Innholdsfortegnelse for 19-08-19 i The Big Issue

01 Flock to the Shepherdess – One Woman Farm exhibition Ruddy reclusive men with hooked canes who spend most of their time in fields with livestock – shepherds have long needed a bit of a PR makeover. Here to alter at least some of your preconceptions about sheep tenders is this photo exhibition about Alison O’Neill – a born and bred farmer who lives a hard-working but bucolic life caring for her flock in the Yorkshire Dales. Dales Countryside Museum, Hawes, until September 8; dalescountrysidemuseum.org.uk 02 Shop socially for a wonderful-looking Wonderbag cooker It’s World Humanitarian Day this August 19, a moment to pay tribute to aid workers around the globe. Many vendors in The Big Issue Shop support humanitarian endeavors – be it Wonderbag’s revolutionary, non-electric portable slow cookers,…

@hannaheustace121 Thank you for your absolute determination to uncover the real truth in today’s world despite your own fears. This is what journalism truly is and we want you to know that the people that watch your documentaries are behind you all the way and love you for being the one that gives deserving people a voice! You are the change we need to see in our world. God bless you xx @sharonhallam Stuff the negativity Stacey, being yourself hasn’t stopped you yet x @kourtfairlie Amazing woman! Absolutely fearless filming some things, think it was Egypt, a few years ago – wanting to be right up at the front line when things were kicking off! @pezhelen What you are doing for journalism and young people being interested in real issues…

The rise in holiday hunger is a stain that should shame Britain. It’s an indictment of years of policies that punish those most in need. We at The Big Issue want to do all we can to help fght it. We have been providing a platform for the wonderful, selfless groups and individuals offering a hand up. But we also want to hear your stories, so tell us at editorial@bigissue.com . We will be the signpost for those in need, a way to celebrate good people. Then we will do our bit to make sure the groups are not needed in the future, by dealing with the core causes of holiday hunger. And you can read more about the campaign at bigissue.com…

HOW IT WAS TOLD We’re all still trying to get a handle on social media. The new technology has made the world a smaller place in the last 15 years by connecting us to people all over the world and giving direct access to celebrities and athletes. But the impact on our mental health, how much time we should really spend scrolling and whether Twitter and Facebook et al have been a good thing for us is still up for debate. Academics have been hard at work trying to answer these questions. A three-year observational study of 10,000 adolescents aged between 13 and 16, published in The Lancet, moved the dial forward last week. It was widely reported in the UK press as well as by CNN in the USA…

Costa says: “The outcomes for children who come into care are disproportionately rubbish. Look at the figures: • Looked-aǽter children are five times more likely to be temporarily excluded from school than their peers • One in 10 rough sleepers in London have been in care • More than one in three care leavers end up NEET (not in education, employment or training) “Even though adoption is not for the faint-hearted, the single best thing we can do for children is give them love and stability.”…

A fossil is just an echo. Reaching out to us from the past, the further in time it’s travelled, the weaker the tale it tells. Luckily, some of the most fascinating stories come from fossils of animals that have only just gone. In geological time, we just missed them. The mammoth and the woolly rhino. The sabretooth cat and the Irish elk. The cave lion and the cave bear. All these species disappeared along with the closing of the ice age, the Pleistocene epoch, around 11,700 years ago. Today, we are all eyewitnesses to the sixth mass extinction: a loud scream that will resonate into the future to tell any survivors how lightly we valued our planet. Some people think that the sixth extinction only started with the silent springs…

By this stage in his prolific career, Pedro Almodóvar is essentially a brand. The Spanish writer and director makes films with hearts the size of hot air balloons: exuberant tales often set in heightened realities that can be overwhelming in the best way. Even when steering into melodrama or farce, he seems to embrace everything about life, plunging headlong into sensation and emotionalism. Watching an Almodóvar movie is to not-so-secretly wish you saw the world through those voracious eyes, could somehow tap into his muy picante mojo. But maybe being Almodóvar isn’t as much fun as it sounds. His latest, Pain and Glory, stars Antonio Banderas as Salvador Mallo, a widely adored veteran Spanish film-maker. From the outset, Banderas’s silvery beard and frizzed-up hair invite parallels between Salvador and Almodóvar…

Music is a universal language that transcends political and social differences. When we listen to work written or played by musicians whose mother tongue might be different to our own, there are no barriers to our understanding: the notes sound more or less identical to both performer and audience. Of course, there are variations in cultural tastes and musical systems, but the actual delivery doesn’t require a third party to interpret the overarching message. This special quality is all well and good – but do we ever really make use of it? At the height of the Cold War, miscommunication and intrigue contributed to icy international relations. The US, USSR, UK and others were engaged in a bitter exchange of propaganda and political manoeuvring. Domestic policy fostered an environment of…

Oval Underground Station, Lambeth 7am-10am and 2pm-7pm daily I was put in care when I was six weeks old. I had a difficult time at school so left at 16 and joined the fairground. They were my guardians – I had the time of my life. I’ve been on the streets and in and out of prison for many years. I’ve married twice and have children, but I haven’t seen my family for years. I’ve just been coping on my own. I used to sleep in the churchyard across from the station. There were eight of us sleeping there. We stuck together and we looked out for each other – no one else will. Back in 1992, a filmmaker made a documentary about me called Praying for Paul. I was…

The view from overseas I left England in the Seventies – worked in Zambia, mainland Europe and California before eventually settling in the Caribbean on retirement. However I have visited Blighty most years, first to look after ageing family and now just visiting. It is sad to see the increasing disparity between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ and while not unique to the UK, I always thought of us as a caring, sharing nation willing to look after the less fortunate. It seems not so much. However, I do think the concept of The Big Issue is brilliant. I always make a point of buying it when visiting and, no matter which town or city I am in the sellers are always polite, personable and quick to smile. The magazine…

One of my favourite useless pieces of information relates to Greenland. You can quiz your family and friends with it after reading this and annoy them for hours. Greenland is the only nation in the Americas that uses its indigenous language as the official language of state. All others use the language of the conquering nation – whether that be English, French, Spanish or Portuguese. For a long time it was Danish in Greenland but the nation has been self-governing since 2009. And don’t write in to tell me it’s not wholly independent yet. I have Wikipedia too. Greenland is not just useful in pub quizzes, it also feels like a barometer for the state of the planet. If its big glaciers are melting, then we’re all in trouble. And…

The Salvation Army is putting the finishing touches to a unique pop-up hostel for rough sleepers – and has a 10-year-old boy to thank. Malachi Justin sent the charity a fiver and a letter asking them to buy homes for people who needed them. With subsequent donations, that £5 has since been turned into £5m for Project Malachi, a pop-up hostel with 40 homes that is being assembled in Ilford, East London. Set to open its doors to the first residents in early November, the modular homes will include 15 places for people with no recourse to public funds after Salvation Army workers noticed a high proportion of rough sleepers in the area could not access benefits. “Malachi’s letter said: ‘Dear Salvation Army, here is £5 I got from the…

THAT (Teignbridge Homeless Action Today) is a comprehensive effort to alleviate poverty, based in Buckland and founded in 2017. Open every weekday, the foodbank supplies ‘tailored-to-need’ foodpacks. That means someone will get a different food parcel if they don’t have a cooker to someone who does; or someone sleeping rough will be given a non-cook pack. THAT set up a ‘no hungry holidays’ programme, making up extra foodpacks to ensure struggling families were fed. “We thought we’d get 25-30 referrals,” says Lin Wooldridge, chair of the organisation. “We’ve had 95. “If a family doesn’t have a vehicle that means they can come in and collect, we have a team of volunteers who deliver.” Every time a household receives their first foodpack, THAT give them one of their own cookbooks –…

On November 6, 1217, two documents became part of our constitution, Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, the latter asserting that everybody had a right to subsistence, a right to a home and a right to work in the commons. The commons are natural resources – land, water, air, forests and woods, minerals and other resources in and under the land. They also include the social amenities and a body of ideas bequeathed to us by the many generations before us. Yet throughout history, elites and governments serving their interests have plundered our commons illegitimately, by enclosure and encroachment, and recently by privatisation and neglect through budget cuts under the name of ‘austerity’. The modern plunder began with Margaret Thatcher, who launched the privatisation of council housing. This…

The life of a concert pianist is a strange one. Jetting from city to city, from hotel room to hotel room, without the companionship of a band, working temporarily with this or that orchestra, this or that conductor – it must take a certain type of personality, and a certain type of inner fortitude. Whatever it takes, Stephen Hough has it in spades. Not only is he one of the world’s leading pianists, he is an author, a painter, and, his latest book reveals, an essayist of considerable distinction. He puts that in-between time to good use. Hough’s playing is sublime, and over the years his insistence on seeking out lesser-performed composers has introduced me to music I might otherwise have overlooked: Mompou and Franck, to name two. That questing…

Horror films often have thrifty budgets but It, the lovingly crafted 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s enduring novel, became a monster hit, returning a staggering $700m+ worldwide from a $35m budget. The highly anticipated sequel – again overseen by Argentinian director Andrés Muschietti – arrives in a fortnight but anyone wanting a refresh on the youthful Losers Club and their creepy red-nosed nemesis Pennywise can jump into this limited rerelease, bolstered with some preview scenes from It: Chapter Two. It is back in cinemas on August 23…

For a long time, Clara Schumann’s legacy was limited to ‘the wife of Robert Schumann’. In fact, Clara was a talented composer in her own right, and her achievements are widely celebrated in 2019, 200 years after her birth. Isata Kanneh-Mason’s new recording of Clara’s piano music includes the composer’s delicious concerto, performed with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the three Romances for violin and piano, with violinist Elena Urioste. Romance: The Piano Music of Clara Schumann by Isata Kanneh-Mason is out now on Decca @claireiswriting…

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.…

Big Issue founder John Bird said we should act thoughtfully and not be blinded by short-terminism. What do you think? @MarkStevenWoods So often we are drawn to the grandest of solutions when we could make real change on our own doorsteps. While I love what tech has brought us, I also mourn the loss of community it has brought too. @camdenlockbooks Short-termism is the ultimate folly. Allowing aggressive lobbying from oil industries, closing libraries and persevering with business rates are glaring examples. @ThePhraser The great library system that was in place did so much for my family and Sure Start held such promise for stressed young families. Sarah McGinley, LinkedIn Nothing focuses the mind more than impending doom. Climate change is throwing new challenges at us every day and I…

The Big Issue’s holiday hunger campaign has been hammering home the reality of summer food poverty for families. But we know the struggle doesn’t end when term starts up again. For families who find it difficult to keep their children fed without free school meals, and who often have to decide between entertaining them and keeping the electricity meter topped up, there are health implications reaching far beyond the beginning of term. Dr Kelly Morgan, a public health researcher at Cardiff University, knows this well. She gathered evidence from 193 primary schools across Wales to find out how children’s experiences during the long summer holiday could explain the socioeconomic differences seen in their health when they go back to school. There’s something many people don’t consider a health issue, she…

Children In Scotland’s Food, Families, Futures (FFF) project was set up in 2016 to provide food for families over the school holidays. “But it’s more than that,” says project leader Neil Orr. FFF sets up safe, comfortable community hubs where families gather to join in on the cooking, preparation and play. A core feature of the hubs is their term-time family cooking club. It’s a pre-emptive resource, making sure communities are “geared up” to use those skills during the holidays when budgets are tighter and ingredients are scarcer. The CIS team use communities cooking and eating together as opportunities to bring in additional support. They will work with families to tackle health inequalities and the attainment gap between wealthy and poor. “Anecdotally there has been a jump in demand ,”…

What if you could see the world through a child’s eyes – would you change your behaviour towards them? Helen Costa thinks so. When she co-founded the Cornerstone Partnership, she had one mission: to improve the lives of families touched by the care system. But four years later, her social enterprise has pioneered the country’s first virtual-reality programme that fosters understanding between an adopted child and the adopter, used in more than 40 local authorities. Costa, 50, worked in pharmaceuticals before landing a job in what was the Department of Trade and Industry. She moved to the London Development Agency to take the reins on science and innovation before joining Boris Johnson’s administration at City Hall to work on social policy – hers is a CV not for the faint…

I never watched snooker on TV, but two weeks before my 13th birthday I got a toy snooker table for Christmas. My mum had seen it in a shop window and asked what I thought of it as a Christmas present. I had bicycles and footballs, so it was something different. My father’s father was a very good player, although he died before I was born. The talent skipped a generation and within a couple of weeks, I was making 50 breaks. Even when I started winning it was still a hobby, I wasn’t thinking about a career. I look back now and think, if I hadn’t been good at snooker, what would I have done? I left school with no qualifications. Although I wouldn’t be bottom of the class…

“My brain’s not working properly, or feels that way, so I make things, distract it, keep it occupied,” explains Assad, who submits his artworks via London homeless charity the 240 Project. “I work with whatever’s at hand: found objects, clay, plaster, wood, forcing them together, making them into a single cohesive entity. I’m not trained, just determined. “I am inspired equally by Somalia, where I was born, and London, where I live now. The figures I make can be quite ugly, brutal. It’s not intentional, but does reflect my past. Maybe they’ll get prettier over time.”…

01 Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi Shifting point of view through the protagonist’s many ‘selves’, and drawing on Igbo cosmology, this is an extraordinary book, both expansive and intimate. 02 Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf Published in 1928, this book still feels fun and fresh. Orlando transforms from teen-boy page in the Elizabethan court to adventuring adult woman, and who continues to switch between men’s and women’s clothing. A favourite book of my youth, it will always remind me to be adventurous and bold in my writing. 03 Highway Bodies by Alison Evans A group of queer and gender diverse teens learn a new resilience when the zombie apocalypse hits Australia. Gory and yet big-hearted, with memorable teen characters, I’m the proud publisher of this YA work by a talented,…

It’s a period when the Edinburgh Fringe ensures the cobbles are being worn away by the heavy footfalls of the inebriated comedian navigating their ego through the rapid mash-up of elation and disappointment, and the inviting opening hours can take you to a final Campari at dawn. Therefore Radio Four chose a prime time to allow Louis Barfe to talk with comedians and writers about their relationship with booze in Does The Team Drink? This was not Leaving Las Vegas, a warning to the cocktail curious, but predominantly light in tone while not avoiding a few tales of the pitfalls of combining alcohol and creativity. It was bookended by the late writer David Nobbs, creator of two superlative pieces of television, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin and A…

Machine learning is all the rage right now. The NHS are all over it – they’ve vowed to become world leaders on the tech front in the next five years, to make 30 million outpatient appointments unnecessary and save £1bn to reinvest in frontline care. Machine learning is also at the core of the Department for Transport plans to check out road markings by reviewing 150 million high-definition images of UK carriageways. Both examples are a far cry from Silicon Valley giants like Facebook and Google, where algorithms and data are commonplace. But a humble foodbank in Huddersfield is perhaps an even less likely candidate to employ machines to improve their service. The Welcome Centre got in touch with The Big Issue earlier in the summer in response to our…