Innholdsfortegnelse for 04-11-19 i The Big Issue

01 Get a different outlook through work by outsider artists A new exhibition reflects on the theme of environments in a variety of ways. It’s organised by Outside In, an award-winning charity which – just as we do in The Big Issue every week through our Street Art page (p29) – promotes great art from talented but marginalised creatives. Piano Nobile Gallery, London, until January 1; outsidein.org.uk 02 Discover the lost art of protest Published in collaboration with Amnesty International and leading with a foreword from sculptor Anish Kapoor, The Art of Protest is a visual journey through a century of social dissent – from the suffragettes to climate change and Black Lives Matter – illustrated with more than 100 posters, some of them now iconic works of art. As…

Around the time of Remembrance this year, there will be children across the UK thinking of a lost parent who served in the armed forces. Those youngsters and their families had nowhere to turn for support until nearly 10 years ago, when Nikki Scott founded a charity inspired by the death of Lee, her husband and her children’s father, in Afghanistan. Ever since, Scotty’s Little Soldiers has been giving bereaved forces families the wraparound support she found was missing when she needed it most. Nursery worker Nikki and Corporal Lee Scott married in 2008 and moved with their son Kai to Tidworth army garrison in Wiltshire. It was just a year later, after five-year-old Kai had been joined by his sister Brooke, seven months, that Lee was killed by a…

We know it's all about Brexit, but what other vital issues need airtime in the election? Julie Ingrid Scrase Homelessness. Annie Franklin Housing and homelessness, the NHS, poverty (abolish Universal Credit!), education and community services. Brexit is literally killing off any debate or political action on these crucial issues. Linnea Ingham-Jeffries The rise in the use of foodbanks is just appalling. Our schools need proper investment, and less overcrowded classes, and our mental health services need a complete overhaul, so people can receive support immediately and not months down the line, this would also free up the police and ambulance services from having to act as social workers when they aren't paid enough to do their original job as it is. I can't choose one issue, they all have an…

My early childhood was happy, contented and merry. I grew up in landlocked Wolverhampton – the Black Country. Summer holidays were always taken in Devon, and it was here I saw a submarine for the first time. The family would take a boat trip round Devonport admiring the might of the Royal Navy fleet. I on the other hand thought the aircraft carriers, frigates and destroyers looked old and slightly bedraggled as they sat there desperately needing a lick of paint, rusting away into oblivion. My head was turned though by the four submarines that were tied up alongside the ships. They were sleek, menacing, athletic even – and beautifully streamlined. A wonder of nautical engineering, they could be on the surface one minute and then disappear below the world’s…

The old Hollywood adage of the Eighties and Nineties went that if you made a big studio blockbuster film, you could do one ‘for yourself ’ straight after. Those days feel long gone, but arguably, director Bill Condon has resurrected them with his new thriller. He comes to the movie off the back of the $1bn-grossing live-action Disney remake of Beauty and the Beast, and while he originally was going to jump to a horror remake after that, fate landed him at the door of The Good Liar. It’s telling that in the current cinema environment a thriller with two named actors in it feels like something a little different. Truthfully, too, it is. Here’s a big studio-backed film, led by two stars over 70 each, and it’s a flat-out…

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.…

Same old story I wholeheartedly agree with your letter from Southend [Reading between the lines, October 14-20] as I’ve been going to my local library (also a Carnegie) on and off since I was five and used to read Noddy and Toby Twirl, and have also used libraries for research. The munificent man also funded Dartford and Greenwich libraries and I even have a picture of an old book from the 1930s of a Carnegie in the Seychelles. Like the derelict one you illustrate, they are magnificent buildings. Unfortunately, although most of the ones I use are still open, they have had their opening hours cut back. Marc Hurstfeld, Northfleet Change the record A couple of weeks ago I was suggesting Ray Davies’ doughty anthem Is There Life after Breakfast?…

@chris_haxby Ken [Loach] is a firebrand. Question Time was illuminating: being seemingly full of silly people who want to be even poorer. England has serious issues, basically because public schoolboys are at the top of the immoral tree, and the Tories’ lead in the polls increases. Bonkers. @NickPoole1 I saw @johnbirdswords across the road in Whitehall yesterday and then in a 15 minute walk to Waterloo I passed 4 friendly @BigIssue sellers and it really made me realise what a transformative impact he has had on countless people’s lives @Kindness58 Some great quotes here from #LettersToMyYoungerSelf My fav is the #JamesBond one! What a great Christmas present this would make (heavy hint) @ChrisSlegg Really enjoy the feature they do in the @BigIssue where they assess how accurately the media have…

As hotly anticipated a festive tradition as mince pies, sherry and Santa popping down the chimney, The Big Issue’s exclusive, designer wrapping paper is back for 2019 – and it’s going to sell out fast! Among the artists who have created highly collectable designs for us this year are Ben Eine, Charming Baker and Pure Evil, and as ever the distinctive paper and tags will be available only through The Big Issue Shop. This unique collection, created in collaboration with Jealous Gallery and Art Republic, features works by nine artists. There are 250 signed, limited-edition single-image sheets of each artist’s design, priced at £39 each, while a pack of five sheets of regular wrapping paper costs £7.99. Wrapping your gifts in these designs will ensure your paper steals the show…

Big Issue Foundation CEO Stephen Robertson said: “No one should be in any doubt that a life lived on the streets of our country is unacceptable, dangerous and, in some tragic circumstances, life-ending. The stereotypes engendered by negative language only serves to demonise people as being the architects of their own decline, worthy of disdain, fear and criminalisation. Of course, no one should have to sleep in a tunnel. The Vagrancy Act 1824 makes it a crime just to sleep rough or beg in England and Wales. Harassing people and attempting to fine them only moves the problem from one place to another. The problem does not go away and we should be working to remove this from our modern society once and for all. The Big Issue will continue…

Shadow is a Colour (as Light is) is an admirably ambitious debut by Michael Langan. It’s comprised of interconnected stories that span the globe, from Hong Kong to Liverpool to New York to Paris, and timelines, shuttling back and forth through 1869 to 2013. With these multiple narratives Langan has created a book that explores father-and-son relationships, desire, loss, creativity and whether art can truly impact on our lives. Our characters on this journey include a Hong Kong billionaire and his estranged, reclusive son, a closeted gay Hollywood star and his Liverpudlian director partner and a deeply troubled contemporary artist and Paul Cézanne. It is the paintings of the latter that, in one form or another, stitch these characters’ multiple narratives so skillfully together. Indeed, the chapters featuring Cézanne, first…

@Argentologist No, I need my car for work and getting a new one to switch to electric is out of the question. It needs to be phased over several years, not done overnight, or yet again the most disadvantaged, low paid workers will suffer. @ex_ziggy Yes!! Halesworth in Suffolk is a town with independent shops and cafes. It was pedestrianised in the 1990s and has thrived. @SundancerBethan Absolutely; if the bus service to my village didn’t stop at 6pm! I don’t always want to cycle the 7 miles home after a night out/ working a bit late.…

In times of national crisis and unprecedented disruption I look for calm, sane and measured thought. I speak to my springer spaniel, Toastie. You, my regular reader, will know Toastie has been invaluable in the past. For instance, when seeking some perspective on a Twitterstorm and the desire of many to feel better about themselves by judging somebody else, he was the only man. As it were. And so, as he leapt over an empty ditch last Thursday, he and I talked about the election and what it all meant. “Kick some leaves first,” Toastie said, in his own way. “Kick them high. I will leap at them. And then we will get into this.” The issue, I said to him, as he ran into the stream, is whether this…

The forthcoming post-election day when the results come in will probably not be a sunny day, unless we are gifted with some unseasonal wintrous glow. But on one particular post-election day when the results were finalised it was a sunny summer’s day, if I remember correctly. My fiancée and I strolled around St James’s and Green Park, coming down from Hyde Park Corner. I had just been asked not to return to my washing up job in Parliament. I therefore could no longer boast in the Dog & Vomit, as I had renamed our local pub, that I was washing up for British democracy. Pity; it was such a gas, as they say, to say such a thing. The idea of describing myself as washing up for British democracy came…

Ican’t say I was happy at 16, but I can’t say I was unhappy. I felt confused, I felt lost, I was trying to find a gang. And the band [The Detours] wasn’t providing that gang for me. The drummer at that time was an older guy [Doug Sandom]. In his interviews he describes me as a bit of a cunt. I didn’t set out to be one, I was mostly just inept at social graces with other men and certainly with women. At 16 I had never kissed a girl, I had never been out with a girl, I’d never even had the courage to hold hands with a girl. I was unformed and didn’t fit in with my friends because they were all bigger and more grown up.…

Dear Madam, Dear Madam, I am writing to you in response to the Report in the New Statesman on Tuesday 8th October. You talked about the ‘stench’ coming from the homeless sleeping in the subway, leading from Westminster tube to the Houses of Parliament. As one of the homeless evicted from that subway following your comments, I would like to set a few facts straight. I don’t know the situation before Christmas but I arrived in January and, since then, we managed to form a little community with rules to be followed. Everyone woke up at 6am and left the space clear because we did not want to be a nuisance and lose our sleeping spot. We would only return after Parliament was shut. I’m not sure that you are…

“I am currently living on the street and painting as much as possible,” says Lyubomir, who only tried painting for the first time last October in the art room at The Connection at St-Martin-in-the-Fields, an outreach centre for homeless people in London. “I am interested in the symbolism of mirror images and games of perspective,” he explains. “I would like to be able to study painting full time.” The work on this page 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 of the profit goes to the artist.…

01 The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton  The famously grumpy Blyton’s great feminist trilogy – The Faraway Tree books, in which three characters (two of whom are called Dick and Fanny) must climb the phallic symbol of a tree, from which the only escape to sanity is down the slippery slip – a ‘slide’ deep in its centre. Dame Slap lives here (now renamed Dame Snap), Blyton’s biting depiction of menopause. Slap is misunderstood, and oppressed by her phallic patriarchal universe. She is right to be grumpy. 02 The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky  Unhappy intellectual Ivan awakes one night to have a conversation with the devil, and in order to cope with this wraps his head in a cold towel. Afterwards, he is in a bad mood –…

There comes a point in midlife when you realise that you are basically a fat, tired version of your younger self, and that your opportunities to achieve greatness are becoming horribly limited. But you still have a secret wish list. After all, one day you might get that golden chance to be your best self. You still might win that Oscar, or go into space or achieve that long-held ambition to play bassoon in the Royal Philharmonic. Of course, you won’t ever do any of this, but hold on tight to that hope because it’s all you’ve got, apart from jowls, debt and plantar fasciitis. Strangely enough, my wish list involves two Paul Rudds, so Living with Yourself on Netflix is like watching my dreams come true in front of…

The legendary Bob Marley said, “One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain.” He couldn’t be more spot on! Music allows us to dream, it gives joy and soothes pain, music is powerful… and it is such a privilege to be able to make music as an artist, but also to absorb music as a listener. I have decided to compile a list of artists who are making me “feel no pain” at the moment. I have discovered their music in many different ways, from a soundtrack in a movie, to hearing them at a festival and even blaring out of the speakers of a car next to mine in a traffic jam leading me to frantically scream at the driver, “Who is that you are…

No one is making video games quite like Dan Hett. Terrorism, grief, radicalisation, press ethics and intrusion – you can count on one hand the number of games that make reference to these issues, let alone tackle them with depth and insight. Sadly, that insight comes from personal experience. The Mancunian games developer and visual artist lost his brother Martyn in the Manchester Arena terror attack that rocked the city in 2017, leaving 22 people dead. Like any artist, the trauma and hurt from such a harrowing and affecting incident has coloured his creative output since then. Take, for instance, the Twine game c ya laterrrr. It consists purely of Hett’s raw, emotional written account of the immediate aftermath of the attack. The player is forced to make the same…

The Old Library, The Hayes, Cardiff Monday-Saturday 9am-5pm I’m from Yeovil, and when I first came to Cardiff in 2004 I was living with my auntie. But we had arguments and eventually our relationship broke down so she chucked me out on to the street. I started selling the magazine in 2014 for a couple of years. At the time I still had nowhere to live and no money for food – I didn’t know where my next meal would come from. Since then I’ve been in quite a few different homeless hostels, and I ended up back on the streets for about three or four months last year and the beginning of this one, but now I’ve got a flat. I live on my own. It’s going really good.…