Innholdsfortegnelse for 4/30/2018 i The Big Issue

This week’s Big Issue is our Festival Special. It’s been a long time since I went to a festival and I’m not that into music to be honest. I am pleased to see festivals going green though. The environment is important to me so it’s good to see them making an effort. Read more on page 12 of the guide. I’ve moved around a bit so Gwenno’s piece about recording music in Cornish on page 25 is interesting. I lived in Truro for a few months working in the fields but never learned the language – it’s harder than Welsh. I’ve had a taste of fame myself after I started using a card reader on my pitch. Read more of my story on page 46.…

Local elections are the poor cousin to the national poll. Frequently, in England and Wales, the number who turn out to vote scuffs around 30 per cent. It’s somewhat higher north of the border. Last year, around 47 per cent of the electorate in Scotland cast their vote in local authority elections. Still, it means that across Britain well over half of people take no part in the selection of those who impact their day-to-day lives. It’s a shame. We moan about local services but don’t do enough to influence actual positive change. Many of the cuts that we see impacting services – from schools, libraries, culture to pothole repairs – come at local level. Frequently, local authorities are having to deal with central government diktats. The bar on council…

Jess Phillips has taken to the streets to get a taste of life as a Big Issue vendor. The Labour MP joined Big Issue vendor Michael Hadley, 25, on his pitch on Piccadilly Arcade, Birmingham, on April 26 to experience the challenges of selling the magazine first-hand. And Phillips admitted that she “felt invisible” after spending an hour on the pitch, selling just two copies of the magazine. “After the experience, I’ll always buy The Big Issue. I know a lot of people walk past vendors – I have done it in the past – and I will make sure, as a politician, that I will do all I can for people on the streets,” said Phillips, who featured in our Letter To My Younger Self section in February. “I…

It was back in June 2017, I think, sitting in the green room at BBC 6 Music in Salford, that I was approached by a member of the station’s senior management and told that the 2018 6 Music Festival – or a version of it, upgraded to the BBC Biggest Weekend in light of the lack of a Glastonbury this year – would be taking place in Belfast, on the Titanic Slipways where the ship was constructed. I was asked if we’d be interested in playing the event and writing something about Titanic to mark the occasion. My reaction was instant, and the same as it has been when we’ve taken on similar projects in the past. “Now that’d be interesting.” My band, Public Service Broadcasting, has made something of…

The future for arts funding in Britain is uncertain. Brexit is a looming shadow over future grant streams, and the effects of gentrification are striking another hammer blow, pricing out cultural events whose true value isn’t easily summed up in a spreadsheet. But cultural activities enhance lives, bring enjoyment, enrich perspectives and provide human contact in an increasingly digitalised world. They can also coin in the cash – London’s £26bn night-time economy generates one in eight jobs in the capital. Many UK arts institutions are bankrolled through a mixture of trading income, taxpayer cash – through bodies like the Arts Council England (ACE) – EU support and donations from philanthropists and corporate sponsors. The Chancellor has promised to protect any funding from the EU but, looking beyond the horizon, what…

The remotest corners of the British Isles have long fascinated fiction writers and readers alike. There are the dramatic landscapes, the local idiosyncrasies, conflict between locals and incomers and, for most readers, the sense of a completely different atmosphere to their more familiar urban surroundings. All of those things get tapped into with skill in both our books this week, which come from the furthest regions of the United Kingdom. First up is The Cliff House by Amanda Jennings. This is the author’s fourth novel, a psychological thriller that packs a real emotional punch, with more than a hint of gothic drama about it. The Cliff House is set in Cornwall with most of the action taking place in the mid-Eighties, where teenager Tamsyn is struggling to recover from the…

As part of their 50th anniversary celebrations, Orange Amplification is delighted to offer Big Issue readers the opportunity to win a pair of fantastic Orange O Edition headphones worth £149.99. Designed to catch the essence of Orange, their flagship headphones feature their custom Voice of the World™ speaker drivers with a natural EQ that delivers every detail the producer intended. These durable headphones are made for the road, they come with a case and three removable cables each with a different feature to suit your requirements. Orange Amplification has been a pioneering force in guitar and bass amplification since 1968. Dominating world stages and studios, some of the world’s greatest musicians including Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Jim Root (Slipknot), Theo Ellis (Wolf Alice) and Geddy Lee (Rush) are proud to…

Festivals used to be a simple pleasure: a dazed, hedonistic, muddy love-in or a cider-fuelled feast of indie-rock. But 2018 marks a seismic shift in the UK’s festival landscape. Politics is the new rock’n’roll and you are as likely to find a standing ovation for Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie as rapper Kendrick Lamar. Superstar big-hitters like The Rolling Stones and the Jay-Z and Beyoncé extravaganza will be strutting open-air stages across the land. But this year they have competition in the festival fields from the likes of Hugh Grant holding forth on phone hacking or Margaret Atwood dismantling the patriarchy and dystopia with one swipe. Meanwhile the contemporary classical revolution is bringing some of the most cutting-edge, thought-provoking and dangerous music you’ll find to Britain’s open-air musical extravaganzas. No…

Mixed messages It is laudable to include so many articles about protecting the environment in the magazine, but the trouble is that they are giving out mixed messages. On adjacent pages, Chris Packham says that we cannot rely on politicians to fix things, while Tisha Brown says that the government needs to take responsibility to deal properly with plastic. Mixed messages can lead to paralysis, where somebody cannot see the right thing to do, and therefore does nothing. A global problem such as plastic waste or climate change needs a global solution, and this is at some level going to have to be enacted by politicians. R Donaldson Windrush justice The Windrush people’s plight has lingered for so long because perhaps they are not accustomed to shouting for their rights,…

While the iconic Wembley Stadium is up for sale and north of the border the Scottish FA dither between Murrayfield and Hampden Park, Street Soccer Scotland founder David Duke is planning his own home of football. Plans for £5m homelessness project The Change Centre were unveiled last week. If approved by the city council, the Edinburgh football complex will feature 32 en-suite bedrooms, a café, a community hub with six football pitches, and create 30 jobs. Under the motto “the journey home starts here”, Duke said the complex will offer security, relationships and purpose – and break misconceptions around homelessness. “We have begun the public consultation in the neighbourhood this week and the reaction has been largely positive,” he said. “Whenever anything new comes into a local community there are…

HE LOVES ME NOT ANONYMOUS This artist, who submits her work via London homeless charity the 240 Project, describes herself as “a lone wolf”. “My work comes straight out of my head, it’s happy and sad,” she says. “At the end of the day, how you feel comes out on the paper, in the colours and the shapes. I get inspired by people at the project and value their comments, we are like a family – they give you honest advice.” BUY STREET ART! You can buy prints of some artworks featured in Street Art through bigissueshop.com  At least half of the profit from each sale goes to the artist. Street Art is created by people who are marginalised by issues like homelessness, disability and mental health conditions.…

IN 1964 THE YEAR PAMELA DES BARRES TURNS 16… Beatlemania lands in the US / Boxer Cassius Clay is crowned heavyweight champion of the world / The Sun newspaper is published for the first time By 16, I stood out like a beautiful, rosy red, sore thumb. I wore white tights and red patent leather flats and a little white dress. I looked so different from everyone. I’d tell my younger self – keep doing that, keep expressing yourself! I was very hopeful – I still am. It’s done me well through this wild and crazy life I’ve had. When I was 16, I had a boyfriend called Bob Martine, he was a greaser boy. I always loved a bad boy. But he went to New York and during that…

With the moral panic that is currently swelling over London’s wave of violent crime, it was only a matter of time before the finger was pointed at rap music. Earlier this month The Sunday Times, in a curious and sweeping piece, stated that “murders and stabbings plaguing London and other cities are directly linked to an ultra-violent new form of music sweeping Britain”, suggesting that the spike in fatal stabbings and shootings we are witnessing is directly linked to the UK rap genre drill. Drill is a sub-genre of road rap that burst out of Brixton, south London, in 2014. The style of music is heavily influenced by Chicago drill and is similar in that the artists rap about the extreme violence they are actively involved in, reflecting the harsh…

When Chris Wylie burst on to our front pages, TV screens and social media with his pink hair on March 18, even my 20-year-old daughter was interested in whistleblowers. Indeed, her highest-ever liked Instagram post was of her posing with Chris and fellow whistleblower, Shahmir Sanni, at the Frontline Club. In less than a week, Chris helped take nearly $100bn off the share price of Facebook, drew Mark Zuckerberg out of his Silicon Valley lair, cast doubts on the safety of data and, more importantly, democracy. Since then, he has patiently explained big data to digitally illiterate MPs and is getting ready to go to Washington to do the same in Congress. He has already starred in fashion shoots with Dazed and Confused and Vogue Italia, with more planned. Few…

WEAVING AS METAPHOR by Sheila Hicks, Arthur C Danto, Joan Simon (designed by Irma Boom) Irma Boom’s books are enticing to touch, as well as to look at. The cover and page edges of this book on the textile designer Sheila Hicks are raw to the touch, just like her weaves and selvedges. 1984 by George Orwell, (designed by David Pearson) How many books would be recognisable if the title and author’s name were redacted on the cover? Only George Orwell’s 1984, because David Pearson’s ‘censored’ design reflects its meaning so aptly while acting as a witty tribute to 1940s Penguin paperbacks. SUPPLEMENT TO THE ITALIAN DICTIONARY by Bruno Munari (designed by Bruno Munari) This tiny pocket-sized paperback was designed by Bruno Munari in the mid-1950s in the ascetic style of…

Puzzled, baffled, bemused. Trying to explain what “I’m going to see a podcast live!!!” means, and why you are so excited about it, elicits a panoply of confused expressions on the face of the person you’re enthusing at. My experience of The West Wing Weekly Podcast (Live) taught me a few things. It turns out many people have never listened to a podcast; some have never heard of podcasts. I explain it’s like an amateur radio show, on the internet. It’s brilliant for listening to in the bath. “So what does ‘going to see it live’ mean?” They record it in front of an audience. Like a gig for geeks! This is not an easy sell. The podcast causing my excitement was The West Wing Weekly, which dissects, episode-by-episode in…

I’ve never read a copy of The Big Issue, I’m one of those people who have averted eye contact with the sellers in town but I was intrigued with a copy in our break room. And what an interesting article I found. About how we need to protect the local book stores, and socialising that comes with it. I love the convenience of Amazon, and I have found myself in Waterstones comparing prices between the two, and will continue to do so. But I need to venture in to more local vendors as well. Unfortunately there aren’t many in Plymouth any more and the nearest one is a half-hour journey to Totnes. Nevertheless, I think I’m going to take the wife and boy for a spot of lunch there and…

The Big Issue can exclusively reveal that thanks to us, Brian Wilson will be at this year’s Doune the Rabbit Hole Festival. Yeah you read that right – but The Beach Boys won’t be bringing Good Vibrations to the Stirling-shire festival. That will be the duty of Big Issue vendor Brian Wilson. The 39-year-old will heading out on tour from his usual pitch outside M&S in Perth to bring his famous name and plenty of magazines to the festival – headlined by The Levellers, Akala and This Is The Kit – on July 13-15. “I’ve never been to a festival before but I think that this will be an environment where I will flourish when selling the magazine,” said Bryan, who is saving his earnings from selling the magazine with…

The Windrush generation certainly changed the United Kingdom, and especially our big cities. I was living in Notting Hill as a locally born London Irish boy. And then suddenly, as if all at once, large groups of West Indians arrived on our slum streets. Soon after, though we left the slums for different slums, this sudden arrival led to the Notting Hill race riots of 1958, a week after a similar (forgotten) riot in Nottingham. These were workers, the initial rush of whom came in an old boat once German and used by the Nazis, but renamed Empire Windrush. London Transport was recruiting directly from Jamaica and Barbados. A Conservative health minister called Enoch Powell was inviting West Indian nurses to work in the NHS. And they took up residence…

If you find yourself in one of the many cafes of Brighton this spring, idly thumbing through the brochure for the city’s annual arts festival, hold the page up to the light and see if you can identify the discreet mark of a felt pen. Because you might well be holding a collector’s item. “It’s like the golden ticket out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... sort of,” deadpans David Shrigley, guest director of this year’s Brighton Festival, the programme of which is designed using a typeface based on his handwriting, so he “can pick up copies of the brochure at random and write things in them and no one will notice”. So, has he then? “I might,” Shrigley laughs mischievously. “I mean, they’re in every single cafe. There are…

Res yw dhymm avowa dell veu hwans dhymm a skrifa ha rekordya plasenn yn Kernewek a-hys termyn pell. Nyns eus surneth poran dhymm prag - hag yth yw henna tra dha, dell dybav, yn-sur ha ti ow formya yth yw poesekka glan dhe skwychya ‘mes dha ympynnyon a brederow a dhistenn hag assaya junya dhe’th omglewansow. Ytho, my a brederas meur a-dro dhe by par omglewansow a wra maga ynnov vy an yeth. My a brederas a-dro dhe’n termyn mayth en vy flogh, ow kana kanow gokki gans ow hwoer ha’w thas a-dro dhe lugern daromres, avalow ha tesennow, ha keffrys an omglewans usi genev ha my ow kana an keth kanow gokki gans ow mab. An oeles o poesek dhymm, ha’n omglewans a deylu magata. Dhymmo vy, yth yw…

I grew up in a nice, quiet, small town that was once famous for its high rate of youth suicide. Living in Bridgend at that time felt like you were part of an unravelling tragedy. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who had taken their own life, and there was an atmosphere of disbelief amongst an older generation who couldn’t understand what was happening and why. I was young back then, and I had already experienced the anxiety, anger and apathy that can take control when you have no opportunities and no prospects. I still remember those feelings, even though I’ve grown a lot since then, and about to publish my first novel The Insomnia Museum . At school I was always good at writing, but I learned quickly that…

The Essex town of Basildon takes a starring role in a new documentary out this week. Unlikely though that sounds, it leaves a rich impression: New Town Utopia is an intelligent, poignant and delicately ambiguous portrait of a place routinely dismissed as a provincial backwater. The movie can feel like a piece of obsessive, exhaustive local history, but this is also a study of the wider phenomenon of British new towns, those handful of modernist conurbations that were built, in the blaze of post-war promise, and then, over the years, fell into decline. The film begins with the high ideals that were attached to the design of Basildon. To an uplifting synth-infused soundtrack director Christopher Ian Smith offers various views of Basildon. Architectural details are lovingly framed under a summery…

TBI: In the age of grime, hip-hop and EDM, do we still need rock’n’roll? DS: Did we ever need rock‘n’roll? We welcomed it, prostrated ourselves at its feet, got up, dusted ourselves off, moved along – but rock’n’roll is still there. I was in a guitar shop in LA picking up strings and it was jammed on a Sunday. So somebody cares. Do you get mobbed in music shops? I wouldn’t say mobbed. I would say, at best, noticed. By the sales clerks. That is a good day for me. Just, “you’re next”, kind of thing. I think I have earned that, just by being there for half an hour. Are modern rock stars comparable with your generation? I don’t think they are comparable in the sense of the debauchery.…

BRIGHTON FESTIVAL May 5-27 Various venues, Brighton TICKET PRICES VARY Visual artist David Shrigley is Guest Director of Brighton’s always exceptional arts festival in 2018, bringing his unique quirky humour and love of music to the programme. He welcomes two of his favourite bands Deerhoof and This is the Kit, both of whom will collaborate with orchestral collective Stargaze, and writes, directs and designs his own alt-rock/pop pantomime Problem in Brighton. brightonfestival.org BUTLINS LIVE MUSIC WEEKENDS May 11, June 8 and 15, September 7, 14, 21 and 28 Butlins Bognor Regis, Skegness and Minehead TICKET PRICES VARY Make for a Butlins seaside resort near you throughout the summer and make a live music weekender of it. Their themed three-day specials cater for all tastes – from disco to soul, Eighties…

As Glastonbury enjoys a ‘fallow’ year, fans have been informed that when it returns in 2019 it will implement a bold new initiative – banning the sale of plastic bottles, an estimated one million of which are used onsite every year. They will easily be the biggest festival to take this move, but they’re not the first. Arts, faith and justice weekender Greenbelt in Northamptonshire is one of a handful of events across the UK that has worked hard to cut out all kinds of single-use plastics, and this year will be offering alternatives to plastic bottles, beer cups, straws, food packaging and utensils (all of which will be fully compostable). With Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis among Greenbelt’s speakers, he’ll be observing with interest how it works out. “We worked…