Innholdsfortegnelse for 02-03-20 i The Big Issue

01 Love reading on World Book Day As an unwavering believer in the life-changing power of the written word, The Big Issue is always pleased to champion World Book Day’s mission to celebrate storytellers and readers, and help give every child and young person a book of their own. Be a part of it by attending special events around the country, or by telling everyone what you’re reading with #WorldBookDay. March 5; worldbookday.com 02 Listen to The Housing Podcast As Christopher Pincher MP becomes the 10th housing minister in a decade, you couldn’t be blamed for not really trusting the government when it comes to perspectives on Britain’s housing crisis. Instead trust Inside Housing magazine’s regular podcast, which gets to grips with the issues with input from industry experts.…

Just read the articles regarding periods in the latest issue of The Big Issue [February 17-23]. Amazed only four per cent of dads talk about periods with their children?? I grew up with two sisters and was always being sent to the local shop to get emergency sanitary items (I used to wrap them in old newspapers). I have two daughters and never had a problem talking about periods or buying sanitary towels for them (the colour code has helped a lot, instead of having to look for flow etc.) If men had to go through this it would be a top topic down the pub. Hopefully more men will get over this phobia of talking about it. Great work with getting help to those who can’t afford to buy…

Big Issue Changemaker Malachi Justin’s dream of helping homeless people in Ilford was finally realised last week when the first residents moved into new flats named after the 10-year-old. The Salvation Army’s £5m Malachi Place complex offers 42 self-contained furnished flats with 24-hour on-site support for former rough-sleeping residents. When his first milk tooth fell out five years ago, Malachi sent the £5 he received from the tooth fairy to The Salvation Army along with a letter asking the charity to spend it helping homeless people. Malachi said: “I can’t believe it has actually happened and we have built a home for homeless people! I’m really happy. “I’m still only 10 but I know that homelessness is getting worse. This shows there is something we can all do to help.”…

This inhospitable but breathtaking landscape is home to the ultimate storage solution designed to safeguard the seeds of the world’s most important crops. Constructed in 2008 and run as a joint initiative between Norway’s Ministry of Agriculture, the Crop Trust and the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre (NordGen), the Vault is used by gene banks, governments, universities and research facilities from every continent. If their own collections are compromised, if there is mass crop failure due to disease, if food supply chains are disrupted by conflict – or should there be any other doomsday scenario from zombie apocalypse to asteroid impact – the Global Seed Vault could be humanity’s best hope for survival. Stored 130 metres deep inside a mountain are more than a million frozen seeds, kept at a chilled…

It’s been 30 years since Deacon Blue headlined Scotland’s biggest gig. Frontman Ricky Ross got angry onstage that day, and tells Paul English that now he’s more comfortable with the personal than the political Their best-loved song tells of a man who finds meaning in his life by pushing a council dustcart through the streets, driven by the dream of saving his money to buy a dinghy, which he’ll sail up the west coast of Scotland, through villages and towns. Since its release in 1987, Deacon Blue’s anthem for the working man, Dignity, has become public property, a shared metaphor of hope. Yet as the Dundonian who wrote the song sits down with his wife and bandmate over morning coffee to talk about their group’s new record 33 years later…

HOW IT WAS TOLD A fry-up to start the day and helping to shed pounds sounds too good to be true. We all would if we could get away with it, right? If only. Headlines on February 19 were an encouraging sign of that hypothetical utopia coming to pass. The stories all stemmed from a study at the University of Lübeck in Germany published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. The Sun’s report, like many stories, emphasised the size of the breakfast but used a pic of a fry-up rather than centring their headline on it. They opted for: “BREAK THE FAST: Eat a big breakfast to lose weight fast – you’ll ‘burn TWICE as many calories’”. Mail Online’s effort was in a similar vein with: “Eating a…

The Arctic Winter Games begin in the Yukon, Canada, this month and have a few events that would make great additions to the Olympics in Tokyo. The biennial event brings together young people living in the Arctic to celebrate and exchange indigenous culture. Alongside common sports like badminton, table tennis and ice hockey are other contests that draw upon the participants’ heritage and unique way of life. Here are just a few of them for you to try at home! 01) Arm Pull: Opponents sit and face each other, linking one arm and attempt to pull the other player over or force their hand to touch their chest. 02) Finger Pull: A test of strength and pain tolerance, based on the importance of strong fngers able to carry as many…

The UK government has hailed a small drop in the number of people sleeping rough in England for the second straight year. It’s welcome news. The nine per cent decrease means that officially there were 4,266 people counted by outreach workers, local charities and community workers on one autumn evening between October 1 and November 30. The snapshot represents a small step in the right direction on the mammoth journey to ending rough sleeping “once and for all” by 2024. That was Boris Johnson’s vow last week while unveiling £236m of extra funding towards Housing First-style accommodation and an urgent review from homelessness tsar Dame Louise Casey. And they have a way to go – rough sleeping levels are still 141 per cent higher than when the Tories first took…

The kindness here has helped me put the pain of my past behind me House of Fraser, Buchanan Street, Glasgow Most days, times vary  I’ve been selling The Big Issue for three months and I’m so glad to tell my story for International Women’s Day on Sunday. I don’t think I could find a better way to thank the people of Glasgow for their generosity and solidarity. I really love people – I’m shy, but sociable. It’s a difficult combination but my wish to say thank you has made me overcome my fear of publicity. The constant kindness here has helped me put the pain of the last six years since I originally lost my home behind me. In December I was given five free Big Issues to go out…

@michaeljswalker Quite right to call out @nadhimzahawi for justifying illiterate and damaging economic policies in Britain by referencing Venezuela. Pathetic scaremongering from a Tory minister. @morton_dill John Bird’s speech on the stain of homelessness and its direct root cause being austerity and mental health was #bbcqt moment of the night. @Gumby1903 Never watch QT or any BBC news, but have a lot of respect for John Bird who has worked tirelessly for the good of the people and The Big Issue, his comments to Zahawi who pontificates the Tory mantra were spot on ...#notmygovernment @BenJolly9 This one line perfectly describes the mood of so many who have been let down by governments over the last 40 years in this nation today – “If you haven’t got a future, it doesn’t…

When I was 16 I was studying English at college, but my real focus was on playing in loads of different bands. One of the main ones was a band called What For? – our manager was [pre-Ringo Beatles drummer] Pete Best. I used to write all the lyrics. I always found I had a surfeit of lyrics and a deficit of musicians, so I turned my lyrics into poems and started doing stand-up poetry. By the time I was 16 I was hiring out the Everyman Theatre [in Liverpool] on a Sunday night and putting on poetry recitals. This was the time when John Cooper Clarke was going strong, and Steven Wells and Attila the Stockbroker. I was into them but I was also reading WH Auden, EE Cummings,…

The MP tasked with sorting out rough sleeping said in Parliament just two years ago that street homelessness is “a lot more comfortable than going on exercise in the army”. Now Adam Holloway, the Tory member for Gravesham, has been appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick – a role created specifically to tackle the rough-sleeping crisis. In 2018 Holloway slept rough, reported himself to outreach services and accepted a place in a shelter for a night. The 54-year-old said he wanted a first-hand look at homelessness for ITV’s Tonight programme, and to compare experiences with when he did the same for World in Action in 1991. The ex-army officer later debated fellow MPs on being in a soup kitchen where he “did not hear English being spoken…

Here’s a feelgood Brit flick with a familiar formula and moments that might have been lifted from a dozen films you’ve already seen – including director Peter Cattaneo’s own The Full Monty. Military Wives tells the true story of a group of women on a military base who formed a choir when their other halves were away in Afghanistan and ended up at number one at Christmas in 2011. Kristin Scott Thomas and Catastrophe’s Sharon Horgan are terrific as warring WAGs. Military Wives is in cinemas from March 6…

The UK’s orchestras are a global success. But that success comes at a price. It’s an expensive and risky business putting on classical concerts, involving the movement of upwards of 100 people plus support staff. And after a decade of cuts in public funding, which has led to our orchestras chasing more work abroad, particularly in Europe, Brexit poses the biggest risk of all. First off, we need access to the best in global talent. Musicians cross borders every day, either as soloists or looking for permanent work in an orchestra. Freedom of movement has made this easy, but with the UK planning to impose immigration controls, and EU countries doing the same to us, it’s all going to get a lot more difficult after the end of December. Our…