Innholdsfortegnelse for 15-04-19 i The Big Issue

01 Cut through the Brexit noise to hear the bigger issues Alex Tiffin is no stranger to The Big Issue – last year we covered his collaboration with actor Hugh Grant to challenge people to give to foodbanks. Now, the Universal Credit blogger has taken his first tentative steps into the world of podcasting. The first episode of Also In The News takes an in-depth look into in-work poverty, Universal Credit and PIP payment changes. All issues that are being drowned out by Brexit. It’s rough around the edges but well worth tuning in now. universalcreditsuffer.com/2019/03/29/ watchalso-in-the-news-episode-1/ 02 Don’t miss… The Specials 2-Tone legends and recent Big Issue cover stars The Specials hit the road in support of the excellent Encore, their first album of originals in 21…

@ismesarahjane If any companies are looking for a personable, cheery and friendly sales person, the guy who sells @BigIssue outside Elephant & Castle Tube is a delight. I look forward to saying hello each morning. @Tinajames21 Anyone in #Norwich please pop along and pick up a @BigIssue. For those that don’t know, my hubby left this world six weeks ago, he would always buy and chat to a Big Issue seller, please do the same in memory of him #Nobby. Thank you @SiobhanHRSheri Love that Westminster Tube have picked up on @BigIssue Paul’s wisdom that you all loved so much on my feed last week and shared it on their quote board! He’s delighted this morning, thanks to all those of you who appreciated his thoughts!…

If the Letter To My Younger Self page is the highlight of your Big Issue magazine then good news – there is a book compiling 100 of the best on the way. Ever since we started the popular section 12 years ago, we’ve published unique, revealing and insightful chats with the biggest names in the arts, entertainment, politics and more. They will be collected in Letter to My Younger Self: Inspiring People on the Lessons They’ve Learned, the Mistakes They’ve Made and the Relationships That Changed Their Lives, which will be released by Blink Publishing in time to offer a Brexit distraction on October 31. The Big Issue’s books editor Jane Graham will be compiling and editing the collection. She said: “I did the first Letter To My Younger Self…

I got a very sincere letter from people who were worried that if you were homeless then you had nowhere to wash. They suggested showers and baths be reinstalled, the public baths of old, in our cities. At least then the homeless could wash. Other people I get letters from suggest a cleverer, more deeply spread use of the soup line. And other things, like getting all of the food stuff from supermarkets, out of date stuff, and getting it to people in need. I never ever get a letter from anyone saying, “How can we end this need? How can we stop the bestial way in which countless stopgaps don’t do more than cover the day?” I think that is because we are taught how to think not deeply,…

While process in parliament has been glacial lately, Big Issue vendor Phil is bucking the trend. The 60-year-old mixes with political top brass on his pitch at Pret A Manger on Great Peter Street in Westminster, near the Home Office’s HQ. Selling the magazine has given the self-described ‘ideas man’ a chance to run his latest brainwave past the likes of Andrea Leadsom and Esther McVey, and he recently secured an audience with homelessness minister Heather Wheeler. Phil is proposing a new way to bring jobs to homeless hostels to help residents to move into private rentals and free up space for more rough sleepers. He envisages councils offering jobs – such as street cleaning, litter picking or leaf sweeping – to homeless people. It would act like an apprenticeship…

Working primarily in painting, drawing and collage, Paul is fascinated by the process behind his art, which he describes as “a partnership between the conscious and the unconscious mind”. He submits this piece with the support of Creative Future, a Brighton-based charity supporting under-represented artists. Paul has had experience of homelessness and suffers with ongoing mental health diffculties. You can see more of Paul’s work in person at Brighton Artist Open Houses with Creative Future throughout May: creativefuture.org.uk Street Art is created by people who are marginalised. Contact street.lights@bigissue.com to see your art here. To see more and buy prints: bigissueshop.com At least half the profit goes to the artist.…

01 The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson ‘Some houses are born bad’ writes Jackson – and yet four people decide to stay in this one overnight. The unease builds masterfully to a shocking yet strangely satisfying climax. This is quite simply the best haunted house novel ever written. 02 Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier This plays with key elements of Gothic – the intrusion of the past into an enclosed and atmospheric present – in a brilliantly original way. And Mrs Danvers is terrifying. 03 The Aspern Papers by Henry James A bit of a stretch to call this a thriller, as there’s more suspense than dread, but it’s a taut and absorbing tale of a researcher’s quest to extract a precious hoard of letters from an old…

Can it really be 40 years since Life of Brian? A rousing re-release – not the easiest thing for Michael Palin’s Pontius Pilate to declare, admittedly – seems like final vindication for the inventively blasphemous Monty Python comedy, a film that was originally banned in Ireland and by some wary UK councils but is now so familiar and beloved that these one-off anniversary screenings will likely include some reflexive audience participation: “YES! WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS!” Monty Python’s Life of Brian is in cinemas from April 18…

A hand up, not a handout... Our sellers BUY every copy of the magazine for £1.25 and sell it for £2.50. Trade, not aid… Which is why we ask you to ALWAYS take your copy of the magazine. Our sellers are working and need your custom. Poverty is indiscriminate… That is why we provide ANYONE whose life is blighted by poverty with the opportunity to earn a LEGITIMATE income. The right to citizenship… The Big Issue Foundation, our charitable arm, helps sellers tackle social and financial exclusion. Prevention… Big Issue Invest offers backing and investments to social enterprises, charities and businesses which deliver social value to communities.…

Rooting for Rutger This is my first letter to The Big Issue, I’ve been a regular reader for many years, and I was taken with the Rutger Bregman interview [April 1-7]. I am claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, have done for two-three years. I was initially started on Employment and Support Allowance – I gave up my job as a bank mental health nurse due to a long-term relationship breakdown. My father passed away in the same week. Life was barely manageable for me and my teenage daughter. My treatment at the job centre was at times horrendous. I was in such a horrible place, suffering panic attacks, depression, feeling suicidal. I felt I had no control over my life. I struggled to get there and fake being OK. I’d see my…

I know you’re all drawing breath finally. The Brexit fog has cleared, for now. And you’d like to kick back, relax, get obsessed by Line of Duty, maybe eat some early Easter eggs. Tough. I’m here to rain on your relaxing, sunny parade. As the fog clears, we can see the issues that have been obscured. Let’s start with schools. Last week, schools in Wales announced plans to close early on a Friday. Neyland Community School in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire said that from September, they’d shut at 12.25pm on Fridays rather than 3.20pm. This, they said, was because at that point in the week, “pupils often suffer from a greater lack of attention”. And in a piece of classic doublespeak, they added they hoped that closing the school early, thereby…

The Big Issue’s social investment arm Big Issue Invest (BII) has committed £400,000 to help people recovering from drug and alcohol abuse enter employment. WDP – a charity helping people affected by substance misuse – will use the investment to help more than 1,700 people across eight London boroughs, offering them intensive support alongside an up-front job search leading to paid employment. They will also receive in-work support from an employment specialist. Using the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model, WDP will support people who would otherwise be unable to enter the jobs market in Brent, Barnet, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Ealing, Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea. The social impact bond is an outcome-based investment from BII’s Outcomes Investment Fund. “This will be the largest IPS social impact bond service to…

After eight straight years of rising rough sleeping figures, the government set the ambition of ensuring that no one sleeps on the streets by 2027. It’s a lofty goal backed up by a vow to build more affordable homes, run Housing First trials and a £100m Rough Sleeping Strategy. But it was a bill that didn’t come from the government that has promised to make the biggest difference in how local authorities can play their crucial role in eradicating homelessness. It was a private member’s bill – the “longest and most expensive” to implement in parliamentary history – tabled by Conservative backbencher Bob Blackman that led to the Homelessness Reduction Act (HRA) coming into force a year ago this month – on April 3 2018. The act put the legal…

The question writers are asked most often is ‘Where do your ideas come from?’ In the case of my latest book One Minute Later, it was my stepson’s friend, Jim Lynskey, aged 22, who provided the most remarkable and compelling inspiration. Jim lives in the Midlands, is mad about football, loves music and has the same sort of big plans for his future as any other young man his age. What’s different about Jim is that he will be unable to achieve his dreams unless he finds a new heart. The heart Jim has can only function with the support of an LVAD – left ventricular assist device. This means he is permanently connected to a pump and its batteries, which he carries around with him, but of course it…

Whether Rebel pilot, folk singer or android inventor, there’s only one criterion Oscar Isaac has when choosing parts. “It really is like falling in love with somebody,” he says. “I never had a type of person that I was looking to fall in love with, it’s the same thing with a movie or a role. “I can say, ‘Oh, I want to play this kind of person. Or I want to do this kind of thing.’ But until you read the script and talk to a director you just never know. I know that I’m interested in shaping what I do more. In finding the stories, reading books, reading articles, developing stuff to do. But as far as one type of thing that I want to do, I don’t have…

Do mental health issues seem more prevalent now or is it because young people feel freer to express their problems rather than keep them festering and hidden? According to recent research by Dr Praveetha Patalay and Dr Suzi Gage, who is also host of the excellent Say Why To Drugs, depressive symptoms and self-harming behaviours increased in mid-adolescence between 2005 and 2015, as did levels of obesity and reduction in sleep. BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking assembled a panel to discuss anxiety and the teenage brain. One of the problems of being human is working out the right level of anxiety to thrive. Too much and you remain trapped and terrified in the dark, too little and you can find yourself accidentally falling off the end of a pier into…

This time of year wasn’t always chocolate eggs in coloured foil – for Christians, bird eggs at Easter represent Jesus’ resurrection from a sealed tomb and, historically, the first chance to eat eggs after fasting for Lent. The Victorians adapted the tradition with indulgent satin-covered cardboard eggs filled with gifts. But the tradition of painting hard-boiled eggs predates Christianity, with pagan spring festivals featuring decorated eggs as a symbol of new life.…

A public health emergency was declared in New York over measles, while cases in Europe have tripled. Anti-vaccination campaigns by parents are being blamed. Should the state intervene? Refusal of vaccines ought to be treated the same as refusal to use car seats for children. Huggy Badger, Facebook State should definitely intervene – not sure why you would leave ignorant people at risk: at least increase education about the good of vaccines and the science behind them. Jamie Everett, Facebook Speaking as someone with an auto-immune condition, some state intervention would be bloody lovely. Jasmine Angel Woods, Facebook It’s antisemitism in action. Many of the parents who choose not to vaccinate are orthodox Jews. Vaccines are not magical and offer little protection and severe potential damage. Helen Wood, Facebook Good…

Customers have rallied to pay a touching tribute to much-loved Big Issue vendor Stevie after his sudden death. The 49-year-old, who sold the magazine outside Costa in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, for 18 months after also selling it in Glasgow, was found dead in his B&B on April 6. The news of his death inspired an outpouring of emotion from the local community, with tributes left on his pitch, while customer Susan Bittker penned a heartfelt letter on behalf of Stevie’s customers. She wrote: “The sudden death of Steven (also known as Stevie or Stef to his friends) has left Stockbridge residents shocked and bereft. “Steven was very much a part of the Stockbridge community: he worked really hard at the job he loved – selling The Big Issue – and made…

Things have changed since Sabrina’s days selling The Big Issue. Today all vendors have to be over 18 and show ID if we suspect they may be under-age. Then they’ll be badged up at one of the many Big Issue Sales & Outreach offices across the UK. Who can sell it? Anyone who is marginalised by poverty, unemployment, physical or mental ill-health, or homelessness of any sort – from rough sleeping to sofa surfing to people in temporary accommodation or those who may be vulnerably housed. It’s a hand up, not a handout, and we are there for anyone who needs us. Each vendor signs a Code of Conduct, which includes some basic rules on how to sell on their new pitch, and is given five copies of the magazine…

To assess the impact of the Homelessness Reduction Act, The Big Issue sent Freedom of Information requests to all 354 councils in England – and 254 responded. Here’s what we found: 7,734 Approaches in Bradford over homelessness or the threat of homelessness – the highest figure we came across £577,130 was the largest new burdens grant to cover additional duties – in Newham, east London 2,871 households prevented from being homeless in Leeds – top among our responses 862 households relieved from being homeless – again top of our list and also in Leeds See bigissue.com for a more extensive breakdown of the experimental statistics…

The wide expanses of the American heartlands have always made a great backdrop for resonant, thoughtful fiction, and this week we have two very different novels that use it as a framework to look at the realities of the flawed American dream. First up is November Road by Lou Berney, the author’s fourth novel, the cover of which comes adorned with praise from the likes of Stephen King and Ian Rankin. November Road is Berney’s first foray into historical fiction, using the assassination of John F Kennedy as the starting point for a classic noir story. JFK’s death has of course been used a lot by novelists over the years as a way to pick apart the American psyche, but Berney’s take is unusual in that the murder is only…

We are currently in a mini golden age for Ronseal-named films. The exclamation mark in superhero movie Shazam! hints at its eager-to- please, jazz-hands charm. The ominous title of deep-sea diving doc Last Breath girds you for the potential scubageddon ahead. And then there’s Dragged Across Concrete, about to appear on multiplex now showing screens in close proximity to Dumbo, and Lord help any harried parent with young kids in tow who gets the two mixed up. As well as an evocatively harsh name suitable for any disreputable grindhouse movie from the 1970s, Dragged Across Concrete could also accurately describe the feeling of watching this morally murky and painfully methodical crime thriller, where long and generally static scenes of watchfulness are abruptly punctuated by bursts of harrowing violence. It is…

A few years ago Shane MacGowan got new teeth, and while few could question the good wisdom of a man with a smile like a post-apocalyptic skyline belatedly getting his mouth sorted out, equally it was hard not to feel like rock’n’roll lost a little something under the harsh glare of the dentist’s lamp during that gruelling nine-hour procedure. Chronicled Monkey Tennis-style by Sky Arts in the 2015 documentary Shane MacGowan: A Wreck Reborn, The Pogues frontman’s orthodontic odyssey, likened by experts to climbing the “Everest of dentistry”, saw not only one of the most legendary hellmouths and monuments to excess in all of music at last conquered, but equally one of its most reckless souls finally checked. “We’ve effectively retuned his instrument and that will be an ongoing process,”…

I was working as a lorry driver but on zero-hours contracts and just before Christmas the work was dropping off. All I was being offered was weekend shifts, like 1am on a Saturday or 11pm on a Sunday. I ran out of money so basically I was left high and dry. I was living in a house but I had to move out. I managed to get a caravan and I’m still living in it at the moment, in the woods. The Big Issue is my only source of income now. Basically it means I don’t end up sleeping in shop doorways. I would be homeless without it. The driving work has left me with piriformis syndrome, which desk workers and drivers are prone to. It causes inflammation and a…