Innholdsfortegnelse for 1/24/2022 i The Big Issue

1 Germany Street paper Hempels from the Schleswig-Holstein region paralleled the life of a successful entrepreneur with one of their homeless vendors. Even though they’d appear to be at opposite ends of society, living very different lives, the feature illustrates just how much the two have in common. In the UK, as the latest season of The Apprentice gets under way, the candidates claim to be the bees knees but continue to demonstrate the opposite. Perhaps they too could take a few lessons from our own vendors about successful business practice. 2 Sweden A study has found that bugs around the world are evolving to eat plastic. The large-scale study examined over 200 million genes present in DNA samples taken from microbes living in a variety of environments and discovered…

David Tovey is a formerly homeless artist, educator, activist, ex-soldier and Big Issue Changemaker. He is based in London with strong family connections to Medway. The Unknown Soldier Exhibition is a raw, uncompromising, and sometimes brutal exploration of the struggles people face when they leave the armed forces. It looks at why life falls apart for so many ex-service personnel, leading to mental health problems, homelessness and, for some, suicide. The show will include paintings, photographs, memorabilia, film and installations that document David’s journey, as well as wider issues associated with homelessness in all its forms. Rochester Art Gallery, January 28-April 16; davidtoveyart.co.uk The work on this page is created by people who are marginalised. Contact street.lights@bigissue.com to see your art here. To see more and buy prints: bigissueshop.com. At…

EMPLOYMENT Top Doc’s prescription for combatting NHS staffing crisis – a four-day week A top doctor reckons a four-day work week will help the NHS solve its ongoing staffing crisis. Professor John Ashton says the model could help to address the burnout that is seeing health service staff quit or retire early. “I think the four-day week will come over the next 10 years, and if the NHS doesn’t embrace it, the labour shortages will become even worse,” he told The Big Issue. Ashton believes that a four-day week – without loss of pay – could “reduce sickness absence, improve morale which would improve the quality of what people are doing when they are working”. The former president of the UK Faculty of Public Health has long been an advocate…

Martin Freeman is looking dapper when he joins The Big Issue at the Soho Hotel in London. Hair neat as ever, jacket well appointed, slacks and desert boots separated by some daring bright green statement socks to offset the beige and brown look he’s sporting. He’s stylish, smart, affable and very happy to be talking to The Big Issue – a magazine he’s followed since the very beginning. “I remember it starting up in Richmond,” says Freeman. “I lived around there and a girl I was seeing was working in the office at the time. I remember a very early interview with Rufus Sewell when he was this up-and-coming actor who had just left Central [drama school].” A few hours before the interview, we were watching Freeman in a role…

Human beings tend towards imposing power imbalances regardless of social trends. Life is always made difficult for someone This month sees the long-awaited publication of literary sensation Hanya ‘A Little Life’ Yanagihara’s new novel, To Paradise. There is not room here to summarise the many issues this ambitious novel covers in its 700 pages. Suffice to say throughout the two centuries it spans, starting in a fin-de-siècle 1890s New York and ending in a totalitarian, climate-ravaged future, it poses fascinating ‘what if ’ questions about sexuality, race and government response to threats. What stays longest though, is the elegant, evocative writing with which Yanagihara tells her emotionally powerful stories. Interesting territory is opened up in all three ‘books’ that make up the novel. In Book One, Washington Square , we…

A pet peeve of mine when it comes to contemporary films or TV shows is the idea that the characters have never seen or read any horror. Not that every genre product has to have some sort of meta awareness but I find it a touch frustrating when postmodern protagonists are being attacked by an illusive threat – be it a vampire, zombie, werewolf or masked murderer – and they act ignorant to the lore or tactics that might just save their lives. Or they simply refuse to call a spade a spade. Midnight Mass is a recent culprit. Mike Flanagan’s Netflix series is set in modern times with vampirism serving as a core horror element, yet not one person utters the word “vampire”. I might have forgiven Flanagan for…

DAY 30 Chorleywood Bookshop was the bookshop of my childhood. It was here that I coveted the Doctor Who novelisations and Star Trek fotonovels in the children’s section, and sometimes stole money from my mother’s purse to buy books of sordid black magic stories. Later on, it was where I would buy the first popular science books that would set me on my career of interrupting physicists on Radio 4. There is a thrill in returning to your childhood bookshop as a published author. Unless no one turns up for your event. That would make clear that the schoolboys who bullied you at the bus stop were right. Fortunately, the shop is full. After my talk, I am shown a beautiful tattoo. It is on the arm of someone you…

DALE JENSEN, 39 I originally started selling the magazine when I found myself homeless. Then I got with my ex-missus and we had a family, but when we split up this time round I came back again. I’ve been selling The Big Issue for about 10 years now on and off, and I’ve been on my current pitch since May last year. Things are going alright actually. It was good over Christmas, it was very good. Everyone wanted to buy a magazine. It slowed down a bit between Christmas and new year, but what do you expect? Everyone has spent their money over Christmas. I’ve got at least 10 or 15 regular customers and the rest I just get through the way I sell The Big Issue. I’m like good…

E-BIKES The Big Issue eBikes are go The Big Issue launched its eBike scheme in Bristol last week, the start of a national rollout The programme, built by The Big Issue Group, in partnership with ShareBike, will see more than 400 of the eco-friendly Big Issue branded bikes for hire across the city. Plans are in place for many more bikes to follow. The Big Issue eBikes scheme is the first of its kind to recruit and retrain unemployed and vulnerable people and provide them with access to support and services. All employees will be paid a Living Wage. The scheme is also designed to meet environmental needs and encourage healthy living by reducing congestion and encouraging people to cycle, rather than drive. Big Issue eBikes will directly benefit Bristol’s…

I hated school and by the time I was 16 I was dying to get out. I was a real daydreamer. So I sat in school thinking about all the things I’d do when I left. I started doing drama classes on Saturday mornings when I was 13, and it became my passion. The moment I joined that class, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Oh my god, I was so not a natural-born star. I was very timid and quiet. I really had to get my head around it. If you met the 16-year-old me you’d think, oh god, she is square. Really square. I had a parting down the middle of my hair, and I wore a pencil skirt and blouse on my first day of…

1 True Crime Story by Joseph Knox The truth about a missing university student is brought to light in this unique novel written in the style of a true-crime documentary. It completely ripped up the rule book for me – it’s so smart, dark and mischievous, and twins feature in it. Sold! 2 A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin Cersei and Jaime Lannister are not only beautiful, wicked twins, but they are also insanely rich and involved with each other sexually, and if that isn’t a combination complex enough to turn your head, I don’t know what is. 3 White Teeth by Zadie Smith This book raises so many questions within multicultural communities of racism and faith, identity and destiny. Smith’s use of twins Millat…

“If you lined up all the characters I’ve played, it would be hard to identify me.” Evangeline Lilly is speaking to The Big Issue from Hawaii. She’s still living island life almost two decades after Lost shot her to global fame. But castaway Kate Austen or her other roles, The Hobbit’s elf Tauriel and Avenger Hope Pym, aka The Wasp, are far from her own character. “Generally, the characters that I play are super severe, kick-ass, capable women. I’ve always liked to keep myself in the background but I wanted the opportunity to smile and laugh and be light and sweet.” Those traits drew her to the role of Annie in South of Heaven. Annie’s childhood sweetheart Jimmy, played by Jason Sudeikis, gets parole after serving 12 years because Annie…

In September 2020, I wrote an article for The Big Issue published under the headline “Standing up to tyranny… with music”. It was about the popular revolt raging at the time on the streets of Belarus, and how it was being soundtracked by a 30-year-old rock’n’roll protest anthem, Kino’s Khochu Peremen (in English I Want Changes or simply Changes ), written by the Russian band’s half-Korean proletariat-poet front-man Viktor Tsoi. I interviewed several young Belarusians for the piece, all of them energised by the song and supportive of, if not actively involved with, protests on the streets of Minsk and other towns and cities across the country. All of whom expressed hope that a wind of change might finally be about to blow through the Russian-backed former Soviet state dubbed…