Innholdsfortegnelse for 5/7/2018 i The Big Issue

We’re getting active in The Big Issue this week. I’m training for a charity run in Oxford and building things up slowly. But it’s only 4k, not like the homeless people running the Skid Row Marathon in Los Angeles. See their story on page 22. I’m also playing football every week and trying tennis but I’ve only played rugby once – I reckon I’d make a good full-back. The Homeless International Cup is taking place on May 12 – the day I turn 75 – read more about it on page 26. You can turn to page 18 to see what Benedict Cumberbatch is up to – I’m a big fan of his films and TV shows. And there is more from me on page 46.…

One of the strangest, most heartening stories of last week involved Calvin Harris and a fish factory. You’ll be familiar with Calvin Harris. He’s the Scottish superstar DJ who knows when to drop the beat and make millions – like a more tanned, taller, dance version of Ed Sheeran. The fish factory is called Pinneys and is found in the small southern Scottish town of Annan. It currently employs 450 people and is under threat of closure. The parent company, Young’s, are planning to shut up shop and move production to Grimsby. In a further unwelcome twist, it has emerged that Young’s themselves are now looking for a buyer. It is a mess. Harris is involved as he comes from the area and once worked in Pinneys. When he heard…

Thousands of youngsters at risk of homelessness were turned away by councils last year, according to a Centrepoint report. Ahead of the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act, a series of Freedom of Information requests revealed that 86,000 young people contacted their local authority asking for help with housing – but 58 per cent were turned away with no practical help. Just 13 per cent were housed, while only a third were given a documented housing assessment. The figures call into question whether cash-strapped councils have the resources to deal with the increased demands of the Homelessness Reduction Act. The legislation, which came into force last month, gives councils a legal responsibility to help anyone facing life on the streets with “meaningful assistance”. Paul Noblet, Centrepoint’s head of public affairs,…

“That’s just mental.” How often have we heard this expression, or even used it ourselves without thinking? The word ‘mental’ has long been synonymous with ‘crazy’, ‘nuts’, ‘bonkers’, and many more adjectives with negative connotations. You roll your eyes and tap your head: ‘mental’ people are not to be taken seriously. Better, and certainly easier, to write them off. In reality, ‘mental’ is derived from the late Latin word ‘mentalis’ (of the mind). Now, we all have a mind, of course, and therefore mental health, but growing up, this type of language put me off talking about the mental health issues I was experiencing. Even as a young child, I was subject to delusions and heard voices in my head, and later on I became extremely depressed to the point…

“I’ve cracked on with it since we last spoke, haven’t I?” Benedict Cumberbatch’s recent achievements are quite dazzling when spoken out loud. Saving (or potentially destroying) half the universe as Doctor Strange in Marvel’s record-breaking box office smash Avengers: Infinity War, finishing Sherlock – for now at least, getting an Oscar nomination for The Imitation Game, starring in a sell-out run of Hamlet at the Barbican, being made a CBE, performing on stage with Pink Floyd, marrying theatre director Sophie Hunter and becoming a parent. And now he’s playing his most extreme character to date – damaged, drug-addicted, debauched high-society playboy Patrick Melrose, in a TV adaptation of Edward St Aubyn’s high-octane novel series. “I have squeezed quite a bit of life in, you are right. Who would have known?”…

“The Cured is the zombie movie that takes place after the zombie movie you’re used to seeing,” says Ellen Page, the Canadian actress whose breakthrough, Oscar-nominated role in Juno led to a diverse career over the last decade. Next up, an Irish-based drama set after the country was rampaged by zombies. “Essentially there’s a group of infected people that have been cured and they’re being introduced back to society – some are welcoming and some people are not,” Page continues. Ah, there’s nothing like a zombie film to provide a bit of biting social commentary. And The Cured, written and directed by first-timer David Freyne, has even richer allegorical value than most, with the resurrected undead standing for any number of contemporary concerns: immigrants, mental health stigma, how society deals…

Although the varifocals and the walk-in bath aren’t quite necessary yet, I’ve started to find great comfort in Gardener’s World. My parents used to watch it when I was an interminably bored teen, and I would dramatically yawn my way through it waiting for Blackadder to come on, watching Alan Titchmarsh gently blithering his way around his herbaceous border before he was joined on the spin-off Ground Force by Charlie Dimmock’s dimmocks swaying in the wind while she dug a trench. I hated both shows with a passion. God, they were the very definition of dull. Plant your hollyhocks 5cm deep, get rid of bindweed, ‘my clematis only flowers every two years, HELP!’, to mulch or not to mulch? Then a lot of raking. So much raking. And ambling slowly…

Fill ’Em Up! Empty buildings. Homelessness. Use the former as part of the solution to address the latter? Nothing original about that. So why isn’t it happening? Well that’s precisely what the Repurposing of Empty Buildings for Beneficial Homeless Use (REBBHU) is trying to establish. The problem of homelessness is likely self-evident to Big Issue readers. Perhaps less familiar are statistics for the number of empty buildings. Take a city like Glasgow for instance. The Buildings at Risk Register Scotland records 2,452 properties, with 145 in Glasgow alone. Unfortunately, as can best be seen from walking the city, all too many buildings have been allowed to decay, often to a degree which renders them virtually uneconomic to redevelop. So, is this something that REBBHU can help address? REBBHU seeks to…

The Big Issue’s social investment arm Big Issue Invest (BII) is tackling poverty in the UK where change is needed most, its new Impact Report revealed last week. A total of £10.7m was invested by BII in 68 mission-led organisations across the UK during the last financial year. Almost half of the organisations in which BII invested – 43 per cent – offer services to people with significant additional needs or disadvantages, while 61 per cent of BII’s investees are paying all staff at least the voluntary recommended living wage. That takes the total current investment portfolio to £26.4 million – meaning BII currently has 198 investments in 150 organisations – with investees in training, education, employment opportunities for disadvantaged individuals and more. Speaking at a House of Lords event…

UNTITLED BY M.B. “I have experienced homelessness and domestic abuse,” says this artist, who asks to be credited only by her initials. “I have escaped many problems and art has helped me on my journey. I hope my art connects with people who are marginalised or excluded.” 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. Contact streetlights@bigissue.com  to see your art here.…

As a teenager Laurie Canciani suffered a brief but crippling bout of agoraphobia. Trapped inside a council flat with her father, Anna, the young heroine of her debut novel The Insomnia Museum , suffers from its pernicious cousin, claustrophobia, but the effect is the much the same: it makes the outside alien; it magnifies and distorts whatever lies beyond her own front door. Through long nights of wakefulness, she listens to the noises: sirens, swearing, raindrops against metal that proclaim the limited nature of her own existence. Anna has not been allowed to leave the house since the day her mother tried to kill her; she lives with her father in a strange, shapeless world, stripped of the only things that might give it structure: access to books and the…

Now the dust has settled on the epic news that ABBA have reformed, consider this: it was The Big Issue wot done it. Benny Andersson was interviewed in the magazine just last year. Agnetha Fältskog spoke to us for a cover feature back in 2013. Björn Ulvaeus I briefly met on a cross-country ski track in Sweden in 2006 – he was wearing silver boots and grudgingly mumbled “hej” when he noticed that I was staring at him. It’s my most-told celebrity anecdote of all time. Admittedly we never got Anni-Frid, but then she was always a bit evasive. It’s my firm, or at least firm-ish, belief that the validation, encouragement and all-round good vibes that three quarters of ABBA experienced in each of those encounters is what helped to…

I really like the term ‘tough sleeper’ instead of ‘rough sleeper’. I can’t claim it, but I think it paints an entirely different picture. Rough sleeper can have many connotations, some of which aren’t helpful. Desperation, weakness etc. ‘Tough sleeper’ feels a little more respectful of the fact that to sleep rough and survive on the streets requires genuine fortitude. I’m really interested in the power of language, and how it can be used to lead opinion. The way that the media reported the migrants as a swarm or flood are obvious recent examples of this, but there are many more once you really begin to think about it. I also think the terms homeless and begging could do with a rethink too! Andrew Birley, email…

There is something very strange about modern childhood. On too many occasions, parents seem to be commissioned into bringing up a member of the aristocracy. The aristocrat can leave their dirty clothes as and where they wish. They will be fed, watered and provided for. They can issue out for the day, or the night. I observe this (almost) as an outsider. I never went through this as a child. Though it’s alien to my experience, it’s not unknown to me and I’ve observed this new strain of child-rearing, this indulged childhood. A decade and a half ago, I suggested at a conference that we were missing a trick. And that some children were being grown in such a weird way, that it stopped them from growing. I pointed out…

IN 1970 THE YEAR ELVIS COSTELLO TURNS 16…  Dana wins Eurovision for Ireland / Jimi Hendrix dies of an overdose aged 27 / Apollo 13 returns safely to Earth after abandoning its planned moon landing At 16 I had just moved to Liverpool with my mother, after my parents separated. I had to go to an all-boys school which I didn’t like at all. But I lived 10 minutes from Anfield stadium – you only had to open the window to hear if we’d won. So that was good. And I had some good friends. We were all just mad about football and music. We had a common room with a record player, we listened to Radio Luxembourg, we were able to go the odd concert. Did I appreciate all…

THE RIPPER OF WATERLOO ROAD  by Jan Bondeson This book investigates the unsolved murder of a prostitute called Eliza Grimwood in 1838. Bondeson puts together a good case for who the main suspect might be, and there are lots of grisly illustrations too! JANE EYRE  by Charlotte Bronte While not necessarily a crime book, there are certainly dark and creepy aspects to it. I read this book as a child and now I love collecting different editions and covers. THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER  by Kate Summerscale This is like a real-life Agatha Christie novel. It investigates the 1860 murder of a young child in a country mansion. Characters include suspicious family members and creepy servants. Who doesn’t love a Victorian country mansion yarn? MR BRIGGS’ HAT  by Kate Colquhoun…