Innholdsfortegnelse for 21-12-20 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 Hear the heavenly sounds of the Northern Lights Deep in a forest in the Arctic Circle, Alaskan national wildlife ranger Karin Lehmkuhl Bodony and composer Matthew Burtner recorded the swirls and whistles generated by the solar shower of the greatest lightshow on Earth, as it interacted with the planet’s electromagnetic field. They used the sounds to create a special piece of…

TV presenter George Clarke has praised Big Issue vendor Earl John Charlton for landing his first ever full-time employment, after decades of struggle with homelessness and addiction. Earl, who inspired Sam Fender to help out The Big Issue with his Christmas single Winter Song, starts work at North East Homeless Charity (NEH) this week. Big Issue Ambassador George, an NEH patron, said Earl will be an “asset” to the charity. “Earl is a legend,” he added. Although he says he’ll miss his customers at Newcastle Central station, Earl is excited about starting his new job. “I’m buzzing,” he added. “It’s been an incredible journey, but I like to think that my story can give other people hope.”…

It has been a strange, crazy year. But I think it’s given everybody an opportunity to pause and reflect on what is really important. When we see the kind of loss that others have experienced and see people experiencing uncertainty with their jobs, being furloughed, businesses folding and unemployment rates rising, then it gives us the chance to pause and reflect on what’s important. As a Big Issue ambassador, it feels really special to give something back to a cause that helped me so much. And it really did help me. So helping people having a similar experience to the one I once had is a privilege. It has also brought me some closure, it feels like I’m able to complete that circle. But even more it is the idea…

Heartfelt thanks for making Diary of a Young Naturalist your book of the year. I am truly humbled. We are avid supporters of The Big Issue in our home, and it has been a joy to also write for the magazine this year, when my book took its uncertain flight during lockdown. So, I owe double thanks really! The central theme of my book is home, belonging, connection and compassion. It’s also about acceptance, celebration of difference and of course the joy that connecting with nature can bring, during times of not only hardship and anguish; but at all times. Nature is ever present and waiting to be discovered. I know though that due to social injustice and austerity it is hard to love and appreciate nature when a belly…

Nicola Sturgeon First Minister of Scotland The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste (Canongate) is everything I love in a novel – it transported me to a place and period in history outside my experience and gave me insight and knowledge I didn’t have before. It’s a story of female empowerment and the battle to overcome adversity and deep-rooted inequality, and as a piece of writing it is utterly exquisite. Rufus Wainwright singer/songwriter I have two types of books: couch books and bed books. I always read two books at the same time at least, one on the couch, the other one in bed. Kay Francis: I Can’t Wait to be Forgotten by Scott O’Brien (Bearmanor Media) is my couch book at the moment. Between 1930 and 1936 Francis was the…

1 The monthly dog walk with my friend, ended with a flask of homemade soup. 2 Successfully baking anything. 3 Taking your mask off the minute you leave the supermarket. 4 Friday evenings when school and work are done and the tweens choose to switch off their devices and come and talk to us. 5 My weekly Spanish class and occasionally thinking I am actually remembering stuff. 6 Oh, and after you’ve vacuumed, seeing the pattern of where the vac has gone back and forth is very satisfying.…

VENDORS This is the most important time of the year for Big Issue vendors. Some may not be on their usual pitches due to local restrictions or health concerns but 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 on local safety measures and circumstances. An increasing number of vendors are offering…

Popular Big Issue vendor Garry Buchan has vowed not to let his injuries stop him raising thousands of pounds to battle homelessness after being badly hurt in an attack. Garry, 45, spent two weeks in hospital with bruising, a fractured cheekbone and a badly broken left foot after the attack near the tent where he was staying at Green Park station in Bath in the early hours of November 28. Avon and Somerset Police said they are following up positive lines of inquiry. Garry has been temporarily housed to recover while permanent accommodation is arranged. But he still faces between six and 12 weeks without being able to sell full-time on his pitch. He has vowed to get back on his feet to raise funds for charity. The selfless vendor…

Jon Bon Jovi Rock legend What I got from my parents was the ability to make the dream reality. They always instilled that confidence in their kids which, in retrospect, I realise was so incredibly valuable. They truly believed in the John Kennedy mantra of going to the moon. “Yeah, of course you can go to the moon. Just go, Johnny.” And there I went. Alesha Dixon Pop singer, judge Looking back now, when I was 16 I was so anxious. I wasted a lot of time worrying. I wish I could go back to that 16-year-old and tell her everything’s going to be OK. And actually, failure is not a bad thing. You don’t realise that actually, it might be the making of you. And I wish that back…

Arriving on our screens just when we need it most, A Christmas Gift From Bob is an utterly heartwarming addition to your festive viewing, now available as one of Amazon Prime’s big festive films. Of course, it comes at the end of a sad year after the legendary Street Cat Bob died at the age of about 14 in June. His loyal companion James Bowen, who became a celebrity with Bob when the pair sold The Big Issue in London, joined his onscreen alter ego Luke Treadaway for a socially distanced reminiscence about the late, great Bob. It will be a bittersweet Christmas without Bob this year, says James, but his final appearance on the silver screen is an appropriate tribute to a truly remarkable cat. The Big Issue: The…

The most remarkable thing is that we’re still here. When the shutters were brought down in March, the future of The Big Issue was immediately uncertain. For almost 30 years we had been a street magazine. While other titles became less reliant on paper sales, we remained proudly of paper, and of the street. We were successful in providing a means for the most marginalised to work their way back from poverty and from the edge. But how do you do that if there is no street? How do you help, and how do you stay around so that when you are needed later you are ready? With pace, focus and remarkable steel. The change that everybody at The Big Issue delivered still astounds me and fills me with pride.…

Campaigners have launched a coalition to tackle homeless deaths aǽter it was revealed 778 people in England and Wales lost their lives while without a secure home in 2019. The Office for National Statistics figure is the sixth consecutive year that the number of homeless deaths has risen, with official statistics running back to 2013. In response to the latest figures, the Museum of Homelessness (MOH) has launched its Dying Homeless Coalition, bringing together representatives from the homelessness sector, charities, healthcare organisations and the media, including The Big Issue, to prevent homeless deaths. MOH co-founder Jess Turtle told The Big Issue that anger over homeless deaths inspired them to reach out to others to act. Turtle and MOH took over the Dying Homeless Project in 2019 following Bureau of Investigative…

Having lived through many grim early Christmases you would expect me to take to a dim-lit, unlively Christmas like a duck to water. But I have had such brilliant ones since I started marrying in my late teens that I’ve been spoilt. My first family made me warm and welcoming in a way that glaringly exposed how piss-poor were my early years, and how drenched in need they were. Since then, more children and more joy, more family and more festive fun. Now pandemica, like the wicked witch of the north, sharp-faced and Scrooge-like, robs us. And reduces us to what in my chronology of Christmases smacks of 1952. That year my creative elder brothers made Christmas decorations out of old copies of the Daily Mirror and the Evening Standard.…

Tyson Fury is heavyweight champion of the world. His success in the ring, set against controversy and well-publicised mental health and addiction battles, have seen him dubbed the People’s Champion. He is the rough-round-the-edges yin to Anthony Joshua’s poised yang. A long-sought showdown between the two men is on the cards for next year. It promises to be one of the biggest boxing bouts in history. Last year, Fury scored big sales, and accolades, for Behind The Mask, the autobiography that provided an honest telling of his faults and failures, his descent and all that followed. This year, The Furious Method looks at how he overcame his problems to regain his title against Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas in February. He also provides a series of (rather challenging) exercises for…

We have been basking in a golden age of nature writing for seven or eight years now, with some of the very best British writers in any genre, fact or fiction, dedicating themselves to educating readers about the daily miracle of British flowers and fauna, birds and beasts. Robert Macfarlane, Ben Myers, Horatio Clare, Helen Macdonald, Jonathan C Slaght, and Lucy Jones are just some of the names who have enriched our understanding and deepened our appreciation for the blue/ green, feathered/furry planet we are privileged to inhabit. There was, of course, an added dimension to our nature reading this year. As months of isolating and distancing, and anxiety and sorrow made their shock impact on our wellbeing and our faith in the balanced order of the world, many of…

Dani Garavelli freelance feature writer In a year that brought us Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light and Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, Maaza Mengiste’s tale of war in Ethiopia might easily have been eclipsed. But The Shadow King (Canongate) outshone its more vaunted rivals, snatching from them a well-deserved place on the Man Booker Prize shortlist. Mengiste’s account of the women who rallied against Mussolini’s troops shimmers with a luminous intensity. Her vibrant images, heightened language and Greek chorus invest the book with the power of myth. The Shadow King is stalked by ghosts, yet is life-affirming. Minim, a peasant, is dressed up as Emperor Haile Selassie, who has fled the country. When he sits astride his horse, “the jewels braided into [its] mane, flashing like a thousand eyes”, morale…

We have relied on our television like never before this year. Since the coronavirus pandemic led to so many of us spending days, weeks and months at home with social lives curtailed, the television has had its Reithian principles thrust back upon it. And how we’ve relied on it to inform, educate and entertain as the government continued to confuse, infuriate and obfuscate. Sitting down to watch the TV news became, once again, a key moment in the day as we tried to keep abreast of this pandemic – the new rules, the horrifying daily death tolls, the evolving scientific advice, the nightly PPE supply soap opera, the heartbreaking stories from inside the NHS and care homes. As well as TV news rising to the occasion, so did other programming…

NEED HELP? Why not get together with other Big Issue readers on Twitter - @BigIssue Get the answers in next week's mag! Good luck 1. Which band kept The Pogues’ Fairytale Of New York off the UK’s festive top slot in 1987? Extra point for the song too. 2. Stollen is the traditional fruitcake of which country? 3. How many ghosts are there in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol? 4. Who played George Bailey in festive classic It’s A Wonderful Life? 5. How do you say Merry Christmas in Spanish? 6. Can you name all of Santa’s eight reindeers that aren’t Rudolph? 7. What Christmas hymn’s second line is ‘Glory to the new-born king’? 8. What was the most-watched TV show in the UK on Christmas Day in 2019? 9. In…

01 “It’s so easy to be great on the surface, thinking I’m fine then suddenly, it can all come crumbling down around you. I just try and be the inspiration and motivation.” 02 “My only real preoccupation was work. I didn’t want to do anything else. I didn’t go out, I missed my school prom, because I was so focused on not cocking up this amazing experience and opportunity.” 03 “Johnny Cash was my first male grown- up crush. That’s when I realised what hormones do and what sex appeal really means. He just kind of stirred me somehow.” 04 “If I wanted to impress the teenage me, I’d say, listen, in 40 years’ time you’ll sit next to Paul McCartney and talk to him for an hour. I don’t…

ANTHONY OKUYEDI London “It’s been difficult to look forward to Christmas with everything going on – I didn’t celebrate my 60th birthday last month. But I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, thanks for your support and thank god for the vaccine.” MARTIN MC KENZIE London “I’ve survived because of the Issue. I reckon if I didn’t have the Issue this year, I might not even be alive, to be honest. I’ve got to be out, I’ve got to be active. You should see the response when they saw me back on the street again. Parents with their kids pass me on the way to school and they all say hello. It’s the little things.” MARK WORTHINGTON Ivybridge “I’ve been blessed with the support that The Big Issue has…

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