Innholdsfortegnelse for 3/12/2018 i The Big Issue

I’m looking forward to hearing about what Ricky Gervais has to say on page 18. He’s funny – whenever I watch The Office I’m in stitches. I hear he’s also a big supporter of The Big Issue. Elsewhere, we’ve got musician Hannah Rankin on page 15 explaining that it’s never too late to pick up an instrument. I can relate to that as I’d really like to learn to play the guitar at some point. And I think it’s great that the School of Hard Knocks, who you can read about on page 26, are using rugby to help people reintegrate into society. Things like sport are needed to get folk up and running when they’ve got out of prison or off drugs. I’ve had my own struggles. You can…

I’m watching the Sheffield trees protest with growing fascination. It unites PFI contracts, council intransigence, questions over rights of local communities, and focused, polite moments of civil disobedience. It feels peculiarly British and is becoming one of the events of our time. To recap, Sheffield City Council have set about felling thousands of trees from the city’s streets. They claim that the trees are “dangerous, dead, diseased, dying, damaging or discriminatory”. They believe these trees, amongst other things, are making roads and pavements unsafe. They say they are planting others to replace them. However, the protestors disagree. And they, as an organisation called STAG (Sheffield Tree Action Groups), are growing in influence. Many of the trees are healthy, they say. They insist there are better ways to deal with the…

Much-loved Birmingham Big Issue vendor Karl Lamsdale, also known as Bubble, has thanked well-wishers for the stream of messages he’s received after being badly injured in an incident involving a vehicle in late January. Bubble is a well-known part of the local community in Snow Hill and has been selling The Big Issue for more than 18 years. He suffered serious and extensive injuries and was on life support. More than a month later, he is still in hospital and unable to speak due to a tracheotomy. Jon Hyde, Birmingham team leader, said: “Karl works every day, only taking time off on his birthday, his mum’s birthday and Christmas and Boxing Day. “He’s a huge part of the community. We have had so many emails and phone calls checking that…

Increasingly, communities are banding together to run shops and cafes as a way to tackle spiralling food costs, reduce the supply chain, support local business, put money back into the community and minimise reliance on major supermarkets. The idea has proved a lifeline in rural areas in particular. On Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, Uig Community Shop was set up after the local shop was put up for sale in 2003. In 2004 the Uig Community Co-operative was established to run the store and within five years turnover had doubled. The shop describes itself as “a TARDIS – small and compact on the outside… inside there is a wealth of produce from towels to toffee, burgers to Brazil nuts.” Besides essentials, the shop sells specialist food such as organic, vegan…

Netflix turns 21 this year with world domination all but achieved. These days, around 120 MILLION CUSTOMERS are watching 140 MILLION HOURS of film and television on Netflix per day, in 190 COUNTRIES. With that subscription money coming in, it’s little wonder Netflix has cash to splash. There’s £6bn going on television production in 2018 alone and Ricky Gervais is rumoured to have trousered a cool $40m for his stand-up shows. Next on the slate for a series are none other than Barack and Michelle Obama, said to be in advanced talks. But it all started for Netflix with humble DVD rental. The website launched in 1998, began its subscription model offering unlimited films the following year, and by 2000 was able to personalise the service and recommend releases to…

THE OTHER ART FAIR FORWARD! Humour can go a long way in women’s fight for creativity, freedom and recognition of skills, as artist Delphine Lebourgeois’ series of works under the banner Army demonstrate. This latest, Army II, depicts a force of females to be reckoned with and unified in purpose, characterised by rebellion, empowerment and a sense of humour. It is one of the artworks on show at this year’s The Other Art Fair in London, where a selection of artists will be selling their works, with a portion of the proceeds being donated to The Big Issue Foundation. And for a second year The Big Issue is teaming up with The Other Art Fair to offer readers free entry to the show when they show their copy of the…

NEUROMANCER William Gibson’s noirish neon thriller defined a genre and framed how most people think about digital space. The breakneck plot turns on questions of human choice and artificial intelligence. SEXING THE CHERRY Jeanette Winterson’s celebrated magical realist novel of the scarred giant called the Dog Woman and her son is an exploration of roles and monsters – and a dazzling read. JURASSIC PARK Michael Crichton’s novels are often about science gone awry, but unlike John Wyndham he isn’t overly focused on society’s misdeeds. Pure monster fun, for those who like their fiction toothy. THE GOLEM Gustav Meyrink’s weird 1914 psychodrama renders the Golem not as a creature brought to life by a learned rabbi, but as the spirit of the Prague ghetto itself, the anchor of the central character’s…

I am hijacking my radio column this week to write about someone I want you to know about. Someone who combined being a comedian with being a campaigner for justice and fairness, who wanted a better world for all despite having experienced some of the worst of humanity. His name was Barry Crimmins. I only got to know Barry in the last 18 months thanks to the brilliant documentary about his life, Call Me Lucky. It is one of those documentaries that you see and then bang on and on about demanding people watch it and not resting until they do. I assure you it is worth it. Working on the Boston comedy scene in the Eighties, Barry was an inspiration to a generation of comedians, including the lauded Bill…

Taking place on March 17-18, events for Learn To Play day offer more than 10,000 free taster musical instrument lessons, in over 100 venues nationwide, from music shops to schools and studios. Whether you used to play or have never picked up an instrument in your life, Learn To Play Day is your chance to get involved in music. To help you on your way, here’s a chance to win a guitar start pack worth nearly £900. Blackstar, Gordon Smith and Music For All have put together this prize to help you become a rock star. Included in the prize is the Blackstar ID:Core BEAM (RRP £199) to provide the ultimate music hub for the home. Play bass, electric and acoustic guitar while you Bluetooth your favourite tunes through the…

Good luck Rob! Going through some old mags I came across The Big Issue 1259 with Rob and Molly, his dog [My Pitch, June 5-11 2017]. He is a lovely man – polite, helpful, always got a smile, and loves Molly. She lays there so good, if it’s cold she stays under her blanket. I’d like to wish him all the best, and good luck for the future. Jan, email Snow joke I have been singularly unimpressed at the reaction to a few inches of snow in our city. I dug the car out this morning and went for a drive as I couldn’t get a bus – despite local bus companies having skilled staff perfectly capable of driving in these conditions. All the major roads were black. Side roads…

Rugby star Sam Warburton has helped launch a new charitable-giving gizmo in Cardiff city centre which lets people donate £2 a time to help tackle homelessness simply by flashing their contactless card. The interactive giving machine called Give DIFFerently has been installed at the Hayes. It was developed by FOR Cardiff in partnership with homelessness organisations including The Big Issue Cymru, Salvation Army, The Wallich and Huggard, with support from Cardiff Council, Public Health Wales and South Wales Police. Available 24/7, the screen features Welsh internationalist and Cardiff Blues hero Warburton, and all it takes is one tap – day or night – to put cash into frontline support for rough sleepers.…

Admit it: we’ve all spent hours in front of the mirror with a hairbrush for a microphone or a tennis racket for a guitar. Now all those wannabe music idols can live the dream! Learn to Play Day on the weekend of March 17/18 is the chance for anyone to have a go at playing an instrument. From music shops to churches, venues across the land will be opening their doors for absolute beginners. Find your nearest Learn to Play Day venue at musicforall.org.uk/learntoplayday – and if you fancy yourself as an axe god turn to page 46 for a chance to win a guitar and amp kit to get you started shredding those rock riffs.…

CORRIDOR INTO THE LIGHT BY ANA NAGURNAJA “Suffering from emotional abuse in my family, I grew up a troubled child and developed mental health issues from a very young age,” says Ana. “That and my unusual outlook on things led to being bullied at school. Despite that, I stayed curious about the world and culture, but sometimes the external world would get too much, so I would retreat into my world of imagination. Having no real friends, I was seeking inspiration from books, art and nature. Nowadays I’m trying to cope with life, work and studies, trying to illustrate the way I see the world through my art: with a little more beauty, kindness and freedom than it might sometimes appear in reality.” SELF-PORTRAIT BY DAVID TOVEY David is an…

I was one of two pupils from my primary school class who passed the 11 plus and went to St Malachy’s college in Belfast. My biggest passion at school was football. My mother always worried about me getting into bad company but at school I was in good company. I had great friends, and we were all interested in things. One friend loved opera; he played me Caruso and infected me with his love of music. Another loved books. We had a skiffle group – I played the tea chest. We spent most of the time laughing. My friends could make me laugh till I was sliding down the wall. We lived in a big Victorian house on the Antrim Road. After the war my father brought my grandmother, grandfather…

Indiana Jones may have rescued the odd Biblical relic from Nazis for the greater good of humanity, but much of his archaeological career was spent wrecking temples and swiping sacred shiny stuff from them for his local museum. And in cinemas across the land the original Tomb Raider , Lara Croft, is embarking on a new destructive phase of messing up ancient sites in her latest cinema reboot. But in pop culture terms the tables are turning on treasure hunters, with the release of Black Panther . Marvel’s latest blockbuster opens with the film’s villain Erik Killmonger (pictured) in a fictional museum, where he (very forcibly) removes cultural artefacts looted by British troops from his homeland. So impactful is the scene that the Smithsonian’s National Museum…

“When making films you need to be aware that people have short attention spans.” So says a character in the Swedish comedy The Square, one of a duo a young marketeers who craft YouTube snippets calculated to shock for maximum viral impact for big corporate clients. I suspect we’re invited by director Ruben Östlund to view the sentiments behind this quote running counter to the logic of his own film. The Square, which won the top prize at Cannes, is just over two-and-a-half hours long; much of it is filmed in long, unbroken takes, and it’s set in the rarefied world of Stockholm’s contemporary art world with gags that demand a working knowledge of conceptual land artists. From this, you’d suppose Östlund credits his audience with at least some staying…

As an ex-gang member, drug dealer, professional pimp, serial criminal offender, weed connoisseur and the man responsible for the Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle pornographic movie, it’s safe to assume that the pearly gates won’t be festooned with big cheery welcome banners whenever the Doggfather eventually rolls up in a low rider, smoking a fat blunt. Which may or may not have something to do with the Californian rapper’s latest offering to the Lord and the general public of a gospel album titled Bible of Love. Considering Snoop has at different times been a convert to the Nation of Islam and to Rastafarianism, his faith is fickle, but his commitment to this project seems earnest – he has enlisted several heavy hitters of the genre to co-star, including Tye Tribbett, Rance Allen…

Today I read that homeless charity St Mungo’s has been co-operating with the Home Office [by referring non-UK rough sleepers]. It appears that last June other rough sleeper/homelessness charities felt able to condemn the Home Office policy, and in December 2017 a High Court ruled as unlawful policies claiming EU nationals who were sleeping on the streets were abusing their EU treaty rights. St Mungo’s says that despite that ruling it still co-operates with the Home Office. I could give you my views as to what are the causes of migration and who do I support (clue: I fail the Norman Tebbit cricket test), but the issue is much, much simpler. When someone is at their most vulnerable – seriously ill, and/or sleeping rough in winter – the Home Office…

Ricky Gervais is sandwiched between Barack Obama and Bill Gates. Last year, he was named seventh most influential man on Twitter, keeping esteemed company alongside great figures of our time (but all trumped by some popstars, a footballer and, well, Trump). Gervais changed the way we looked and laughed at ourselves with The Office, and has relentlessly continued to tease and provoke societal conventions that have led us to this bizarre point in human history. He regularly preaches a heady mix of politics, atheism and animal rights to his 13 million followers, walking the line between rudeness and righteous outrage. Battling the Beast from the East to speak to The Big Issue in his Hampstead office, asking him about these subjects launches diatribes disrupted only by regular eruptions of guffaws…

Minutes after finishing journalist Rania Abouzeid’s book No Turning Back: Life, Loss and Hope in Wartime Syria, I switched on the news and saw footage from a hospital in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta. The images were all-too familiar: doctors inured to the constant shelling; parents clutching bloodied children and an all-pervasive sense of futility in a conflict that, six years on, shows no sign of abating. Despite its subtitle, No Turning Back is a bleak read, offering little prospect of a happy ending. But it is also a masterpiece: a forensic, yet accessible anatomy of how a peaceful uprising was hijacked by external forces who cared less about ridding Syria of dictator Bashar al-Assad than furthering their own agendas. For those confused by the country’s descent into chaos and the myriad…