Innholdsfortegnelse for 13-03-2017 i The Big Issue

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[Re: Hero Pets, March 6-12] When I was six years old, I experienced my first bereavement. My maternal grandfather had passed away following a very short battle with aggressive stage four oesophageal cancer. Before he passed, he told my parents to find me something that I would be able to look after, love and remember him by, so they got my cat Bubbles. He was the most beautiful and amazing little creature you could ever imagine! He helped me through my grief and encouraged me to become the person that I am today. People underestimate animals but they have healing powers that you can only imagine. They are the most effective form of counsellors you can have. Kirsty Louise Bell, Pontypridd @NiaLiversuch @BigIssue So moved by the heartfelt stories of…

Homeless charities have attacked plans in the Budget that could leave as many as 9,000 young people homeless as being “destructive”. Housing benefit cuts for 18 to 21-year-olds threaten to remove a vital safety net for young people who cannot live in their family home. Paul Noblet, head of public affairs for Centrepoint, welcomed the Homelessness Reduction Bill but warned that it could be undermined by the benefit cut, saying: “It could both cost the taxpayer more money than it saves and force more young people into homelessness.” Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, added: “Even at this eleventh hour, we urge the government not to continue with this destructive policy.” Big Issue founder John Bird has backed the Homelessness Reduction Bill’s preventative efforts, which will force councils to help…

Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the queerest of them all? The lisping Scar in The Lion King, the magenta-clad Governor Ratcliffe in Pocahontas or the divine Ursula in The Little Mermaid? Disney has been churning out LGBTQI characters since a little boy skunk came nose to nose with Bambi, fluttered his eyelids and declared: “He can call me Flower if he wants to.” But we are almost always the villains and, while flamingly obvious, never actually out. It’s up to us to get the nod and the wink and feel that rush of recognition or, more likely, flush of shame. After all, better to be a baddie than to be invisible, to have some magic powers, even if you do use them to stop a mermaid singing. Until…

Luke Evans’ Gaston and Josh Gad as sidekick LeFou have upset Russia, where MPs are threatening to ban Beauty and the Beast because of gay undertones. We join the love-in… Josh Gad: Our chemistry was immediate. Luke Evans: How can you not get on with someone like this? JG: There are people. You talk to my wife. No, Luke is so incredibly talented that it was just fun to play alongside. Not only to act but to sing and dance opposite this masterpiece is pretty incredible. LE: I had never done comedy before this and I was very nervous because a lot of it relies on timing. And Josh is a master of timing. He is very generous, he set most of my funniest moments up,…

In the good books I’m getting in touch to say how much I support your campaign to keep libraries open and at the heart of the communities they serve. I think they’re essential, especially for those on low incomes who can’t afford to buy books and for the free internet access. (It’s on a library PC that I’ve written this.) They might seem an easy target for cuts but we all suffer when that happens. Keep up the good work, and to all your readers I say – use your library! Ian Anderson, Elgin Back in the late 1960s I did my school homework in my town library (Barnsley, South Yorkshire) which was small, uncomfortable and very quiet – or else! Without it I would not have been able to…

In The Simpsons it’s doughnuts. Regardless of how Homer is engaged, the sight or a sugary sniff will hook him. It’s instinctive, Pavlovian. Brexit is our doughnut. No matter what is happening elsewhere, the mere mention of it diverts us and sends us into a lather. While this has benefits – Brexit will decide our future, and our children’s futures and their children’s – there are other things going on. And if we don’t pay attention, those other things will evolve until they present themselves in ways that shock. Their power to alter how we live is every bit as potent as Brexit. At present, it’s Scotland and Northern Ireland – the loud celtic fringe, always agitating, never happy with their lot. Best turn the volume down, let them argue…

Going for a walk on a Scottish island often involves battling with the wind. But the residents of Gigha now have reason to celebrate when a brisk breeze blows. In fact, by taking a short walk up a hill they get a sense of how their community-owned turbines are harnessing the power of the wind to make money for local projects. A four-foot plinth with illuminated yellow digits spells out the money being made with each turn of the blades. And the rewards are quite considerable. Fergus Waters is CEO of Gigha Heritage Trust. “Since the residents of Gigha purchased the island 15 years ago, we have benefited from a sense of self-determination,” he says. “We are no longer exposed to the fickle nature of markets or the whims of…

Despite what TV shows such as The Secret Science of Pop might suggest, there is no mysterious formula nor hidden algorithm for writing a hit. Slick production, shrewd management and clever marketing have all helped Ed Sheeran’s inexorable rise but none of that would have counted for anything if one ginger-haired English market town boy with a three-quarter sized acoustic guitar didn’t have a natural instinct for penning cross-generationally relatable pan-genre pop songs – equal parts iffy rapping and sappy balladry – with streaming-statistics-up-the-backside abundance. Sheeran’s third album Divide (or ÷ as it’s styled) notched up a staggering 68.7 million Spotify plays on day one of its release, smashing The Weeknd’s record of 29 million in a day for Starboy. This album was unstoppable before it even began. It’s the…

So glad you are campaigning on literacy and libraries. Over the last year my library has been absolutely vital for me. I’ve spent most of the year in bed due to cancer, with weekly trips into town to stock up on food and library books – I get through a book every two or three days right now. Also, as I am too weak to spend a lot of time on my feet browsing, I hugely appreciate that I can browse their online catalogue at home, order what I want, then just pop in to collect them. Or in desperation borrow ebooks instead, though I prefer paper copies. I’ve held a library ticket since before I can remember, and I’d be lost without it. Sylvia Rose, email…

Raven Canon was a woman who set out to change the world. Although she had no home and was sleeping rough, she was so incensed by draconian new anti-homelessness laws in her hometown of Colorado Springs, USA, she set up a Big Issue-style street paper to give people on the margins visibility, a voice and a legitimate income. The first issues of The Springs Echo went on sale in January, and Raven received international praise for her supreme efforts. But last week the tragic news broke that Raven had passed away. After a night sleeping rough in sub-zero temperatures she was found dead, wrapped in a blanket. A rising star in her community and editor-in-chief of the world’s newest street paper, Raven was at least the ninth person to die…

“The man on the Metro was telling a story with his face. Thirty years of emptiness, rejection and suffering” Last week a hand was put into my overcoat pocket as I got on the Metro. The man was inept. I pushed the hand away and he got back off the Metro. As I looked back, his face was more of a snarl than a look. I have always found it difficult to draw faces. Because they have everything in them. History, geography, love, hate, emptiness, suffering; joy. Every year they have the BP National Portrait Gallery competition I look at the prize-winners and am determined to try myself the next year. But it doesn’t happen. And I limp through another year painting and drawing trees and naked women, pot plants…

“I’m starting to have this creeping feeling I might never be a father” At 16 I was very small for my age. It was a real shame for me because I thought that when I grew up I was going to be really muscular and well-built. Then I grew about a foot in a year but I didn’t get any wider. I was a six-foot beanpole with that curtains hairstyle that everyone had in the late ’90s. So that was really disappointing. I had loads of interests, mostly sporty, when I was 16. But none of them competed with my main one – I was obsessive about girls. I had this great ability to chat to any girl, make them laugh – and we’d be getting on brilliantly and she’d…

When we tell the stars about our Better Literacy, Better Lives campaign they couldn’t be more enthusiastic. “Fantastic! Could I get behind it?” says Stevens. “It is a big concern. You look throughout history – the things that terrible regimes have targeted first are very often nurseries and libraries. The first things to go. “Libraries are certainly where I grew up,” he continues. “The magic of the library. They don’t have to be as gorgeous as Beast’s – ours is this kind of ridiculous fantasy library. It was really mad. That set was really one of our favourites, I think. It was so beautifully designed. All those globes. It was gorgeous. But any library, really, or even a bookshelf gets me really excited.” Watson explains her life-long love for libraries:…

1. REVOLUTION IN THE HEAD Ian MacDonald By miles the finest book about The Beatles’ music, with a brilliant grasp of context and the times as it goes through every recording in chronological order, with wit, judgement and insight. 2. TRANSFORMER: THE COMPLETE LOU REED STORY Victor Bockris A dark, troubled book about a difficult, hugely talented man who made fantastic music and survived against the odds to end up something like happy – what’s not to like? 3. THE BEATLES TUNE IN Mark Lewisohn The ultimate anorak’s friend, especially fine on the boys’ childhood and adolescence that forged their group loyalty, their musical development, and their fantastic good fortune in Brian Epstein and George Martin. 4. BE GLAD: AN INCREDIBLE STRING BAND COMPENDIUM Edited by Adrian Whittaker I love…