Innholdsfortegnelse for 8/20/2018 i The Big Issue

When I was 16 I was a nerd. I was preoccupied with my reading and my studies. I also went to ballet every day after school, and I was quite serious about it. I remember clearly my mother coming into my room in the evening telling me I shouldn’t be doing my homework, I should be out with my friends and I needed a bit more balance in my life. She was completely correct, of course. But I was so curious and loved school. I’d like to go back to my 12-year-old self, moving from Arkansas to the White House, so worried that I’d never make any new friends. My two best friends, both called Elizabeth, came to stay for a week or so during those first months. And for…

The hottest ticket at the Edinburgh festival circuit this year is not by a much-talked about young comedian searching for a spot on a panel show. Or a world-renowned author making a rare appearance after years of quiet solitude. Rather, it is by a Glaswegian author-rapper who digs into social mobility issues and his own battle out of poverty. Such were the four-star reviews for Darren ‘Loki’ McGarvey’s Poverty Safari Live that tickets were rarer than a coherent governmental Brexit policy. The title is drawn from McGarvey’s wealth gap-probing book the live show takes its name from. The 2017 bestseller picked up the Orwell Prize for political writing this year and propelled the 34-year-old to mainstream fame as a political commentator, informed by his own turbulent upbringing and experiences of…

Science fiction is as wide and deep as any other genre in fiction, and this week we’re looking at two books from opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of style and approach. First up is Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu, who best known for his Three-Body Problem trilogy, a series of first contact sci-fi novels that won awards all over the place and praise from the likes of Barack Obama and George RR Martin. Ball Lightning is a standalone that was written before Liu’s famous trilogy but has been translated into English for the first time, and it’s a fascinating piece of speculative fiction. Liu’s previous work brilliantly blended big scientific ideas with personal stories and the same goes for Ball Lightning, which focuses on Chen, whose parents are…

In a holocaustic future world perpetually at war failure to conform is the ultimate crime. Winston Smith (played by Alien and Harry Potter star, the late John Hurt) rewrites history books and finds himself dreaming of escape from the all-seeing eyes of the authorities. He embarks on a passionate (and illegal) affair with a young woman (Suzanna Hamilton, Tess, Out of Africa), but they are soon caught and Smith undergoes a nightmarish brainwashing at the hands of the chief inquisitor O’Brien (Richard Burton in his final role). The classic dystopian sci-fi drama, based on the 1949 novel by George Orwell, is available now on Blu-ray™, DVD and digital download. To be in with a chance of winning one of five DVD copies simply answer the question below: Which star of…

Veterans and a newcomer are leading the way in what it means to give back. Stormzy has launched his self-titled scholarship to give four black students the financial support to attend Cambridge University. The double BRIT Award-winning grime icon will fund the tuition fees and maintenance grant for two students in October this year as well as another two next year. “There are so many young black kids all over the country who have the level of academic excellence to study at a university such as Cambridge – however we are still under represented at leading universities,” said Stormzy after the university revealed a record high of 58 black undergraduate students last year. “If young black students wish to study at one of the best universities in the world, the…

Libraries closing their doors have become a regular sight on local newspaper pages across the country – 478 have gone in the last eight years – but last week brought hope for book lovers. Northamptonshire County Council’s (NCC) plans to axe 21 of the 36 libraries in its area had been in the pipeline since February after the insolvent authority searched for £70m to balance the books. But the cuts were ruled to be unlawful in a judicial review last week. The closures have been fought doggedly at every turn by campaign groups since they were announced – but it was a young girl and her family, who remain anonymous, that triggered the review on August 13 and sent the council back to the drawing board. Mrs Justice Yip, presiding,…

Viva forever The exhibition includes iconic items from pop history, including the little black dress Posh wore in the Wannabe video, Ginger’s Union flag platform boots, special-edition mopeds and hundreds upon hundreds of collectables. Sections of the exhibition are dedicated to each member and their solo careers. The most difficult Spice Girl to collect is Baby, since Emma Bunton keeps her own archive. When he’s feeling sad and low, Alan Smith-Allison knows where he’s gotta go – straight to Spice Girls songs. “It doesn’t matter what kind of mood you’re in, just get the Spice Girls on – cheesy feel-goodness, nothing too serious,” he advises. Smith-Allison is one of the most prolific collectors of Spice Girls memorabilia, amassing thousands of objects, from scooters to crisp packets, that form SpiceUp –…

Last week a little-known, never-released track by The Kinks made the world sit up and listen. Time Song, recorded during sessions for the band’s magnum opus, The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society, was revealed, marking 50 years since the album’s release. And what a song it is, effortless and gently poignant. It will feature on a special 50th anniversary edition of the album, set for October. It had previously been played live in 1973. And it now has a Brexit shadow, says frontman and lynchpin Ray Davies. “When we played a concert at Drury Lane in ’73 to ‘celebrate’ us about to join what was called the Common Market, I decided to use the song as a warning that time was running out for the old British Empire,”…

Watching TV with your parents has always been a minefield, and we all know that sinking feeling when the characters start snogging and you have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen next. You’re desperately hoping for a cut to the next scene or a tasteful dissolve or a surprise phone call, but nope, it looks like you’re going to have to endure watching people having sex while your mum’s sitting next to you eating a Walnut Whip and your dad is peering over his glasses. So with that in mind, picture if you will, the scene. My folks came to visit and we all sat down to watch that lovely Stephen Mangan in Hang Ups (Channel 4) the tale of web therapist Richard Pitt, who deals with…

I started selling The Big Issue about six months ago after I was arrested three times in two weeks for begging. I was fined £500 and that left me with nothing. The Big Issue’s outreach team had been asking me for ages to start selling the magazine. So that is when I took it seriously. And The Big Issue has been a big help – I had no confidence when I started selling, but it has really helped me to feel more confident. I have also been able to get myself off drugs and have been clean for a while. As well as selling the magazine, I’m a carer for my husband, who is losing his sight. He’s almost completely blind and has some mental health problems. We have been…

The Reverend William Borlase found much of wonder and curiosity in his travels around south-west England in the mid-18th century, including the rapid rises and falls of the ocean within the space of two hours along the south coast of Cornwall on November 1, 1755. The third and fourth ‘refluxes’, he wrote, were as rapid as those of “a mill-stream descending to an undershot wheel”: a long-distance echo of the tsunami produced by the massive earthquake that destroyed the city of Lisbon 1,300 kilometres away the same morning. Like many naturalists of the time, Borlase was especially intrigued by stories of submerged lands to which such experiences lent credence. The story about Lyonesse was one he knew intimately. A land of “woods, and meadows, and arable lands, and a hundred…

When Homebase confirmed the closure of dozens more stores last week, the chain cited skyrocketing commercial rent prices and the impact of online retail as contributors to its collapse. However, The Big Issue has discovered that a familiar whipping boy is also taking the heat for a DIY culture shift. Take a bow millennials. Tradesmen and sector professionals have spoken out about a significant lack of skills among millennials that keeps them out of home improvement stores like Homebase. Fraser Osbourne, a Glasgow-based workman who runs Frazman Handyman Services, says that millennials’ DIY knowledge is too poor to manage some of the basic tasks associated with running a household. “There is a serious lack of knowledge there, and not having the proper tools to do the job. Young people also…

Stallworth infiltrated his local Klan chapter almost by accident. Spotting an ad in the classified section of his local newspaper in Colorado Springs looking for new members, he replied on a whim and was shocked when two weeks later a man called Ken called and asked why he wanted to join. Having given the right answer, he was in. He saw it as an opportunity to gather information about their plans and identities, but there was one complication – the Klan asked to meet their new recruit, and clearly would not take kindly to a black man within their ranks. A fellow police officer was hastily enlisted to pretend to be Stallworth for the meeting, and a bizarre, almost farcical story began to unfold. While the stand-in cop (identified only…

We’ve all felt out of our depth, when the pressure is on and the mind goes blank. The human reaction in those moments is fight or flight. But the leaders of British public life – the politicians, journalists, civil servants and opinion-writers – have developed a third instinct. They bluff. Today, Britain is run by bluffers: a group of generalists confident in their ability to turn their hand to pretty much anything, even when they know pretty much nothing. Politicians, in particular, are often compared unfavourably to used car salesmen. But most forecourt dealers know quite a lot about cars. George Osborne became editor of the Evening Standard without ever having been a journalist. It’s convenient to imagine bluffing as being a modern phenomenon. Back in the day, Parliament and…

BlacKkKlansman tells the improbable but true story of an African-American detective in early 1970s Colorado who infiltrates the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. It’s a major comeback for director Spike Lee, but I wonder if he felt a certain reluctance approaching the project. This is an at times entertaining, at times profoundly ugly tale of white racism – of its toxic history in the US and its continuing legacy. It’s a subject that Lee has chronicled over his long career, and while he must surely wish things had improved by now here he is again, returning to the wounds of the past and the pain of the present. And yet the film shows no sign of any despairing fatigue: it is galvanising cinema, made with an urgency and…

The Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM) has published a report into the impact of Brexit on musicians, highlighting concerns regarding freedom of movement. I know what you might be thinking: another day, another column about Brexit; but for those who travel regularly for a living this is a growing concern. It is particularly pertinent for musicians, of whom 30 per cent travel to the EU more than five times a year, according to the report, which solicited responses from around 1,600 performers. The study claims that more than 40 per cent of musicians have noticed a negative influence on their employment as a result of Brexit, up from 26 per cent in 2017 and 19 per cent in 2016. Given that many gigs are impromptu – more than one in…