Innholdsfortegnelse for 11/28/2022 i The Big Issue

The star of the film Living is not any of the actors, but the large municipal authority called the London County Council. The Bill Nighy character, Mr Williams, is a bloodless, routine-driven clerical slave to this municipal monster, expressing a kind of deep postwar angst of alienation and English class anxiety. County Hall is the setting of the vast and ugly reality where deeds without meaning are performed by the largely lower middle- or upper-working-class clerks who throng to their daily labours. County Hall sits on the Thames almost opposite Parliament, and plays the role of the sinister abuser of people’s time on Earth. Set in the early 1950s, it’s a coloured film of a more black-and-white time. Bill Nighy’s middle-class clerk Mr Williams, though, is interrupted in his ceaseless…

People come to 240Project to work on their art. The lure of hot and healthy meals and bottomless tea and coffee is also a draw. But for most, it is the magic combination of creativity and community that entices them to the large hall above the Latymer Community Church in West London. Since 1998, the 240Project activity centre has been helping vulnerable and excluded people, including many who have experienced homelessness. Every Monday to Wednesday, it offers them the space and materials to create art. Alongside this, there are regular classes in portraiture and drawing, mosaics, music, creative writing, plus yoga sessions, cranio-sacral therapy, reflexology, nutrition workshops, a steady supply of hot drinks and a hearty lunch. There are also weekly wellbeing trips on Thursdays, which range from ten-pin bowling…

REVIEWS A day in the life of a trouble magnet In James Hannaham’s latest novel, Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, we meet Carlotta Mercedes, a trans woman who has just spent the last 20 years of her life in a men’s prison. On the day of her release, she finds herself wandering around a familiar, but different, Brooklyn. Everyone is suddenly looking at their phones the whole time, the subway isn’t dangerous and covered in graffiti any more, all the porno cinemas have been shut down and replaced with specialist bakeries. Carlotta has one thing on her mind, she’s got to stay out of trouble or else she’ll be sent straight back to prison. Easier said than done – it seems no matter where Carlotta goes,…

INTERVIEW Michael Ball and Alfie Boe It wouldn’t really be Christmas without a new album release by pop classical superstars Michael Ball and Alfie Boe. The boys are back and this time they’re channelling the many singing legends who have made it in Las Vegas, from Elvis Presley to Tom Jones. THE BIG ISSUE: Were you actually ‘together in Vegas’? ALFIE BOE: We were there in July. Or June. We were there this year. MICHAEL BALL: We were there in August. That was my first trip. Alfie’s been loads. He showed me around, showed me a good time. What happened in Vegas that should have stayed in Vegas? AB: To be honest, it was literally back-to-back filming, interviews. We did get a chance to go and visit some museums.…

HOUSING Pressure grows on social housing providers following Rochdale toddler Awaab Ishak’s tragic death The shocking death of Awaab Ishak continues to put the shortcomings of parts of the social housing sector under the microscope. The toddler (pictured above) died in December 2020 following prolonged exposure to mould at his family’s one-bedroom home in Rochdale. An inquest into the death, which concluded on November 15, uncovered a series of failures from landlord Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) despite multiple complaints being lodged by the two-year-old’s family in the months before his death. RBH’s chief executive Gareth Swarbrick had refused to resign following the findings, insisting he had the “full support” of the board to make changes at the housing association. But days later he was sacked after the RBH board said…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue A helping hand I need your help. It feels like the whole world is broken. Sometimes, at the moment, it feels like I must be broken too. The Big Issue has always been good at helping. You support your vendors, you fund social ventures, you offer advice on where to go for people who are struggling. Mr McNamee’s editorials, with messages like, “We will be here for you” and “We will be a hub to connect people with the help they need” are a little light shining in the darkness. You already do so much good that asking for further help feels ungrateful. I don’t want to feel hopeless any more.…

Rocky has big brown eyes, a winning smile and a hopeful nose for treats. A 10-year-old black labrador with enormously expressive eyebrows, he’s an immediate charmer. And 10 days ago, thanks to the cost-of-living crisis, he lost his home. “Rocky had been with his previous family throughout his life and was a very, very much-loved family pet. But like many of the population just now, his owners were struggling with the cost of living and the future being a bit more uncertain financially,” says Sandra Downie, manager of the Dogs Trust rehoming centre in Glasgow. No longer able to offer the life they wanted to give him, Rocky’s family had to make the awful decision to give him up, so he’s found himself in the care of Downie and her…

My main preoccupation at 16 was leaving school because I really didn’t like it. I was a bit rudderless. I was smoking and drinking and I had quite a longstanding girlfriend. I didn’t really care enough about what I was doing at school. I had one of those sliding doors moments when I went to see my guidance teacher and she said there was a youth training scheme that would pay £33 a week. The two available were a mechanic or a library assistant. I thought, I’ve never even looked under the bonnet of a car but I have read a book, so I’ll be a library assistant. And that was me for the next five years. I always loved music. And I was still going to see a lot…

When I was a child, I watched a lot of Road Runner cartoons, and as a result I used to have this recurring dream that my family were picnicking on a thin, grassy outcrop of rock. But while they were happily cracking open the Scotch eggs, I was falling off the edge of the cliff, clutching at fistfuls of grass which kept coming off in my hand. Every other night I lost my grip and plummeted to the ground. Fun or what? If you’re ever so slightly bristling from what I can now clearly see was some kind of early psychological trauma, you’ll be in the perfect mood for Christmas 2022. Because that’s how it feels: we’re festively celebrating at the edge of a precipice, and pretending not to notice…

JOHN, 32 Things are good on my pitch at the moment. I have plenty of regular customers and they buy me food and drink and ask me about my life and take an interest. I like selling The Big Issue so much, man. I’m happy with this job because I love to chat to people, I’m a chatter. I like to talk a lot, and the job allows me to do that. I like to talk about university and education with people here as there are quite a few students around here. It’s a big issue for me because I have six kids too. A lot of my customers love me. I’m famous in the area where I sell The Big Issue. I’ve been doing it for more than 12…

Explaining to those outside Scotland the ongoing desire for a referendum on independence is not a straightforward task. There was a referendum eight years ago and No won, albeit by a slim majority. Perhaps it was David Bowie’s request for Scotland to stay that tipped the balance. (It wasn’t.) In the intervening years, the debate has not stopped. It has intensified. The extremes are vicious about each other, and those towards the middle still have it always in mind. The question that comes a lot is why. The argument put forward frequently by the Westminster government is that, at the time of the last referendum, it was claimed as a once-in-a-generation vote so it should be left alone. Aside from questions over how long a generation actually lasts, that’s a…

Regular Street Art contributor Christie describes her latest work as a “fantasy painting”, as well as a portrait of her late stepmother, who passed away recently. “She came into our lives at a dark time,” says Christie, “and made sure that there was light in our lives, no matter what we were going through. I wanted this painting to symbolise the brave people who keep the light of hope, happiness and love shining in the face of life’s adversity. When I have been at my lowest, I have been lucky enough to have friends around me who wouldn’t give up, as well as the help from The Big Issue, who have supported me and given me a way to share my work. “I hope to bring some of that light…

BAD SANTAS Christmas scrapping and festive treason Everything about Santa Claus is supposed to be heartwarming, from his bright red hat to that big white beard. But filmmakers have long realised that you can take the comforting iconography of Saint Nick and easily twist it into something a little more sinful. Just look at this week’s Violent Night, starring David Harbour from Stranger Things as a boozy, two-fisted Santa. It is by no means the first time audiences have seen a darker side to the season’s jolliest icon, as this rundown of disreputable Christmas would-be classics shows. Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) A toy store employee with a pathological fear of Santa goes on a Christmas killing spree after he is forced to wear the famous red suit in this…

CLASSICAL Opera cuts speak of a deeper problem The protesters sang You’ll Never Walk Alone, from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. The rendition was surprisingly tuneful; those who happened to be passing by Arts Council England (ACE)’s London offices on the bright autumnal morning paused to admire the performance. The opera world is the latest to demonstrate its unease in the face of job insecurity, following in the footsteps of rail staff, medical workers and academics, among others. The London gathering on November 14 – attended by singers including Camilla Kerslake and Dame Sarah Connolly – was held to show support for English National Opera (ENO) in the wake of the news the organisation is to lose its ACE funding. Since the cuts were announced, a petition set…