Innholdsfortegnelse for 26-9-2016 i The Big Issue

WE BELIEVE in a hand up, not a handout... Which is why our sellers BUY every copy of the magazine for £1.25 and sell it for £2.50 WE BELIEVE in trade, not aid… Which is why we ask you to ALWAYS take your copy of the magazine. 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 is why The Big Issue Foundation, our charitable arm, helps sellers tackle social and financial exclusion. WE BELIEVE in prevention… Which is why Big Issue Invest offers backing and investments to social enterprises, charities and businesses which deliver social value to communities.…

As a message, it bears repeating. Always take the magazine. It feels like a curious mantra, an odd thing to say, especially in the magazine when, if you’re reading this, chances are you have already taken the magazine. But it is absolutely core to The Big Issue. And messages are passed from source through a thousand different social tributaries. Always take the magazine. Last week we launched a new campaign with this message. A film, fronted by gentleman and comedian Seann Walsh, set about busting myths around The Big Issue, reaffirming why we’re here and building to the same conclusion – always take the magazine. The Big Issue was established just shy of 25 years ago – and you’re going to be hearing about THAT landmark very soon. John Bird…

“Prisoners. Well, they deserve all they get, don’t they? Why support lads who’ve broken the law? My son’s a good boy but he can’t find work. Why don’t you sort him first? Why give them special help?” Why indeed? Life’s a game of snakes and ladders. We all play it. The snakes are: bereavement, debt, divorce, redundancy, miscarriage, illness, you name it. But usually we have something – education, experience, friends, families – to help us back up the ladder. Now imagine a different life. There’s nobody and nothing there for you. Just more snakes – theft, gangs, addiction, violence, prison. No hope. “But why do they need extra help? Prisoners have it too easy.” From day one we must equip prisoners to lead lawful, useful lives outside. Prison itself…

“Let the Blairs of tomorrow use their incredible skills in climbing to the top of multinationals” If you look at the fall of the youngish political leaders of left, right and centre who seemed set to turn into the new versions of Harold Wilson or Edward Heath, seemingly perennial sages in parliament, then their declines might be seen as tragedies. They are now spent forces. The Eds and Daves, you might call them, collectively fell on their own swords. The god or goddess of hubris cut them down in their supposed prime; leaving two older people to jump at their unexpected opportunities. Theresa May seemed out of the running up until Brexit, and Jeremy Corbyn just did not seem a player in any leadership game. And then you turn around…

The mid-century diplomat Sir Harold Nicolson believed the British people were “by nature peaceful and kindly… sleepy, decent”. The myth is buried deep, affecting almost every effort to define the national characteristic. George Orwell wrote about noticing the “gentle” manners of the British. Noel Coward spoke about our “integral sense of fair play”. Mick Jagger sang about “sleepy London town” being no place for a street fighting man. We seem to enjoy hearing this about ourselves; that we are tolerant, slow to anger, innately inclined against violence. Perhaps it is why we are so shocked by outpourings of hatred, and so prone to believing the country must be in decline, heading towards ruin, having lost our gentle spirit somewhere along the way. The summer of 2016 has provided enough material…

There is only one way to start a conversation with Justin Fletcher. “Hello, hello, how are you?” He laughs, with a warmth that is as rosy as his cheeks. “Of course! The old Hello song, a lovely icebreaker.” For over a decade the Hello song has introduced Something Special, the sensation of CBeebies, which stars Fletcher as himself, but also as the bumbling Mr Tumble and countless Tumble relatives (Aunt Polly is a particular favourite). The show has won him three Baftas and endless repeats bring in 1.9 million viewers each week. Johnny Depp has been spotted in the audience of one of Fletcher’s live shows, and last year he received an honorary degree from the University of Dundee. This is Justin’s world – we just live in it. A…

I love The Big Issue – it was the best read in London and I always stopped to buy one – it’s a very simple and effective idea that empowers thousands of homeless people across the country. The reason I love it is because it educates, it is inclusive and connecting – EDUCATION is what we need to create change on all these issues, including homelessness, addiction and mental health illness. Great vid. Amy Rebours, Facebook I’m definitely guilty of telling them to keep the mag, thinking I’m doing them a favour. Ryan Grogan, Facebook I have the utmost respect for Big Issue sellers. These are the homeless people we should be giving our money to. They are not begging but trying to actually make a living for themselves and…

HOMELESS HERO IN NEW JERSEY New Jersey homeless man Lee Parker helped stop carnage when he found a backpack of bombs on September 18. Parker drew police officers’ attention to explosive devices allegedly planted by Ahmad Khan Rahami (charged with planting bombs in several locations in New Jersey and New York City). “Under the so-called hero’s cape, I’m just a regular dude,” said Parker. A GoFundMe page set up as a thank you has reached almost $25,000. TASTES LIKE HOME The social entrepreneur behind Scotland’s ground-breaking Social Bite chain has opened an upmarket restaurant with a mission. Josh Littlejohn hopes that Home, located in Edinburgh city centre, will help provide skills training and work experience to homeless people, and diners will be encouraged to ‘pay forward’ meals for rough sleepers…

Growing up, I had a library tan – skin as pale as pages, freckles foxing a face I was careful to keep cast down. Your eyes are more likely to get blacked if the bullies see their faces reflected back. Long before I knew I liked boys, I preferred books to football. The one time I joined in I scored straight away only to learn, as my team ran at me, it was an own goal. “Never mind, Professor,” my mum said. Within a week of moving up a class at Keir Hardie Memorial Primary School I’d hungry caterpillar my way through the book corner. Luckily we got weekly visits from the big yellow mobile library, its suspension springing as I jumped on. Even parked by the school gates this…

When I was 16 it was 1983, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister and unemployment was more than three million. I thought Thatcherism was cruel and heartless and why should young people pay that price. My main preoccupations were Norwich City football club and trying to do well in my A-levels. I originally wanted to do medicine but it turned out I had a problem with blood; we went out sledging once and I cut my hand, passed out at the sight of blood and had to be carried home. So that was the end of my career as a doctor. I was turned on to economics by a very good teacher, Peter Baker, who taught us about politics and economics. I had always been interested in politics but that year…

When I was a journalist writing about climate change, no one would listen. I’d written about all the worst things that were going to happen to us and it didn’t seem to be making any difference. But when you talk about food then people listen. I started thinking about only eating animals I’d killed myself in January 2014 but didn’t actually do it till a few months later because I bottled it. I didn’t want to shoot an animal. But people were fascinated and that’s when I knew I was on to something. It wasn’t really about species when I was choosing the animals. It was about whether I could kill them humanely and well. It was also about flavour. I really enjoy rabbit so after I shot my first…

Having retreated down the woods to a cabin in Wisconsin to make his much-storied and celebrated 2007 indie-folk debut For Emma, Forever Ago, Justin Vernon (AKA Bon Iver) has on the face of things withdrawn up his own fundament to create this third album – the strange, mysterious and occasionally sublime 22, A Million. Featuring tracks with such subeditortrolling symbols and numbers-obsessed titles as 22 (OVER S ∞∞ N), 715 - CR ƩƩ KS and ____45_____, most of them slathered in enough Auto-Tune-as-instrument trickery to correct even Simon Le Bon at Live Aid, it’s an album that could be practically custom-made to rub people up the wrong way. That’s even before you get to the random chipmunk-tuned Paolo Nutini sample on 33 “GOD”, various free jazz burps and burbles, and…

I began a project as a way of investigating assumptions and stereotypes placed upon us by others. I am intrigued by how people perceive themselves and what they think others assume about them, based on their appearance alone. I began the project by photographing Chelsea Pensioners in the barracks and then moved on to Sloane Square, where I photographed this man selling The Big Issue. I ask my subjects, ‘What do people assume about you, based on your appearance?’ and they write their response on a white board, which I then photograph. This Big Issue seller was keen to tell me that he didn’t take drugs but he was aware that people often assumed that he did and this prevented them from buying his magazine. There is no value in…

I’ve always collected things other people don’t want. It is kind of an anti-art collection. I could never collect art worth a lot of money, so in the 1980s I began buying the art you could get from Woolies, Boots or the Freemans catalogue: Tretchikoff, the big-eyed kids, JH Lynch. The rule was they should never cost more than £1. I ended up with the world’s biggest collection. I have 1,740. Our office at Red or Dead was plastered floor to ceiling. I’d also buy mail order catalogues from jumble sales in the ’80s. All the blokes posing – it may be their only time, their big modelling moment in a catalogue that no longer exists. I still buy copies of defunct magazines with hand-drawn ads. I now co-own a…

OH! BY MARY VALLELY Mary studied art and design for five years in college and has been working as an artist in London for 10 years, selling and exhibiting work through Café Art and Crisis. “Art helps with my depression. I have a history of homelessness and use day centres to access art materials. Without these I would be unable to create my work. I love using colour, it helps my mood. The sadder I am, the more colour comes out – the pain becomes beautiful.” WAIT BY JACQUI BEERE “I’ve had an interest in art and creative writing since school,” says Jacqui, who has experience of mental health services and is a member of the LGBT community. She studied art and design at college and has a degree in…

“When Alex Ferguson gives you advice you should take it. He told me to stay fit but I didn’t” As she watched her father-in-law Stan taken by Alzheimer’s, artist Vanessa Jayne captured the heartbreak of this terrible disease that impacts increasingly on families across Britain. Last year 850,000 cases were reported in the UK. This “intensely intimate” and very moving portrait was painted over six months as she visited him daily during his time in a care home: “I tried to show the impact of this condition, who we are without memories, and to illustrate the emotional pain caused by this battle that so many people have to live with.” The painting of Stan, who died in September 2014 aged 86, has been named the public vote winner in National…

MONUMENTAL STICKS OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB British artist David Shrigley is known for thumbing his nose at convention. He recently unveiled Memorial, a 17-foot tall shopping list (“…carrots, sausages, paper towels…”) in New York’s Central Park. And his next commission will be equally monumental: a 10-foot bronze sculpture of a thumbs-up, which will adorn the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square from this week. Titled Really Good, Shrigley suggested it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy, making London a better place. “Obviously it’s nonsense. But I’ve suddenly, in a funny sort of way, come to believe it might be true,” he says.…

1. PRIMARY COLORS Anonymous This book by an anonymous political correspondent follows the fortunes of a charismatic American presidential candidate who can’t keep his hands off the ladies (remind you of anyone?). A brilliant insight into the cesspool that American politics has become. 2. ROGUE NATION Alan Clements The Scots vote narrowly for independence, only to find the books don’t balance and they have to rent out the nuclear base at Faslane to the Russians. A topical little thriller that hasn’t had the attention it deserves. 3. THE GHOST Robert Harris A ghost-writer flies to a secluded compound in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, to help an ex-British prime minister complete his memoirs, only to find he’s in for more than he bargained. 4. SNOWDROPS AD Miller Snowdrops are what Russians call…

From the mind of Ryan Murphy (creator of Glee and American Horror Story), Scream Queens is shiny, gory, ridiculous and wickedly funny. A mysterious Red Devil killer wreaks havoc at Wallace University’s Kappa Kappa Tau sorority, putting every pledge on edge. Anyone could be the murderer – or the next victim. The university dean Cathy Munsch, who forces Kappa’s tyrannical fashionista president Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts) to accept anyone who wants to join the sorority, is played by Jamie Lee Curtis, star of John Carpenter horror classic Halloween, and the original silver screen’s ‘scream queen’ in Prom Night. With series two on the way, all 13 outrageous episodes from season one are collected on this DVD box-set, packed with extras and released this week. Send your answers with SCREAM QUEENS…