Innholdsfortegnelse for 11/21/2022 i The Big Issue

BIG PICTURE Christmas comes but once a year, but come it does even if a country is in the midst of conflict. The festive lights were put up as planned in Kyiv, even as the threat of random Russian missile attacks continued. These lights run down towards Khreschatyk Street, where locals will head to do their Christmas shopping. Just out of sight is a Zara store, temporarily closed, but Mango is still open. The street itself is Bohdana Khmel’nyts’koho Street, a cultural hub. Alongside these lights is the Kyiv History Museum, the national Museum of Literature of Ukraine, the Natural Science and Natural History Museum, the beautiful National Opera theatre and, nearby, a McDonald’s. Turn to page 15 for Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov’s insights on the conflict, and page 26…

BIG ISSUE SHOP Meet the authors teaching children about the everyday magic and diversity of London As part of our Meet the Maker series, we speak to the people behind the creations available in the Big Issue Shop – a platform for buying ethical products which put people and the planet first. This time, authors Sef Townsend and Anne Johnson, the minds behind London Folk Tales for Children, a collection of stories about the everyday magic of the English capital. What inspired you to start your company and how did it start? ANNE JOHNSON: Our books are published by The History Press, but the inspiration to write them comes from the work that Sef and I do in London’s state primary schools, sponsored by Everyday Magic – a London-based charity…

CHRISTMAS ILLUMINATIONS In Newburgh, a little town in Fife, Christmas starts early. As summer begins, school children start imagining what their dream Christmas light would look like for an annual light-design competition. A smiling, dancing Christmas tree, perhaps? Or maybe a take on the traditional reindeer, but with two legs? Or for the more historically inclined child, a luminous green festive dinosaur wrapped in baubles? Each year since 2001, Newburgh has replaced one of the bog-standard festive motifs that hang on the high street’s 39 lampposts with a competition winner. More than 20 lights designed by local children have now been incorporated into the town’s annual display. At a cost of £800-£1,100 per design, the money has to be found from somewhere. Councils across the UK have spent much of…

Crossword CRYPTIC CLUES Across 1. Choosy person naming the sports team? (8)5. Notice one of the symptoms (4)8. Going no distance on the river first for a medicinal plant (8)9. Deposit man on board (4)11. A case of insufficient evidence (7)13. Type of badger in summer ate lettuce (5)14. Today might be your birthday (7,4)18. Sheet of oil swirling round (5)19. Yellow bird (7)21. Beat a sugar producer (4)22. Not bound to feel concern first without any anxiety (8)24. Seasonal rise and fall (4)25. Personal appearance of a spirit (8) Down 1. Supporter for a very short time (6)2. Melon cocktail fruit (5)3. Has not voluntarily exercised this force? (10)4. Low manoeuvres for night flier (3)6. Hampton was distressed at seeing a ghost (7)7. Smart, prickly sensation (6)10. Persistent changes…

HOUSING Private rented evictions were already at the highest level ever before winter kicked in Record numbers of renters are being evicted from their homes even before the energy bills-driven cost-of-living crisis is set to hit hardest during the winter months. More than 3,700 households were evicted from private rented homes in England between July and September, Ministry of Justice (MoJ) statistics have revealed. The number of evicted households rose 10 per cent in just three months while the number of possession claims to courts from landlords has more than doubled from 10,202 to 21,012 in a year. The number of possession orders issued to county court bailiffs almost tripled over the same period too, up to 15,352. The MoJ’s statistician said the number of private landlord possession claims has…

THE BIG ISSUE: You compare the conflict to a game of chess. Is this a game that’s been going on for long? ANDREY KURKOV: Three hundred years at least. The first decree against Ukrainian identity was signed by Peter the Great. The Ukrainian language was considered a peasant’s language. When I was growing up in Kyiv in the 1970s, if somebody spoke Ukrainian he would be considered either an educated person from the village or a nationalist. Did we overlook the importance Ukraine plays in our lives, especially when it comes to food? Nobody thought about this in Europe. Actually, not many people thought about Ukraine at all. After the Soviet Union collapsed, in people’s minds, there is Russia and nothing else exists. Russia was pushing this image. For example,…

THIS WEEK: FACING DOWN THE COST OF LIVING The cost-of-living crisis is hitting people across the globe. As the world faces lingering effects of the pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine and rising inflation rates, tens of millions of people are being plunged into poverty. A total of 71 million people in the developing world fell into poverty in the three months to July as a direct consequence of global food and energy price surges, according to the United Nations Development Programme. Poverty is deeply rooted in the UK too, with the Resolution Foundation estimating that more than one million people are set to be pushed below the breadline this winter. Campaigners are urgently warning that the UK government is not doing enough to help vulnerable people. We look at what…

Rising energy bills might put some households off decking the halls with Christmas lights this year – but not ‘Mr Christmas’, Mark Abbott, who has covered his home in 25,000 lights for charity. For the last nine years, the dad of three has turned his home into a winter wonderland to raise funds for local homelessness charity St Martins in his native Norwich – the hostel that helped him when he was homeless. Last year Abbott (right, with his daughter) hung 17,500 lights on his home, and has upped the number of decorations this year after refusing to let rising energy bills ruin his plans. “If people don’t do lights because of the energy prices then we’re going to miss out. I want to give back to the community and…

When I was young I was lucky to be surrounded by some brilliant people. My family always encouraged my sister and me to do what made us happy, not just what would make us money. My dad was Scotland’s only telescope maker, and the house was a magnet for weird and wonderful people. I feel so grateful for having been shielded against normality. When I was about 12 I started getting guitar lessons from an amazing guy called Harry who lived above an Indian restaurant in Hamilton. He played me Heroin by The Velvet Underground and it blew my tiny mind. I didn’t know anything could be so powerful. The chaos, honesty and the sheer beauty of the sound opened up a world that I didn’t know existed. I lived…

Market forces Reading the letters about Landlords, it feels very “populous” and a bit sad. Appreciating that housing is a basic need, it is also a market in the sense that people buy and sell, with other various forms of lending, pledge collateral etc. Framing landlords as bad, good or whichever is a bit small minded. If the government really wanted to fight homelessness it could provide more development incentives with social housing for those that cannot afford the market rates. This has proven successful historically. Stamp duty is a very large portion of HMRC’s revenue and the lower the cost of housing, the less income is obtained. Many landlords these days are also large pension funds that enter the real estate market to provide an investment return on pensioners’…

The cost-of-living crisis, political turmoil, oppression and conflict abroad. These are revolting times. We should be revolting. Fortunately, everything we need to know about harnessing our rebellious spirit can be learned from Matilda the Musical. If life’s not fair, only we can put it right. British-born, Aussie-raised Tim Minchin turned Roald Dahl’s classic into a stage musical for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2010 and after years of award-winning acclaim, a big screen adaptation bursts into cinemas this week. The film stars Emma Thompson as demonic Miss Trunchbull, Lashana Lynch as sweet Miss Honey and Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough as Matilda’s slimy parents Mr and Mrs Wormwood, with Matilda played with endearing smarts by newcomer Alisha Weir. But the real star is the music, with whirlwind rhymes packed with…

THE BEVERIDGE REPORT AT 80 The Britain of 1942 was a radically different country to the one we live in now. Without an NHS, social care system or free secondary education, there was no safety net to catch the most vulnerable in society. But the creation of these things didn’t happen by accident. They can be traced back to a report by William Beveridge, a social economist. The Beveridge Report identified five “giant evils” in society – want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. The result was the Welfare State, created postwar by the Attlee government acting on the report’s findings. Disease was tackled with the creation of the NHS, want with National Insurance and pensions. Expanded council housing addressed squalor and a policy of full employment dealt with idleness. A…

REVIEW Sharpening the knives Daniel Craig hams it up again as the investigator Benoit Blanc in another star-studded and enjoyably self-aware murder mystery It was only a mere few months before the first lockdown that audiences flocked to cinemas to watch national treasure Daniel Craig try his hand at the consulting detective archetype in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. The star-studded murder mystery saw the inception of Benoit Blanc, a witty investigator with a dramatically underlined Southern accent described by Chris Evans’s character in the 2019 film as a “Kentucky-fried Foghorn Leghorn drawl”. The accent played a major part in distancing the British actor from the overpowering shadow of James Bond, a role he had already announced he was set to step away from. For Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,…