Innholdsfortegnelse for October 19, 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…

Tax credits could change everything. At present, the discontent over the upcoming in-work credits cut is bubbling. However, it shows no sign of simmering down. The reasons are clear. There is a desire by the government to bring down the cost of welfare. They argue it’s too high and that focus must be on removing people from dependency and into employment. There is, of course, merit to this argument. The bill is high and the positive benefits of work go well beyond simple financial reward. This is not an uncommon point of view. The government claims that their move to slash in-work assistance is mitigated by their push to introduce a higher threshold before tax is deducted, and a higher minimum wage. Which is great, if it were all true.…

Let me be honest, being visually impaired makes life more difficult than for other people my age – 18. Activities such as school, work and recreation are more challenging as few are tailored for us. So to find a sport that gives us the chance to be part of an active community, to be leaders and compete around the world, is invaluable. In 2010, along with my brother, I took up Goalball – a team sport specifically for the blind and visually impaired – never expecting that barely two years later I’d have the privilege of competing in the Paralympic Games in London. As I studied for my A levels, my family, teammates and the wider Goalball UK community were there to support me. RNIB research shows that 42.8 per…

I have very warm feelings towards my younger self but I really wouldn’t want to be him again. My overriding feeling, all the time, was embarrassment – about what I wore, my hair, my spots. I was obsessed with my height because I didn’t think I would be as tall as I wanted to be. I was right. I was so pleased when I bought my first jeans, aged 16. But I got home and realised they were bell-bottoms, which had just gone out of fashion. Drainpipes, as we called them, had just come in so I was swimming against the tide of not just fashion but my entire generation. I really wasn’t one of the cool kids. I felt like a reject from a Mel Brooks Western. I would…

Doesn’t time fly – especially when you have a time machine? Wednesday, October 21, 2015, has been declared Back to the Future Day as it was this date that Marty McFly and his DeLorean travelled to in the second part of the film series made in 1989. The future as Hollywood imagined, with hoverboards and self-tying shoelaces, has yet to materialise but the rise in plastic surgery, flatscreen TVs and the influence of Asian economies ensures there are at least some elements Marty will recognise when he materialises at some point on Wednesday. Back to the Future 30th Anniversary Trilogy is out now on DVD and Blu-ray…

Terror comes in all shapes and sizes. This week’s column looks at two books that can both be described as terrifying, yet one is fiction and the other non-fiction. One is set on land, the other mostly at sea. One is set in the past, the other in the present. One thing that does link them is a sense of impending doom from the opening page, testament to the subtle skill of both writers. First up let’s look at William Gay’s Little Sister Death . From the sinister title and a front cover that resembles the classic Hammer House of Horror-style of the 1970s, you know you’re in horror fiction territory here – but this is a long way from the schlock-fest that many think of when considering the genre.…

Is moaning therapeutic? Yeah it is. And on top of that it’s productive. Stuff gets done from people moaning. I bet out of all the dwarfs that knocked about with Snow White, Grumpy would have done the most work. If you did some kind of pie chart on work put in, Grumpy would have the biggest slice. Is it a very British thing to visit some of the most incredible places in the world and still find something to complain about? You’re talking about me during the filming of An Idiot Abroad there. I don’t just moan for the sake of it. If you’ve seen Moaning of Life, I’m loving it most of the time. I moaned when I visited the Wonders of the World because I don’t enjoy that…

The traditional song recital format isn’t faring too well. It’s considered unfashionable, anachronistic even. Perhaps this is because, in a modern, sensationalist society, we’ve come to value the spectacular over the subtle in our aesthetic experiences. Perhaps audiences – so used to mediation through technology, whether instrumental or electronic – feel uncomfortable with the unparalleled directness of expression offered by a solo singer. Or perhaps the emotional intensity produced by this intimacy is too much for our modern British reservedness. Whatever the cause, this neglect is a real shame. Art song, at its best, is a genre that offers a unique musical experience, a perfect marriage of words and music. Language and music are very different means of expression, and their thoughtful combination in any genre can be devastatingly powerful.…

To enter, simply email competitions@bigissue.com with the subject line BOND LETTERS, also including your name and address in the email. Closing date is October 27. Include OPT OUT on your entry if you do not wish to receive future information or updates from The Big Issue Magazine. We will not pass your details to any third party. Only one entry per competition is accepted, multiple entries will be disqualified along with any submitted via agencies or third parties. For more than 50 years James Bond – Ian Fleming’s creation – has been part of the modern psyche. The Man With the Golden Typewriter: Ian Fleming’s James Bond Letters tells the story of the man who wrote the novels, and how he created spy fiction’s most compelling hero. In 1952 Fleming…

Bird is flying I was delighted to see that John Bird has been given a life peerage. He will be a great asset to the House of Lords. Many congratulations! Juliet Chaplin, Sutton @gagliani @BigIssue Founder becomes Lord Bird – well done & massively deserved honour. Put poverty at heart of political decision making. Goodbye Kevin I wanted to say a big thank you to Kevin, the Devonshire Row vendor whom I’ve been buying The Big Issue from for about a year now. It is with sadness I had to say farewell today as I’m moving jobs and my new office is a half-hour walk away from my current one. Kevin is such a cheerful chap, even when he’s been unwell and when most of us would rather be at…

BIG PANTS, BIG ISSUE.. BRIDGET’S SORTED You can’t always rely on Mr Darcy, Bridget, but The Big Issue will never let you down. Helen Fielding’s diary-keeping heroine stops to buy the magazine from a bearded vendor in London’s Borough Market and, like all good customers, takes away her copy – she knows it’s a top-notch read. The Big Issue has a starring role alongside Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones’s Baby, out next September. Spoiler alert: the ‘vendor’ is an actor. But the magazine is 100 per cent genuine. YOU’VE BEEN FRAMED A mural featuring portraits of Big Issue vendors, including much-loved characters John White and Bob Gibson who passed away within the last year, has been unveiled. Forty-nine vendors were painted by artist Karen Bates, who captured John (left) and…

Back in the days when I and most of the young men I knew looked like the young Al Pacino or Russell Brand, or even Che Guevara, among other jobs I was employed as a washer-up in the Houses of Parliament. It was a security-free world then. You could walk straight into parliament from the underground station. Not a check was in effect. I was a young Marxist-cum-grumbling anti-establishment, shoplifting, drinking, drug-taking, enemy of the privileged – and much sought after by the men in blue for former crimes; listening to Brand’s complaints and quips against capitalism these days has a very strong sense of deja vu about it. I did not do well in the kitchens of parliament. Unable to keep my Marxist mouth shut, I soon annoyed the…

He’s Best Bond of them all – according to Alan Partridge. And Roger Moore had lots to say about 007 when he spoke to The Big Issue: “I’ve never sat down and watched a whole James Bond film. I don’t like watching my old films. I have a great ego and don’t like to be reminded I’m not as good as I think I am. And I think ‘damn’ when I see myself in a film doing something active, running up stairs, and I can’t do it anymore. My lovely wife, who is Swedish, didn’t see a lot of my films before she met me. She had seen James Bond because the American ambassador’s wife in Copenhagen invited her to a private screening. But that was Dr No. So she…

While the news that the Redcar coke ovens will be closed alongside the Redcar blast furnace is heartbreaking, one should ditch the political blame game. What is needed is for the community to come together like they did when they marched through Redcar to Save Our Steel industry on Teesside in 2010. The reality is that governments of all political persuasions have never had the political will to intervene to save manufacturing, especially steel, from the vagaries of the free market. Hence efforts would be better spent working on alternatives for the loss of Teesside steelmaking. Hitachi Rail is on the horizon, the chemical industry at the Wilton International Site has prospects, and Sirius Minerals with its York Potash development will see upward of 1000 jobs. People should lobby the…

My collection of jukeboxes happened by accident. But listening through those big old speakers, music sounds warmer. The first time I switched it on, it felt like travelling back in time to when music sounded like this, coming out of American diners. For my birthday my partner got me a 1948 Wurlitzer jukebox. It originally came from an American diner and has Ray and Ike scratched into it. I like to think it was done by Ray Charles and Ike Turner. People gather around it at parties – it looks great with its revolving pink, green and blue lights. The original vinyl mechanism had been taken out and CDs put in. But it’s still got amazing speakers, so you get the best of both worlds. There was lots of 1950s…

Coincidences,” said that great writer Doris Lessing, “are God’s way of remaining anonymous”; it’s a romantic way of explaining the strange phenomenon that coincidence is. Fact is allowed to be stranger than fiction – writers can’t use coincidence in their books because it is too unbelievable. But we all have had things that happen to us in our lives whereby connections are revealed as though some strange twitching thread was holding us all together. The great psychiatrist Carl Jung was the father of meaningful coincidences, and he gave them a new name – synchronicity. What started Jung off on his quest for an explanation was when one of his women patients, trapped in repression, told him of a dream in which she was given a piece of jewellery, a golden…

Colin Farrell gets it. “I think The Big Issue is amazing,” he says. “Everyone in life is looking for purpose, every single one of us. Some of us find purpose in ambition, the job we do, a hobby, a girlfriend or wife or whatever. Others use our kids to finally bring home the importance of living not only for ourselves. We’re all looking to add something to society in a meaningful and recognised way. “That is what The Big Issue has done from the start. Inherent in the line ‘A hand up not a handout’ is allowing those without a roof over their heads, and without the stability that provides, to do something for themselves within society, which is providing a service. “That alone is priceless, then the outreach programmes…

1. SANE Emma Young An evidence-based yet accessible approach to mind strengthening. Young tries techniques used in extreme sports and the military, and comes up with a programme to ‘tone’ your mind and improve mental stability. 2. DECODING THE HEAVENS Jo Marchant An adventure story describing the discovery of a 2,000-year-old bronze mechanism by sponge divers off the Greek island of Antikythera, and the century-long race by a team of physicists and archaeologists to understand it. 3. THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS Rebecca Skloot A wonderfully-told tale of a poor black American tobacco farmer, whose cells were taken without her knowledge in the 1950s and used as vital tools in developing the polio vaccine, IVF and other important medical advances. 4. LONGITUDE Dava Sobel A cleverly-woven story of a…

Marvel is pressing ahead with a sequel to this year’s Ant-Man. Ant-Man and the Wasp has been scheduled for release in July 2018. Disney/Pixar has delayed Toy Story 4 until 2018. Moving up the schedule is Cars 3, which is now due in the summer of 2017. The Incredibles 2, meanwhile, won’t be with us until 2019. Sob. Running time rumours next. Tarantino’s new Western, The Hateful Eight, will be 164 minutes long when it arrives in multiplexes. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, meanwhile, is said to clock in at 136 minutes. Fast & Furious 8 has a director. F Gary Gray, who helmed this year’s surprise hit Straight Outta Compton, is set to start work on the sequel later this year. It’s due for release in 2017. Finally, the…