my @BigIssue appears on the doorstep. @PMCinthenorth Great interview in @BigIssue with Jon Bon Jovi – lovely to read him valuing naïveté – for me an underrated source of new ideas, hopefully encouraging all to contribute thoughts to Ride Out Recession Alliance, irrespective of their experience or expertise. letters@bigissue.com Glas-glow  A special mention to the Big Issue seller outside Tesco Metro in Knightswood, Glasgow. I do not know his name and although we do not speak…

Our Christmas Kids Cover Competition guarantees the most amazing assortment of festive feelgood spirit and now, at the end of a year like no other, that is what we need. So many children – encouraged by brilliant parents and inspiring teachers – joined in and we would like to thank every one of them for helping make Christmas that bit brighter. Our guest judge, celebrated children’s author Nadia Shireen, was also blown away. “I really was taken aback by the standard of entries – huge congratulations to everyone who entered. It’s been an absolute nightmare trying to pick my favourites,” she said. Choosing the winner was tough, but Evelyn’s picture gave a positive spin on our times. Nadia added: “Oh, this cover made me so happy! Rudolph’s definitely got all…

AGE 0-5 Who’s Your Real Mum?, Bernadette Green & Anna Zobel (Scribe, £11.99) Nicholas is a little confused. When he goes round to his friend Elvi’s house, she has two mums and he is keen to discover which is her real mum. Elvi responds with increasingly fantastical clues: “She speaks fluent gorilla. She regularly gets called to the zoo to sort out gorilla disputes.” Zobel’s autumnal palette on the illustrations makes perfect sense, and what gently emerges is a tender and joyful tale that works through the reality of different sorts of families. Above all, it’s a story of love and acceptance without a hint of preachiness. Dog Gone, Rob Biddulph (HarperCollins Children’s Books, £12.99) Biddulph was a phenomenon before this year. His lushly illustrated books, loaded with rhyme and…

A man is walking in what sounds like a desolate cave or labyrinthine subterranean chambers. ›ere is a sense of disorientation, the silence is broken with a voice erring towards desperation: “Does anyone know who I am?” We do. It is Neil Innes, a polymath artist, musician, comedian, writer, Bonzo and delight who died one year ago. Dip My Brain in Joy, which justifies its existence with that title alone, is a three-part series in celebration of him. It is clearly made with love by Laura Grimshaw, a beautiful collection of archive conversations and songs mixed with new interviews and presented by Diane Morgan. Innes is described as “David Bowie with puns” but “regularly with a duck on his head”. Of all Bowie’s famed chameleon changes, sadly none involved wildfowl…