Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2015 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 over the past 23 years, 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…

Last week a gang of angry people attacked a café in London. Bridling against what they claimed was a symbol of gentrification of parts of the city, they collected around the Cereal Killers Café on Brick Lane, chanting and throwing paint. The café is a wheeze, really. It charges up to a fiver for a bowl of cereal. When I heard details of the attack I wanted to get a bit Roy Keane on the rioters – to stand, slightly frothing at the mouth, inviting the bully-boys to come on ahead. Not that that would have helped. But still, everything about the attack was bogus. I like grassroots activism. Take, for example, the New Era housing protest. Residents of the London estate, who lived there for years meeting their rents…

It’s easy to relate to species that have two arms, two legs, fingers and thumbs, such as apes, chimps and bonobos, who share a common ancestry and whom we can teach basic signing to ‘talk’ with us. Although this doesn’t bring safety to the species from poaching for bush meat or to supply Chinese medicines, it does help us in the West relate to the creatures and recognise them as sentient beings. It helps us to empathise with their plight. But what about dolphins? Their complex language at least equals our own. Their intricate social structures are integral to its well-being. And without arms and hands and fingers, they’ve only been taught to respond to commands when they could have had their utterances studied to reveal the exact nature of…

At 16 I was in Chicago. I played ice hockey, I played the flute, I was a pretty handy amateur boxer, and I was a dancer – getting ready for my world title shot (at the World Irish Dancing Championships). I was a very competitive person. I was determined to be the first American-born person to win it. And when I was 17 I did. After school I worked in my dad’s construction business. Most of my life outside school was digging ditches and labouring. I was a big daydreamer too. But digging ditches taught me an invaluable lesson about respecting men who work for a living, and about the value of the pound. How hard it is to win it and then keep it. My parents came from Ireland…

5:00 AM JEFF KNIGHT (PICTURED ABOVE) BRISTOL (CLIFTON TRIANGLE) I like getting out on the streets early. It’s a habit from my days being on the streets all night, sleeping rough, even though I have someone to stay with at the moment. I’ll be out there at 5am, and I’ll start selling the magazine to catch the kind of people around very early in the morning. It’s good to get a smile and a “Good morning”. That gets the day started. 6:30 AM JANET BOWERS BOURNEMOUTH (M&S, WESTBOURNE) I get up at 6.30am. I’ve got three young children, aged 11, nine and five years old. I’ll make their breakfast and pack their lunchbox with sandwiches. Then it’s time to get them off to school. The kids have moved schools three…

1. FIGHTERS IN THE SHADOWS Robert Gildea An accessible evaluation of resistance in France, demonstrating that it was the dispossessed – communists, Jews, immigrants and women – who opposed the Germans. 2. OPERATION SUICIDE Robert Lyman This book tells the story of a bunch of heroes who paddled up the Gironde into Bordeaux in December 1942, in homemade canvas canoes, to sink enemy shipping. 3. INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH Robert Lyman Likewise, who would think of stuffing an old destroyer with explosives and sailing it into the German docks at St Nazaire in order to prevent the Tirpitz from using it as a bolt hole? My book tells the story of this crazy venture. 4. ROAD OF BONES Fergal Keane The tiny band of brothers who held the tiny…

‘Most people can be taught to write for publication,’ claims Susan Busby, Head of Britain’s largest writing college, ‘as long as they want to write, are willing to learn and put in the time and effort required. Our students prove that. They come from all walks of life and have very different educational backgrounds. Yet, after studying with us many will see their name in print for the first time.’ The Creative Writing course offered by The Writers Bureau covers all genres – articles, short stories, novels, books, scripts etc. so students get a chance to explore all types of writing to find where their interests and talents lie. Students also receive individual, personal tuition from a professional writer who gives guidance on style, technique and marketing. ‘The course gives…

With so many celebrities going vegan', it's rarely out of the news. Comedian Frankie Boyle is the latest in a line who include David Haye the boxer and Serena Williams the tennis player, while Miley Cyrus and Beyonce have publicly gone vegan'. Peter Siddle, the test cricketer, is a another high-profile plant-based athlete - and snooker is full of them, with Ronnie O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson and Peter Ebdon all now vegan. Or are they? What does vegan actually mean? Is it a dietary choice - where people choose not to consume animal products? Or is it a lifestyle choice where people choose not to wear animal products, use toiletries tested on animals and refrain from going to circuses? In fact, vegan' is more than a diet, and even more than…

Pub politics Some people wrongly say the Corbynistas could not balance the books. Take their ordinary people-based democracy further: replace quiz night at the Nags Head with ‘energy policy night’ and I’m sure they could come up with something as good or better than George Osborne for a fraction of the cost. The House of Lords role could be taken by chill-out rooms at nightclubs. Chris, email @jdarrochriley @Damian_Barr @BigIssue [September 21-27] Excellent piece, nuanced and compassionate. Hope Corbyn can make some change for the good but share all those fears Number-one read I recently purchased a copy of The Big Issue on a rare trip to London. I read it from cover to cover on the way home – it was a great read! I wanted to thank you…

CALL ME MOTHER? Band of Gold and Mona Lisa star Cathy Tyson appears as a homeless woman in a new play inspired by a Big Issue vendor. Playwright Michelle Inniss bought the magazine regularly from a vendor at London Bridge station in 2007. One day, just after Michelle’s mother died, the vendor noticed she was unhappy and comforted her. The play, She Called Me Mother, is an imagining of that woman’s situation (London, October 8–November 21). Read an interview with Cathy and Michelle at bigissue.com. SUR-PURR-ISE! Talented twosome James Bowen and Street Cat Bob made a special guest appearance in London, helping Big Issue vendors sell the magazine to hordes of surprised fans who flocked to meet them and snap up copies of our special Bob Issue. James (and Bob)…

Last week’s enthusiasm for the new leader reminded me of 1975, when young people flooded into the party and began to transform it, giving it new blood and a new sense of what was possible. It was amazing seeing the scenes and the sense that at last the new leader was a personality, not something knocked up at some political leadership manufacturing unit, somewhere up the M1, on a secretive industrial estate. Last week’s conference also was not unlike 1997, after Blair had won, and people were saying how real he was. But if Blair was real then it would seem that Corbyn is now realer. But it is echoes of 1975 that produce the overwhelming sense of déjà vu when you realise how many people insisted that the new…

70,000 social enterprises in the UK – trading for people and planet! The Big Issue launched 24 years ago as one of the UK’s first and foremost social enterprises. Back then, the phrase ‘social enterprise’ wasn’t even a recognised business term. Today, more than 70,000 social enterprises across the UK create great products and services, ploughing profits into supporting communities. While customers who ‘buy social’ get a feel-good factor, social enterprise is a serious business: last month the Cabinet Office reported they regularly outperform mainstream small-to-medium enterprises and are a growing force as employers – often in the most deprived communities. The Big Issue is one of Britain’s best known social enterprises but they are all around us, from the Eden Project in Cornwall to the Kelvin Valley Honey farm…

It’s not a scene outside last week’s Labour Party conference but a snapshot from the coronation of King George VI – our current Queen’s dad – in 1937, with one onlooker apparently a little tired amid all the excitement. This image is one of 50 photographs taken by celebrated photographer and Magnum photo agency founder Henri Cartier-Bresson. Peter Fetterman – who worked with the artist for more than a decade – is bringing the masterpieces together at the Fine Art Society in London. Henri Cartier-Bresson, Decisive Moments , Fine Art Society, London, October 6-29; faslondon.com…

Hello. How are you? I’m good. I just want to say I’m a huge fan of The Big Issue. I live just outside Bath so whenever I go into town I always buy it. Hopefully you’ll be buying this one since you’re in it! But at the moment you’re not in Bath but preparing a play in London. What does the ‘Ticking’ of its title refer to? Ticking time going by. It’s about the meeting of a dysfunctional family – two parents have come to see their only son who is on death row in an Asian prison. It’s almost like a thriller because we’re waiting for a reprieve on what could be his last night. So that throws up lots of emotions. He is asking questions about us, our…

LAUNCH September 1991 John Bird and Gordon Roddick launch The Big Issue in London as a monthly street paper with a circulation of 30,000, in response to a growing homelessness crisis. 1992-93 The Big Issue expands across the UK. Distribution outlets open in Manchester, Bristol, the Midlands, Wales and Scotland. Cult status is confirmed in 1994 when Oasis namedrop The Big Issue in hit single Supersonic. The track names Elsa, who is “sniffin’ in her tissue/sellin’ The Big Issue”. The Stone Roses break their media silence in The Big Issue in 1994 to announce hugely anticipated album, The Second Coming. George Michael chooses The Big Issue to give his first interview in six years, in 1996, talking openly about dope, death and his sexuality. 1998 TBI gets the royal seal…

I read The Big Issue and find more sense in the half-page from the editor and other thought-provoking articles, particularly John Bird, than the spin of my daily newspaper. Currently, Corbyn and the far left of the Labour Party are expounding the call of the ‘workers’ to tax the rich and spread wealth to the poor, yet many trade union members are well paid and could be taxed more. Unfortunately, increased tax revenue is more likely to be taken by well-paid administrators with pennies passing to the poor. Our government is cutting back on admin paid by tax revenue, to encourage enterprise and reward all who wish to work. Benefit should only be paid to those who can’t work, though recent assessments have been too simplistic and loss of benefit…

I have an 18-wheeler motorhome that I built more than 30 years ago. It is like a caravan but the size of a house! I was fascinated by pictures in magazines of big trucks from America that I saw as a kid, where they’d move wooden houses on top of a truck. I built it with a friend. I had no international career and had only done a few things in Holland, so I didn’t have much reason to build a motorhome. But my friend had Hodgkin’s disease, so we started on this project partly to take his mind off it. He died two years later and I had to finish the truck on my own, which was tough. I vowed to make it strong and solid. Over the years,…

James Campbell has been sleeping rough since May when he left his home in Kettering to look for work. He has been selling The Big Issue in Scotland and keeping a diary of his experiences. Here is his third chapter... Later Today G, N and me have got to find another skipper for tonight. Where we normally stay has workmen sorting out the roof so we need to find a temporary place (just like regular folk eh!). No sign of N, so me ‘n G go off to a place that G knows, and hopefully will get a good night’s kip. As per usual is it fuck. So we’re getting settled for the evening. There is light and I have a book, G has a bottle of cider, which is…

LONDON Lexi Cinema, Kensal Rise (pictured): Divine Chocolate welcome The Big Issue, Papi’s Pickles, Old Spike Roastery, Fikay Fashion, Good Beans Coffee, Grow Up Urban Farms, SOAK Shakes and more. RISE Gallery, Croydon: networking, talks and Pop Art. New Cross Nursery, Lewisham: art created by under-5s from London Early Years Foundation, with From Babies With Love. NORTH Keswick to Manchester Bike Social Ride: Jason Norris of The Soap Co, Keswick, and Jeremy Robinson of CLARITY, London, cycle for social enterprise. Eccles Shopping Mall, Salford: launch of Incredible Edible Salford Trail, with free food! SOUTH Devonport Guildhall, Plymouth: meet the good guys at Plymouth Social Enterprise Market. WALES Dolwyddelan School Field: social enterprises join the community fun day.…

Daniel Craig’s James Bond adventures won’t be over once Spectre is released. The current 007 has revealed that he’s on board for at least one more film, and possibly more. Classic Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is getting a remake. Er, this time it’s going to be an urban crime thriller set in the 1980s, though. John Ford, John Wayne and James Stewart must be quietly sobbing somewhere. Ridley Scott has revealed that the title of the Prometheus sequel is to be Alien: Paradise Lost. Furthermore, Scott also confirmed that he plans to direct Prometheus 3 and Prometheus 4 himself. The Jack Ryan franchise is heading to the small screen. Amazon Prime has done a deal to resurrect the character for a TV series. Finally, Bridget Jones is…

Just like emoticons and widening equality gaps, the rampant Christmasification of the months preceding the festive season seems to be an inescapable condition of modern life in the commercial West. But supermarket managers and advertising agents haven’t been the only people with carols on their mind recently. Many in the choral world have been humming the odd yuletide song, though less in hungry anticipation than fond admiration. For one of the great champions of quality Christmas music, Sir David Willcocks, died on September 17, aged 95. The name David Willcocks might not ring bells if you’ve not done much singing (of the churchy type, at least) but you will probably have heard his harmonious handiwork. He compiled, edited and contributed his own compositions to the seminal collection of Christmas songs,…