Innholdsfortegnelse for 06-07-20 i The Big Issue

VENDORS: Not all vendors will return at once this week. Health issues mean some are shielding and areas of the country may be subject to localised lockdown restrictions. We will continue to support vendors who need help until they can start selling again. PPE: Safety is key, we do not want to risk any vendor or customer’s health. So we are providing ‘Welcome Back Packs’ for each vendor that include masks, gloves, sanitiser and wipes. Vendors will also be given waterproof bags to safely store magazines. PITCHES: Some pitches may have moved, depending on local safety measures and circumstances. A large number of vendors will now be offering contactless payment, but they will all continue to accept cash – there is no indication that handling cash or magazines will transmit…

• The UK government initially pledged £3.2m to councils so they could house rough sleepers alongside a portion of the £3.2bn additional funding local authorities also received • Rough Sleeping Taskforce chair Dame Louise Casey then secured fast- tracked funding of £433m to find 6,000 long-term homes for rough sleepers, promising 3,300 in the first 12 months • Another cash injection of £105m followed to continue the move-on process, taking total dedicated spending on rough sleeping to at least £541m • But councils are still struggling to foot the bill – London Councils revealed that the 32 London boroughs were spending an extra £50m on homelessness and rough sleeping • Boris Johnson re-announced a £12.2bn affordable homes programme last week which will mean 180,000 homes per year over the next eight years. But charity Shelter…

Much of the discrimination and racism faced today by the BME community is down to the lack of education on how Western Civilisation benefitted economically, culturally and socially from colonialism. The school curriculum that myself and fellow Scots were brought up on does not teach about the many prominent Afro-Scottish, Caribbean and Black British figures who contributed significantly to the UK. Neither does it acknowledge or debate the fact that the British government paid out 40 per cent of the Treasury annual spending budget to compensate slave owners aǽter the abolition, yet nothing to those who were enslaved. It is one of the most horrific events in our history, but there is no recognition – this lack of transparency and deliberate omission has led to historic racial profiling, physical and…

When lockdown hit, the situation became critical for The Big Issue. We entered survival mode and urgently had to find a way to get money and support to our vendors. And we had to plot a path to make sure we would keep going so we’d be here when lockdown eased. We knew that when that time came we’d be needed more than ever. As we formed our plans, we asked for help. We had been an organisation that had been offering a hand up rather than a handout for 29 years. But that changed and it was us who had to ask for assistance. You brought it. You helped us spread the message to subscribe; you subscribed; you bought The Big Issue in shops; you downloaded the app; you…

Here’s a quiz question. Suppose you’re an astronaut looking at Earth from space. Suppose that floating around you could see clearly that life on our planet is in an existential crisis. Animal species are going extinct, the planet is warming up and year after year the tiny inhabitants are experiencing more of the dreadful consequences. Then, as you hang there peering at the globe, an acute crisis hits: a mean virus kills legions and brings the world economy to a halt. Governments need to intervene on a massive scale to save people’s livelihoods. Do you, astronaut with overview, think that: A. The governments will use the stimulus money to alleviate both crises, or B. Use the emergency spending for the acute crisis to make the other – existential – crisis…

It feels fitting that The Golden Girls has been on Channel 5 every lunchtime since the world as we knew it ended, because I’m just getting to the age where I’m starting to see them not as bouffanted, dotty old ladies, but my peer group. Now they all look about 47 to me – when I’ve got my glasses on, obviously – and to be quite honest, I’m jealous of them. Those broads not only get to spend their leisurely, work-free days in a hip, millennial-style pastel-hued Florida retirement complex, but they’re also going on dates and getting loads of sex while wearing floral print puff sleeves and bitching at the kitchen table. They wear shoes! They get their hair done! They go out! Of the house! Admittedly they go…

NEED HELP? Why not get together with other Big Issue readers @BigIssue; @bigissueuk; facebook.com/bigissueuk Get the answers in next week's mag! Good luck 1. Which Beatles song reached the top of the UK singles chart in 1987, and who recorded it? 2. The first TV appearance of The Simpsons was on which British star’s US comedy series? 3. True or false: Crocodiles cannot sweat 4. What was the first show to air on CBeebies when it launched in 2002? 5. What food did the Romans call petaso? 6. Which artist painted a series of works based on the UK’s Houses of Parliament between 1899 and 1901? 7. By what medical term is German measles known? 8. What was the name of the first dog in space? 9. What does HTML stand…

QUICK VEGETABLE CURRY INGREDENTS (SERVES 4) • 1 kg salad potatoes cut into 4 • 1 tbsp veg oil • 1 large onion, sliced • 4 cloves of garlic • 2 tsp cumin powder • 1 tsp cayenne pepper • 4 tsp madras curry powder • Salt and pepper • 2 inch piece of fresh ginger, grated • 1 can of chopped tomatoes • 1 can of chickpeas • 1 can of coconut milk • 1 small cauliflower • 2 green chillis • 2 red peppers, sliced METHOD Cook tender. Drain and set aside. Fry onion slices, two cloves of crushed garlic, sliced chilli and grated ginger and saute over a medium heat until the onions soften. Now add the spices and the other two cloves of crushed garlic for two minutes. Add the tin of chopped tomatoes, stir well and season…

There are many things I don’t understand. If I were to list them all – starting with TikTok – my children, and their friends, would mock me for acting in a very Boomer way. By stating this I’m clearly acting in a very Boomer way. When I say they and their friends would mock, it’s unlikely they’d speak. They would share thoughts on a variety of messaging services. By describing them as a variety of messaging services, I’m reinforcing the Boomer look. In truth, I’m quite in awe of the ability to post to several different platforms, watch some TV, eat, discern the subtext of what some people buzzing around their friendship groups mean AND learn song lyrics that are playing somewhere on the edge of audibility ALL AT THE…

exercise 1 PRESS-UPS... DONE RIGHT 1. Get into a good plank position, feet evenly spaced, hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, back straight and face to the floor. 2. Lower yourself down slowly, maintaining a straight back all the way – no curving or raising your bum. Don’t let your elbows stick out too far. Push back up and repeat. 3. Now drop to the floor and give us 67! Or as many as you can manage – start with just a few and add more as you get stronger. exercise 2 BEAN CAN DEADLIFT 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 squatting position. 2. Stand up gradually, lift the tins…

Everyday life in London at the moment gives frequent Street Art contributor Mary “a weird feeling,” she says. “Everybody wearing masks and crossing over in front of you like dodgeball, long waiting in shops. “I am still painting and have lots of time on my hands to create. After the lockdown I would like to have a solo show and maybe next year think about going back to study, start at the beginning again, which would be a BTEC in art.” 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 Dissolution by CJ Sansom (full cast adaptation by BBC) Matthew Shardlake, the hunchback lawyer, is sent by Thomas Cromwell to the monastery at Scarnsea to investigate the murder of his commissioner. Set during the reign of Henry VIII, Sansom evokes atmosphere and a compelling sense of mystery. 02 The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis (BBC full cast) Marcus Didius Falco works in Rome as an informant (private detective) in AD70. Ordered to Britain, he discovers a conspiracy and some dark truths that almost get him killed. Beautifully written and plotted. 03 The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (BBC full cast) Cursed by a demon hound for generations, when the body of Sir Charles Baskerville is discovered, a gigantic paw print is found next to him. What…

This summer most of us can travel only in memories so here’s one of mine. A year ago on a muggy July early morning I sat aboard a Stockholm commuter ferry with my wife and my one-year-old son as it pushed eastwards into the archipelago, the city fading into the distance as the boat began its daily hop around some of the hundreds of small inhabited islands, dotted with colourful timber summer houses, that lie between the Baltic Sea and the Swedish capital. Destination: Viggsö. Or as it’s also known: Abba island. A couple of hours later we were following a footpath through an eerily quiet forest when we were met by a healthy-looking, athleisurewear attired couple in maybe their late 50s (it’s always hard to tell with Swedes). Johan…

‘I can’t wait to get back to my pitch. I really, really can’t wait’ ROBIN PRICE, 45 PITCH WAS: The Coffee House, Weston-super-Mare All Big Issue vendors will have faced challenges during lockdown but none more so than Robin Price. Robin, based in Weston-super-Mare, was the first vendor The Big Issue spoke to after we took the tough decision to stop selling the magazine on the streets. Back then in March he accurately predicted he’d be off his pitch for three months. In that time, as well as adjusting to his new normal of being at home all day, he also lost his mother. “I was in touch with her at the beginning of May, I rang her up and asked if she was alright and if she needed anything,”…

It was December 2010 when I first came across Bob and James in Covent Garden. Bob had a Santa outfit, and was capturing attention. James said he hoped to write about his experience with the cat who saved him. I am blessed to have met them on their journey to fame. Louise At some point before 2009, while I was working on maintenance/fault rectification for a company that works for London Underground, I ended up at Covent Garden one weekday aǽternoon. I’d attended the station and looked at the fault (likely a CCTV camera out or something) and went outside for a cigarette. I noticed this young man setting up his pitch with this ginger cat sat quietly in front of him. I went over and spoke to the young…

In the course of things I like to pretend I am living in the 1950s. I know friends who pretend they live in the 1980s, resorting to relistening to the music and viewing the old TV programmes. And others who relive the 1970s. As you grow towards middle age and beyond you may need the comforts of idling for a while in former times. Times that might bring you comfort. Recently I have had the joy of meeting people reliving the 1990s as if they were a golden time. I am sure soon we’ll have the first years of our decade described by some as a time of lost innocence and the music will be played obsessively to rekindle those ‘magic years’. I think the desire is often based on…

After a series of straightforward fictions, Curtis Sittenfeld’s latest work, Rodham, sees her return to the form that made her name as a writer; the true-life biographical novel. 2008’s American Wife, in which she crept into the head of First Lady Laura Bush, was an overwhelming success, critically, creatively and commercially. No surprise then that Sittenfeld has revisited the same terrain, though this time she’s added an audacious twist; Rodham isn’t just the imagined inner life of a political giantess, it’s a ‘what if’ of seismic proportions; what if Hillary hadn’t married Bill? Of all the Sliding Doors fantasies offered by the last 40 years of top-tier American office, this may be the most mouth-watering. Rodham begins in 1957, with Hillary being told, aged nine, that she is “awfully opinionated…

The Old Guard Released on Netflix on July 10 If the thought of Charlize Theron charging into the fray wielding both a machine gun and a ceremonial battle axe floats your longboat then Netflix’s latest foray into globetrotting action could be right up your street. Adapted from a stylish comic series, The Old Guard centres around a tightly-knit squad of freelance mercenaries who have one thing in common: they are immortal. They get shot down but they get up again, which obviously gives them quite the strategic edge. Theron plays Andromache of Scythia – aka Andy – a regal warrior-woman thousands of years old whose seniority makes her the de facto leader. She and her four-man troop have spent literally centuries choosing assignments where their well-honed murder skills might make…

WIND OF CHANGE, SCORPIONS Scorpions were the first Western rock band to play in Moscow in 1988. Hailing from West Germany it was the positive reception the band received that inspired them to write Wind of Change. Often associated with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the song is a reflection of the feeling of hope for the future felt by many as Communism began to collapse in Eastern Europe and people began to look to the future. HEROES, DAVID BOWIE Inspired by witnessing his then-married producer embracing his lover by the Berlin Wall, David Bowie wrote this song about two lovers, one from West Germany, the other from East Germany in 1977 after moving to West Berlin a couple of years earlier. The song is often regarded as one…

01 CHECK THE BULB Best case scenario: the lamp isn’t actually broken, all it needs is a new light bulb. Even though it looks OK, the bulb may have stopped working: swap it with one that you know is working or a new one to see if that’s the problem. Faults in filament bulbs can be spotted visually, although they’re not always obvious. Low-energy bulbs can only be tested by substituting them. Make sure to use a bulb appropriate for the lamp: normally lamps will have a label stating the maximum recommended power of the bulb. If you’re purchasing a new bulb, consider an LED one, as it’ll save energy (and money!) over time. When replacing the bulb, don’t touch the glass part with your fingers. Use clean gloves or…