Innholdsfortegnelse for 06-04-20 i The Big Issue

This subscribers’ edition of The Big Issue is part of our fundraising push to support our magazine sellers during the coronavirus crisis, until they can get back on their street pitches. We launched our new subscriptions drive a couple of weeks ago, and we are delighted that thousands have answered that call. You are helping the people who need it most – our vendors who can no longer sell. In the last number of days we have directly contacted well over 1,000 vendors, who are among the most vulnerable and isolated people in Britain right now. We have offered financial and emotional support, including • An immediate mass handout of supermarket vouchers; • Topping up electric and gas keys where needed to keep vendors warm; • Helping vendors access all the support services…

The pace of inventive idea development is not abating. While lockdown is hard, already the new normal is helping us all work through some positive impacts. There is focused bird listening. Mornings are full of song. And aǽter the songs there are exercises with Joe Wicks. Following the initial panic, there are now planned and focused supermarket runs, hopefully resulting in less waste. And fewer toilet roll mountains blocking hallways. And language grows and develops. We’re now hugely familiar with ‘self isolation’, ‘social distancing’ and my personal favourite, the odd excuses for breakdown of remote group meetings sneak into everyday use. ‘Sorry, my mic was off’ is a plaintive refrain echoing across Britain. It’s an isolation mini haiku. In years to come numerous twee indie bands will use it as…

Scattered around the streets of my neighbourhood are churches with a new banner: “Try Praying”. Two within walking distance of each other suggest that we need this now. But hopefully not in place of masks and protection for our health workers who are oǽten not protected by adequate supplies of masks and gowns, gloves and disinfectant swabs. The danger of working on the front line has greatly increased with the amount of those succumbing to the virus. And we are only in the foothills of the illness, so we are told. You may wish to pray for the improvements we could do with now, or you could write a poem. The First World War (not so much the Second) threw up some great poets and poems that resound to this…

A few months ago, I travelled to Thailand to do Muay Thai, the sport I’d been training in casually for years. I’d heard about a gym a few hours from Bangkok called Sitjaopho Muay Thai, which is run by Pisit Kambang, a martial artist known for his beautiful, technically precise style. I wasn’t sure how long I’d stay – my trip was to be a month in total – but it seemed to be a good starting point. There were a few reasons for the trip, but one of the more pressing ones was that professionally I felt like a failure, and that’s the truth. I had two books under my belt and was several months away from publishing two more. My published books had modest sales and garnered some…

THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE (1961) Available on BFI Player This very British disaster movie has a great gimmick: in the initial scenes, where the Earth is being scorched to extinction by hurtling too close to the sun, the black-and-white footage has a lurid orange tint. After that searing prologue, it reverts to a cooler monochrome shade for an extended flashback, as peacocking Daily Express reporter Stenning (Edward Judd) sniffs out the story of a lifetime with the help of gnomic science editor Maguire (Leo McKern). This is the end of the world viewed through the prism of a bustling newsroom: all clattering presses, constant cigarettes and sharp-elbowed newsboys. When the apocalypse is confirmed, one production editor’s first vocalised thought is how many editions they’ll have to put out…

When tenor Maurizio Marchini was filmed in March serenading the rooǼtops of locked-down Florence with a heartfelt performance of Nessun Dorma, the aria from Puccini’s Turandot popularised by Pavarotti, reports were littered with comments about music bringing communities together in troubled times. The balcony videos inspired musicians in the German town of Bamberg to sing the Italian Resistance anthem to show their solidarity, while musicians of all stripes have been sharing performances online. But while everyone appears to agree that music is critical during a crisis, in reality thousands of musicians are facing financial ruin. The Musicians’ Union, which has been working around the clock, estimates that its members have already lost around £13.9m in earnings because of coronavirus. Social media is awash with cases like international cellist Matthew Sharp,…

BIRDWATCH Join Chris Packham’s Self-Isolating Bird Club  Spring has sprung and with humans largely contained indoors like never before the birds and other creatures are bolder and louder than ever. Friend of The Big Issue Chris Packham and his conservationist chums have set up a club for nature-lovers in self-isolation. Tweet your sightings, and tune in at 9am every morning for live broadcasts. @SIBirdClub LISTEN Revisit classic albums with #timstwitterlisteningparty Doing his bit to keep everyone’s spirits up, Charlatans singer Tim Burgess is rallying his rock star mates around to host listening parties for classic albums on Twitter every evening. All from Oasis and Blur to Franz Ferdinand and The Chemical Brothers have answered the call. Just log on, hit play on the album of the night at exactly 10pm…

A hand up... Proceeds from sales of this magazine are being used to tide over our vendors until they can get back to work on their pitches. Not a handout… In ordinary circumstances our vendors buy magazines for half the cover price and sell at full price, keeping the difference. They earn a legitimate income, and gain valuable social and employability skills. With your support now, we will continue to do so once the crisis has passed. 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.…

This painting was done in January while frequent Street Art contributor Christie was working in her studio at The Exchange arts hub in Erith, South-East London – a derelict old library that has been brought back to the centre of community life in recent years as a not-for-profit charitable organisation. “I decided to refer to the image of one of the fish in the public art sculpture by Gary Drostle,” Christie explains, “which is situated on the roundabout not far from my studio. I wanted to mark the experience of working for a wonderful year at The Exchange. “They have been very supportive of me and my artwork,” Christie adds, “and I have been able to join them to offer workshops in painting to the community there.” The Exchange is…

01 Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland by Marjorie Blamey, Richard Fitter and Alastair Fitter Spring brings the flowers. I was 29 before I was able to identify many flowers beyond daisy and clover, and it is sad that so few of us get past this level of knowledge. But a book like this classic is both an aid and an inspiration. 02 Meadows by George Peterken Flowers grow in meadows, if you didn’t know, and there is no better description of these than in this book. 03 Plant Galls by Margaret Redfern and RR Askew One of my favourite books to detail one of the odder corners of nature. It describes many insect, fungus and nematodes galls, all constructed on plants under instruction from these various parasites. The oak…

A few years ago, Dynamo was flying high – literally. Remember when he levitated above The Shard in 2014? By 2016 he was playing sold-out arenas, had hit TV shows and his stunts made headlines around the world. That year he was even on the cover of The Big Issue (see pic below). That was when you knew you’d made it, right? “Yep, I’m not gonna lie,” Dynamo says from self-isolation. “I’d see Big Issue sellers around where I live and often buy a copy. I’m fortunate that I’ve been on a few covers of magazines but seeing The Big Issue edition was pretty amazing. I was taking selfies with a lot of the sellers. I was so proud. I know you were half joking but genuinely it was one…

‘I worry I’ll be back rough sleeping’ Popular seller Simon has been using The Big Issue to help him to move on, by building up his small antiques business. So he has been hit on two fronts by the coronavirus outbreak: unable to sell his antiques or the magazine. Known among his regulars for his cheerful big smile and his signature jester hat, Simon has built up a loyal customer base on his pitch outside Topshop in Norwich, and that allowed him to use his passion for antiques to start selling them at the All Saints Antiques Centre in the city. Simon’s love of collectables saw him appear on BBC’s Antiques Road Trip, and he proudly showed The Big Issue round a selection of his favourite finds (you can still…

EXERCISE 2: BEAN CAN DEADLIFT Who needs fancy gym equipment when you’ve got the contents of your kitchen cupboards? Raid your emergency stockpile and pull out a couple of cans of beans or similar – they weigh about 500g each, as much as a small dumbbell. “To maintain your fitness level doesn’t require you to do very much,” says Mr Motivator, “it just requires you to 1. Work your hamstrings, glutes, biceps and back by holding your cans one in each hand end to end between your legs and starting from a 2. Stand up gradually, lift the tins until they’re beneath your chin, elbows up and out level with your ears. 3. Do as many deadlifts as you can in 30 seconds, rest, go again. Try to avoid eating…

The Big Issue: What lessons can we learn from the financial crisis of a decade ago? Mervyn King: There are two lessons that we should apply now. First, ask the question ‘What is going on here?’ – this may seem banal, but it is not. In the financial crisis everyone focused initially on the symptoms – the shortage of liquidity and funding for banks. But the underlying cause was deeper – banks were unable to absorb potential losses because they were ‘undercapitalised’, in other words, they had not issued enough equity shares to absorb any losses that might arise from an uncertain future. Today, we need to find out the true spread of the virus before we can form any reliable predictions about the future path of the disease. Second,…

As coronavirus continues to spread, we wanted to get a real sense of how the deadly pandemic is affecting people on the streets. The Big Issue is part of a global movement of more than 100 street papers in 35 countries around the world. So we turned to our network to ask how they were faring in today’s uncertain times and what it meant for the men and women selling their magazines on the streets. Like The Big Issue, every one of those street papers is facing a battle for survival to carry on serving the vendors who rely on them for a lifesaving income while the streets are empty. It is crucial that they survive to come out the other side too – with many people left jobless as…

One of the biggest joys of reading fiction is disappearing into a fully realised world of the author’s creation. So it is with this week’s novels, two superb adventures through unique but captivating worlds. First up we have the lyrical and mesmerising A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry. The Irish author has long been lauded for his brilliant fiction but even by his standards he’s hit a sweet spot, his previous book Days Without End winning loads of awards and selling shedloads. A Thousand Moons is a sequel of sorts, set in the same world as its predecessor with many of the same characters, but with a different narrative focus. Days Without End brilliantly evoked the lives of Thomas McNulty and John Cole, two young men who fought in the…

FOUR KIDS AND IT Available now on Sky Cinema and Now TV Originally scheduled as a big Easter cinema release, this family movie comes to streaming a little earlier than planned. It’s an adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson’s lively 2012 book which sought to update E Nesbit’s classic tale Five Children and It for the 21st century by lopping off one child and adding lots of sarcasm and smartphones. That debt is acknowledged on-screen, as bookish young Ros (Teddie-Rose Malleson- Allen) encounters a covetable red hardback copy of the original 1902 novel just before she and her Nintendo Switch-obsessed little brother Robbie (Billy Jenkins) are whisked off to the Cornish coast by their self-effacing dad David (Matthew Goode). Dad has an ulterior motive. He wants to introduce the kids to his…

Once, when I was jogging by the ›ames, I saw a heron wrestling with a gigantic eel on the riverbank. It was an extraordinary and quite chilling spectacle. In fact, it’s one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. I am 45 years old and have been around a bit. I’m not exactly David Attenborough or Elton John (imagine the sort of messed-up shit they’ve witnessed) but neither am I particularly sheltered or naïve. At least that’s what I thought, until I watched Tiger King on Netflix. Tiger King is a documentary series that investigates the world of big cat owners in the United States. It is the maddest programme I have ever seen. So mad that, over the course of seven hour-long episodes, it has to skip past certain…