Innholdsfortegnelse for 23-5-2016 i The Big Issue

WE BELIEVE in a hand up, not a handout... Which is why our sellers BUY every copy of the magazine from us for £1.25 and sell it on to you for £2.50. In this way we have helped hundreds of thousands of people to take control of their lives since 1991, and in the process created a global blueprint for social change. WE BELIEVE in trade, not aid... Which is why we ask that you ALWAYS take your copy of the magazine – it’s a bloody good read and our sellers are working and need your custom. WE BELIEVE poverty is indiscriminate... Which is why we provide ANYONE whose life is blighted by poverty with the opportunity to earn a LEGITIMATE income. WE BELIEVE in the right to citizenship... Which…

Anthea Reilly wrote in to school us in the finer points of grammar [May 9-15] but these readers don’t think dumbing down is an offence. Dear Anthea, with respect, a ‘decent’ education is a very subjective judgement but you should be grateful you received one. I’m not sure your teachers drilled ‘dumbing down’ into you but that’s okay because surely language develops to include new ideas, evolving contexts and ways to express them. You might also care to ponder on a model for the ‘English’ grammar you mention, given that it is used daily around the world. It’s not ‘our’ language. The article you highlighted communicated a story effectively and, as you spotted, was engaging and that seems to be the point. Innit. B Javes (Mr), email There’s no reason…

CLIVE STANDEN VIKINGS STAR SCUBA DIVING My love of scuba diving grew out of a desire for a hobby I could share with my wife, Francesca. She is an amazing swimmer, I’m not, but diving is a great leveller. That is how we started but it takes over your life. I don’t like to go long without going under the water. Cave diving with great white sharks in South Africa was an exhilarating experience. Sharks aren’t the man-eating monsters Steven Spielberg paints them as in Jaws. They are intelligent and serene. When a great white swims up and you look into its great, dark eyes, it is quite profound. My bucket list includes diving under the ice in the Arctic and seeing a narwhal, and there is a…

THE ACROBATIC SQUIRREL 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 flat and things are cool. With my painting, my thing is humour. The more ridiculous, the better. I loved Monty Python and the whole silliness thing. I think the world is a very silly place and hopefully this comes though in my pictures.” BUY STREET ART! You can buy prints of some artworks featured in Street Art through The Big Issue Shop. At least half of the profit from each sale goes to the artist. Order at shop.bigissue.com UNDER THE BRIDGE BY STEVE D’BEARD Black Space (eyes without a face)…

Twenty years ago French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio discovered the sunken Egyptian cities of Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion, submerged for over a thousand years in the waters off Alexandria. Colossal statues to the gods, everyday objects, riches and treasures were uncovered, revealing new insights to the links between mighty ancient civilisations in Egypt and Greece. Immerse yourself in their extraordinary stories at the British Museum’s new exhibition. Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds , until November 27; britishmuseum.org…

This year’s Best Picture winner at the Oscars, Spotlight, focused on child abuse by priests, and the Catholic Church’s attempts to cover up the scandal. Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson, played by Michael Keaton in the film, won a Pulitzer Prize for the work his team did at The Boston Globe. At a time when newspapers are haemorrhaging readers and staff (though The Big Issue is bucking the trend, reporting a year on year increase in sales over 2015), Robinson talks about the legacy of the investigation and how the consequences of a weakened press are being played out in the presidential campaign… The Big Issue : Your investigation into priests in Boston found that six per cent of them had abused children. Is that a figure applicable across other parts…

Hot pot The lady who has to live in a tent [May 9-15] should invert an earthenware flower pot over the lit candle. The pot will trap most of the soot particles and will act as a source of heat. I believe this technique was used in World War Two for heating Anderson air-raid shelters. Brian Lawrence, Kent Scary to think that the loss of a job often leads to the loss of a home and in a number of cases homelessness. It’s even scarier to think you’d be considered lucky to pitch up a tent in woodland to stay close to family. Ash Banks, Facebook Celebrating vendors Shout out to the lad who sells The Big Issue outside Tesco in Wine Street, Bristol, by the big tree. He’s there…

Like a massive hovering zeppelin, the EU Referendum debate blocks light and eclipses everything. Guessing the next turn is like one of those kids’ adventure books that jump around the narrative according to which page the reader fancies next. You sense there is order but it’s not keen on revealing itself. Day to day things become MUCH more curious than any fiction. Ukip, the group who really brought about the Referendum, are beginning to fight like cats in a sack. At the very moment when their life’s work reaches its great crescendo, Nigel Farage attacks both Douglas Carswell, their only MP, and Neil Hamilton, their new, self-appointed leader in Wales. The agencies for Leave are showing more signs of splitting than a Monty Python sketch. On the other side, Benedict…

Isn’t it high time the inefficient and bureaucratic benefits system was replaced by the Citizens’ Basic Income, paid to all irrespective of status? The current system can actually inhibit people from trying out different types of work, whether temporary, part-time or self-employed. I’m qualified in several fields of work but I’m nearing 65 and due to various circumstances and ageism I’ve ended up doing a multitude of temporary jobs. I for one would have welcomed the continuity and stability of a basic income – rather than suffer the frustration of the long-winded procedures for receiving benefits when in between jobs. Not only is the whole signing-on process expensive and inflexible, the stigma involved is totally unacceptable in the 21st century A guaranteed basic income paid to all adults irrespective of…

Trump may get in. But will that be the end of western civilisation as we know it? When president-elect Andrew Jackson got in in 1829 he invited all of America to come to his inauguration. Thousands came and stood on chairs and so rubbished the White House that from then on it was ‘invite only’. Jackson was considered a rough-hewn outsider, a frontiersman, a bit of a Donald Trump. Though without the property portfolio. The seventh president did some big things, not dissimilar to building walls to keep people out, as advocated by Trump. He had before his presidency annexed without congressional approval Florida; because “slaves and Indians were holed up” there. As president he moved thousands of Native American Indians wholesale in order to give their land to white…

At 16 I really felt I was connecting to the world of ideas. It was around then English literature exploded in my head. I was listening to David Bowie and John Lennon, in the time of the four-day week, the Heath government, the huge polarising of the have and have-nots – I became quite politicised. I learned about social injustice, power, privilege, moral responsibilities. I was really on a journey of connecting to the world. I remember that time viscerally, I can go straight back. We never lose an age, we carry them all in us our whole lives. It was at 16 I saw my first Shakespeare play. Five actors in T-shirts and jeans came to our school and did a cut-down version of King Lear. I walked into…

“My tutor was lovely, encouraging and offered me great constructive criticism.” Do you fancy a challenge? What about the chance to make some money, get VIP access to major sporting and cultural events, or free holidays abroad? How would you like to look in the mirror and say, “Yeah – I did it!” Well then, writing might be just up your street. People have some funny ideas about writing. As a profession, it’s not just for ‘special’ folk. Anyone can do it. If you love words, and stories, and you’re not afraid of hard work, that’s all you need. For the last 27 years The Writers Bureau has been helping new writers get started in the business. Writers like Louise Kennedy, who struck gold when she started blogging about her…

Steven MacKenzie overlooked one important point in his wonderful interview with Ken Dodd [May 9-15]. Doddy is able to hold his audiences for hours without ever resorting to swearing, crudeness or malice. He once said: “The ‘Greats’ never swore. It’s not very articulate to start swearing. If you can’t get your point over without skill and words, I wouldn’t bother.” This was in an online article ages ago and was in stark contrast to Ewan McGregor’s interview in the previous week’s Big Issue [May 2-8]. Now I’m not comparing Ewan with the Squire of Knotty Ash, they’re both wonderful men who’ve made huge contributions to our national culture, but this set me wondering why we as a society have become so inarticulate that once-taboo words are now common currency, in…

BIG BREAKFAST A 13-year-old who has been using his pocket money to buy breakfast for two rough sleepers every morning has become a media sensation. Hamish Anderson, from Bristol, stops on his way to school to buy a bacon and a sausage sandwich from Princes Pantry Cafe for homeless men Philip and Stuart. “I started because I kept walking past these men and one day I asked one of them what they had eaten for breakfast, and he said he didn’t really eat breakfast and that made me sad. Philip has a dog and sometimes I buy an extra sandwich for him,” Hamish told the Bristol Post. “It makes me angry at the government, that they aren’t doing more to help.” Hamish also raised £90 from a sponsored head shave,…

“I don’t know why they call it ‘rough sleeping’ because you don’t sleep” The smell of urine kept wafting over me as I wrestled to find a comfortable position on the hard floor. I tried to tuck the scarf that I’d pulled over my eyes over my nose as well so I could escape the putrid stench. Piss never smells good. Certainly not when it’s been fermenting for God knows how long in a passageway. This, though, is the least of your problems when you’re a rough sleeper. I recently took part in a documentary – Famous, Rich and Homeless – for Sport Relief on BBC One, highlighting the issue of homelessness, which meant sleeping rough for a week. I’m not pretending I know everything about this ever-growing problem after…

“You have to work against the sense you’re losing value as you get older” Robert James Campbell was a photographer in New York in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He captured a city coming of age, as well as some legendary musicians like Dave Brubeck and Chuck Berry, before a series of misfortunes left him homeless, forgotten. He died in 2002 in a Vermont homeless shelter, leaving behind a massive and chaotic cache of photographic negatives and prints. Those were discovered by Jessica Ferber , who explains how she pieced together Campbell’s story… After Bob died I met with the property manager of the apartment that he was living in and picked up about six to eight huge cardboard boxes full of photos. I had…

RUSSIA AND UKRAINE Today, it is tremendously important to look at things in a sober and balanced way. We need to remember that there are global challenges and interests common to all mankind, problems that it will be impossible to solve if the leading powers in the world fail to co-operate. In other words, it is time to turn again to the basic postulates of the New Thinking we proposed to the world when tensions between East and West were at their height. I have to admit that I did not anticipate the events that are severely testing not only the relationship between Russia and Ukraine but also the prospects for global politics in general, and which could bring the world to the brink of a major disaster. Everything I…

1. BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ Alfred Döblin A radical slant on people and place at the end of the 1920s, and the slide into fascism, told via the heartrending story of homicidal romantic Franz Biberkopf – petty criminal and chump. A great city novel. 2. BLACK LIST, SECTION H Francis Stuart Stuart, a renegade, poet and dreamer, fled repressive Ireland for the ambiguities and comparative fleshpots of Hitler’s Berlin, recalled here in his autobiographical novel. Drift and transgression were his guiding stars, and the Berlin section on life in wartime is unparalleled. 3. FUNERAL IN BERLIN Len Deighton Hipper than Le Carré, Deighton came up with pop-art titles (Horse Under Water) where Le Carré’s did what it said on the tin (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold). Even with an…

Get ready for sides to split and chortles to ensue, as plans are afoot to resurrect the Carry On films. Quite how they’ll work in an era where innuendo has given way to japes about genitals remains to be seen but the writing team behind Two Pints of Lager are working on Carry on Campus and Carry on Doctors. The first of the new films is due next year. Warner Bros must have been checking out the comments under YouTube Suicide Squad trailers. The character of Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, see below) has been attracting the most, er, ‘discussion’. She’s now set to headline her own film full of DC’s female heroes and villains, with the Birds of Prey and Batgirl also…

The Isle of Wight is one of Blighty’s best-loved festivals with a history that reaches back over 45 years to the counter-cultural heyday of the late 1960s and the 1970 festival immortalised on film. And this year’s line-up lives up to its legendary status with The Who, Queen, Faithless and Stereophonics headlining, alongside a stellar bill of stars past, present and future. The festival runs June 9-12 on the sunny Isle of Wight, accessible by ferry services from Southampton, Portsmouth, Lymington and Southsea. As well as the fantastic line-up on the main stage, there’s a huge variety of additional entertainment and fabulous eating and drinking spots throughout the site. Weekend tickets start at £195 each. We have five pairs to be won. Plus one very lucky winner will receive a…