Innholdsfortegnelse for 8/25/2025 i The Big Issue

Cold as ICE “The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY.” You can tell by the caps that this message came from the highest of offices. If you walk one and a half blocks past the White House, you reach another important office, home of Street Sense, the street paper in Washington DC which, like Big Issue, offers people experiencing or at risk of homelessness the opportunity to improve their situation. Street Sense and Big Issue are two of around 100 publications linked by an International Network of Street Papers. The INSP is our equivalent of NATO, with around 100 members around the world. This can offer insight into the biggest issues internationally, from the perspective of often overlooked communities. It is currently those on the margins who are Trump’s latest…

Luther Ford is sitting in the cafe at the BFI on the South Bank in London when Big Issue arrives. He’s casually dressed in baggy T-shirt and shorts, baseball cap, trainers. But he has a bag full of clothes by his feet – “many layers of Miu Miu” – that he’ll be wearing on the red carpet within minutes of our interview concluding. It’s the world premiere of King & Conqueror, the new BBC One series produced by and starring James Norton and Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau – who play Harold of Wessex and William the Conqueror in the years leading up to the Battle of Hastings. The origin story for one of the most famous and influential battles in British history is little known. At school we learn…

HOMELESSNESS Project offers vulnerable people a home for life: ‘We want to end homelessness one person at a time’ By Lottie Elton Big Issue Reporter When Storm arrived at The Harbour Project – a new supported housing initiative in East London – she spent her first night “in tears”. “It was weird. Not bad weird. [It was] because I felt safe,” she told Big Issue. “I’d forgotten how that felt.” The Londoner had spent years bouncing between hostels and temporary accommodation, where it felt like “anyone could come in”. Now, she has a room of her own. Launched by homelessness charity Your Place, The Harbour offers long-term housing for people stuck in hostels or sleeping rough. Storm recently moved into one of its 23 rooms. “My last place was a…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW l etters@bigissue.com @bigissueuk @bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @thebigissue Good Samaritans Thank you for the article by Laura Cooke, reflecting on the proposed cuts and changes to Samaritans and its services [Issue 1679, 11-17 August]. I too am a former Samaritans volunteer, and Laura’s thoughts and comments very much reflect my own – it is deeply troubling to hear that a service so many are in need of is in danger of no longer being available to them. I would ask all those who share these concerns to raise their voices in support of Samaritans at this time, and to do whatever they can to help preserve this service; it seems to me that this is needed more…

BillyChip is a transferable token system that’s been reimagining how people experiencing homelessness can access goods and services across the UK. The public can buy BillyChips at local outlets then donate them to be redeemed for different items, including food and drink, clothing and pet supplies. Jack Gascoigne is communications director at BillyChip and has worked at the social enterprise since its launch: “BillyChip is a way that members of the public, who feel hesitancy towards donating cash to rough sleepers through fear of supporting harmful addictions, can still support. It was set up in memory of my best friend, Billy.” Billy Abernethy-Hope was a non-emergency ambulance driver committed to supporting marginalised communities in Bristol. Having worked directly with people experiencing homelessness, Abernethy-Hope wanted to tackle the culture of people…

Few would say Charlie Sloth lacks self-belief. The North London-born, 44-year-old DJ, producer and broadcaster learnt the ropes on pirate radio, his passion and enthusiasm crackling down the airwaves and establishing him as a vital part of the UK garage and hip-hop scenes. He was among the first wave to harness YouTube’s potential with his DIY series Being Charlie Sloth and became one of the world’s most in-demand hip-hop DJs, with shows on BBC Radio 1, Radio 1Xtra and Apple Music (Charlie Sloth Rap Show) while creating the game-changing freestyle show Fire In The Booth which has featured artists including Stormzy, Dave and Akala. But early on, it took the help of a stranger to give him the belief he needed to realise his ambitions. Anything’s possible “I was homeless…

When I was 16, I was into music and athletics. I was a sprinter and I was in school bands. George Michael was my musical hero – I would stand in front of the mirror with a hairbrush singing Faith. School was tough. I didn’t really listen to what the teacher was saying when I was about eight years of age, and you spend the rest of your life trying to catch up. That’s what happens to kids in school like me. Sometimes when you don’t understand, you’re afraid to put your hand up and say you don’t understand. Then it’s difficult, and you end up falling behind and then you never catch up. So you find other ways to be creative. Then, when I was 16, I joined Boyzone.…

Finding myself with an afternoon to kill in the centre of London, and the tedious daily target of 10,000 steps to complete, I decided to take a walk from Oxford Circus to Holborn, via Soho. Usually, I am running late for something. On this particular day, I took the opportunity to slow down and pay a bit more attention to the city I love. I was born in London and have lived here my whole life but it’s easy to take it for granted. As I ambled through the streets, I thought about the ways in which it had changed over the course of my lifetime: some of the independent shops and cafes I used to love have disappeared, replaced by generic chain stores or iffy-looking vape outlets. Other places…

100-YEAR ANNIVERSARY The enduring allure of the Shipping Forecast Fascination with the weather and love of the sea combine in the Shipping Forecast. As Rob Stepney explains, it is also a honey pot for poets who have both parodied and eulogised it It is 100 years since BBC national radio first broadcast a weather forecast specifically designed for sailors in our coastal waters. Those whose safety depends directly on this service are relatively few. But there is a legion of landlubbers who cherish the Forecast for its hypnotic rhythm and inexplicably evocative sea areas. For Carol Ann Duffy, the Forecast is “the radio’s prayer – Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre”. For WJ Webster, the sea areas are the “ring of odd and yet familiar names/ recited in its stately settled round”.…

DAVID POPA, 19 My name is David Popa. I speak Spanish and Romanian, and a little bit of English. I’ve also been working with Big Issue for two years. Big Issue has helped me a lot with finding a job because before, I didn’t have a job – now I do. Every day, I sell magazines. It’s a pleasure for me. I really enjoy selling them. Before this, my life was normal. I would wake up and either go play football or go to school. But I didn’t have a job, or any organisation to support me. Then, thanks to a friend – someone I knew from a company that helps people find work – I found Big Issue. I’m really happy to have Big Issue’s support and kindness. They’ve…

National Allotment Society (NAS) legal adviser Tyler Harris was coming back from holiday on Sunday 3 August when the representative body was inundated with press enquiries. It’s far from a normal occurrence. Harris’s role is mundane but important. When an allotment plot owner wants to sell a site, he and his colleagues make an assessment and work with the government to approve it. Under the Allotments Act 1925, councils must get approval from the housing, local government and communities secretary, currently Angela Rayner, and statutory allotments can only be sold where absolutely necessary and where the legal threshold is met. “A lot of my day to day is questions from our members about things like: can you look at this tenancy agreement? Cricket balls are flying over into our boundary,”…

My hiatus from work led me to some new ideas for an age-old problem I return after many weeks of absence due to an operation for a new hip, injured on my 79th birthday. I have not had the headspace to write. I have been reduced to physio and reading lots of Maigret detective novels, and trying to sleep through sleepless nights. What should I write about? Probably I should try and stick to my main theme that I left unanswered before my operation: that is ‘the inheritance of poverty’. That we have a vast section of society who, because they inherited poverty from their parents, are themselves stuck in poverty. And that most agencies and individuals working with the results of inherited poverty, with poor health, poor education and…

REVIEWS Feared science I’ve always loved books that blend different genres together, or even ignore genre conventions altogether. This week we have two that do just that to thrilling effect. First up is Ray Nayler’s Where the Axe is Buried. Nayler is an American author most noted for his science fiction, and this second full novel demonstrates elements of speculative fiction, but is also a political thriller, albeit one set in a terrifying near-future. Nayler has spent many years working internationally for the US government in the fields of environmental science and technology, and he brings that breadth of knowledge and experience to this complex, panoramic novel set in various parts of what was once Europe. There are two very different models of political power on display here, each with…

REVIEW Radioactive service When it comes to superhero movies we are currently in the eye of a hurricane. This summer’s emphatic one-two punch of Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps attracted both good reviews and actual audiences with their widescreen fizziness and lovely pops of colour. But it will be almost a year until Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (June 2026) and Spider-Man: Brand New Day (July 2026). Perhaps the looming spandex drought is the perfect time for a more unorthodox hero to commandeer the spotlight? Enter The Toxic Avenger, a freakish but well-meaning do-gooder who has long been trapped in cheerfully obnoxious movies. His origin story is tragic: a weedy, bullied janitor who is deliberately exposed to toxic waste but somehow survives. Being dunked in radioactive funk melts his…

CULT HERO Prine mover There are many musicians whose deaths have floored me, but when John Prine died of Covid-19 in April 2020 I was inconsolable. It felt like a great injustice. Prine had cheated death twice before, having been diagnosed with cancer of the neck in 1997 and lung cancer in 2013; the former altering his voice and appearance dramatically. I’d always appreciated how grateful he seemed in interviews for the small things in life that brought him pleasure – hot dogs, Christmas trees, comic books – and how he managed to balance that frivolity with the most heartbreaking subject matter in his songwriting. I felt like I’d lost a mentor, and judging by the outpouring of grief I found online after his death, I wasn’t alone. Prine was…