Innholdsfortegnelse for 01-05-2017 i The Big Issue

If I asked how connected you are, you might reply with ‘Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat’ or ‘The Tube, my mobile network and Netflix’. When more than one billion people on the planet were connected in a single day in 2016, and when in a single year this century more data was downloaded than in the whole of human history, you know that our connected world has changed us forever. My belief is that the change we are undergoing is so rapid and so comprehensive that it has actually given rise to problems we are only just beginning to see or acknowledge: rising stress levels (10 million working days a year in the UK lost to ‘stress’) and low productivity (the world’s productivity levels are stubbornly stagnant and in some cases dropping,…

Some years ago, a temporary inability to sleep, referable to a distressing impression, caused me to walk about the streets all night, for a series of several nights. The disorder might have taken a long time to conquer, if it had been faintly experimented on in bed; but, it was soon defeated by the brisk treatment of getting up directly after lying down, and going out, and coming home tired at sunrise. In the course of those nights, I finished my education in a fair amateur experience of houselessness. My principal object being to get through the night, the pursuit of it brought me into sympathetic relations with people who have no other object every night in the year. The month was March, and the weather damp, cloudy, and cold.…

“When you watch something on TV it’s not completely real, there’s a screen,” says Mohamed Sarrar. “In Borderline audiences hear our stories, they hear my story, and no one else can tell my story like me.” Sarrar, 28, is a political refugee from Sudan. After being arrested back home on unspecified charges, he felt his life was in danger so his family paid for him to be smuggled to Libya in the back of a truck. From there, an overloaded boat with 70 souls crossed the Mediterranean. He took a train from Italy to France, hiding in the toilet to avoid the ticket inspector, and eventually arrived in Calais, where he spent two and a half months in the ‘Jungle’ before making it to the UK. His story, like that…

Meet Mindhorn. He’s the latest of a very British breed, whose potential for self-deception is fathomless and whose ego seems to grow in inverse proportion to their actual talent and ability. Mindhorn joins the ranks of Alan Partridge, Basil Fawlty and David Brent, heroes we love to see flail and fail – but secretly root for nonetheless. Mindhorn is a character from a fictional 1980s Isle of Man-set detective show, played by Richard Thorncroft, who ex-Mighty Boosh-er Julian Barratt portrays in the film Mindhorn, in cinemas this week. The washed-up Thorncroft is enlisted by the police to help track a murderer on the run who believes Mindhorn is real. Back in the spotlight, Thorncroft turns out to be an even worse crime fighter than he was actor. Simon Farnaby, best…

Councillors in Oxford have backed a plan to allow homeless people to use empty buildings in the city as shelters – echoing The Big Issue’s ongoing Fill ‘Em Up campaign. It follows the occupation of an abandoned power station, owned by Oxford University, by the Iffley Open House housing campaign group, made to leave the Old Power Station in Osney back in March. Green councillor David Thomas was so impressed by the spirit of the radical group he came up with his own proposal to make vacant buildings available to homeless people as temporary shelters. Thomas’ motion was backed this week by the city council, and detailed plans to make use of appropriate empty buildings will be drawn up by September. It follows the release of a report showing there…

At 16 I was not the most popular kid at school, especially with girls. I didn’t know what to say to them. I didn’t know what to do with my life. I wanted to be a rebel, but I was really just a suburban boy. The world had not opened up to me. It was an awkward age for me. It’s a rite of passage in America to try out for the football team, but I hadn’t fully grown yet, so I was laughed off the field. That’s how I wound up in the drama class instead. That was where all the girls were. If I met the 16-year-old Dennis now I’d think, he’s a shy boy. Not a handsome boy. A shaggy-haired country bumpkin in a raggedy polyester shirt…

In a so-called post-truth age documentaries have never been more important, as filmmakers coax out new ways to inform and educate as well as entertain. And they have never been more popular. Take Making a Murderer, the utterly compelling, adrenalised, immersive true crime story that became the TV phenomenon of 2016. It utilised all the long-form storytelling skills of the current golden age of drama, ending with as many questions for us as viewers as for the law enforcement officers of Manitowoc County and Wisconsin’s judiciary system. Why were we watching – were we complicit in a form of misery porn or active in a project shining a light on failings in the US justice system? These questions are picked up in new Netflix doc Casting JonBenet, which looks to…

First up this week is Peter Cozzens’ The Earth is Weeping. Subtitled The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West, it is indeed a weighty tome, clocking in at more than 500 dense pages of facts and analysis of the battles between the American armies and the Native American tribes in the latter half of the 19th century. Cozzens has written many books on American and Native American history already, and the author sees this sweeping overview in one respect as an answer to Dee Brown’s iconic 1970 book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Cozzens argues that that book, with its huge cultural significance, was far from balanced and lacked the subtlety and nuance needed to fully examine the Indian Wars from all sides. The Earth…

“Kimberley had £32,000, which she vaguely waved away as a rental deposit” Like most people with a mortgage, I feel simultaneously lucky to even have one in the first place, and also as if there’s a huge grizzly bear sitting next to me, just biding its time before it bites me in the arse. I understand though, that this is a luxury problem. I was of the generation where it was possible to get an interest-only mortgage for £180 a month. If I was in my 20s now, I know that I would be living in an expensive flatshare with some random guy called Gordon who puts passive aggressive Post-it notes on his almond milk. For this reason, How to Live Mortgage Free with Sarah Beeny should have been an…

FORAGING BY MATTHEW NICHOLAS Matt lives in a village in Yorkshire and has struggled with ME for the last 20 years, dealing with constant pain and fatigue. He is trying to support himself through his artwork. His paintings take six to eight weeks, sometimes longer, to create. To see more of his work visit: mattnicholas.gallery DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES BY MICHAEL CROSSWAITE After years spent travelling and squatting, Michael ended up homeless in London with a drug habit. “I got into a hostel and eventually got myself clean,” he says. “Now I’ve got a Peabody Flat and things are cool.” This piece comprises 12 small paintings on A4 black card. “With my painting, my thing is humour. The more ridiculous the better. I think the world is a very silly place…

“In Palestine there was a vibrant human society and the land was far from being empty” A common myth about Palestine is that it was a land without people waiting for a people without land. According to this myth, Palestine was an empty land when the Zionist settlers arrived there for the first time in the late-19th century. In my new book I try to refute this myth by following the history of a notable Palestinian family from the early 18th century up to 1948. The book tells the story of the most important of Palestine’s notable families: the Husaynis. They lived mainly in Jerusalem but also had branches all over the country. The family played a leading role in the cultural, economic, social and political life of Palestine. The…

Citizen Jane isn’t an especially inventive documentary. A combination of experts saying things to camera and archive footage, the film doesn’t exactly reinvent the form. But I can’t say that mattered. Within a few minutes, one of the talking-heads says something that had me hooked. An academic specialist on town-planning – the film’s less-than-sexy subject matter – explains that every two months the urban population on this planet grows by the equivalent of another Los Angeles. Wow. That’s a lot of people, and the galloping rate of urbanisation provides blunt relevancy to this film’s account of plans to develop New York back in the 1950s and 1960s. Against a black-and-white shot of Manhattan skyscrapers in their jazzy prime, a thin black band containing the film’s title splits the screen in…

Given Trump, Brexit and a global political system in chaos, mass popular protest is once again on the rise. People Power: Fighting for Peace (until August 28, Kennington, London; iwm.org.uk) has banners, posters, badges and placards from peace protests dating back to World War One and shows how they reflect the eras that spawned them (Photo Op by Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps, above). Coming to an end this week, this is your last chance to see Game Changers: Another Way to Play (until May 7, Aldwych, London; somersethouse.org.uk), which explores the complex science and aesthetics behind game design – unpacking what on the surface seems simple but is actually far from it. It will show how the long history of games continues to shape those developed today. Loosely related…

I’ve been back selling the magazine for a couple of months now. It’s going great. Sales are really whizzing for me this time. I enjoy having a quick word or a good blether with a lot of my customers – that’s one of the really nice things about the job. Selling The Big Issue has helped me when things got tough. This time my problems started when I fell out of work. I had a driving job, taking patients from hospital and taking them home, or picking up carers and taking them to their next appointment. But it only lasted for six months, and after that I was out of work and struggled to get by. Last year I was sleeping rough, camping outdoors on Calton Hill in Edinburgh. I’ve…