Innholdsfortegnelse for 09-01-2017 i The Big Issue

Write to: The Big Issue, Second Floor, 43 Bath St, Glasgow, G2 1HW Email: letters@bigissue.com Comment: bigissue.com facebook.com/bigissueUK @bigissueuk @bigissue Border dispute I read with interest the interview with Nicola Sturgeon [December 12-18]. It’s laughable that she insists that “we must have the courage to stand up to the intolerant attitudes sheltering under concerns about austerity or inequality”. I suggest she begins by dealing with that problem on her own doorstep. Having lived in Scotland, I can tell you that intolerant attitudes are still rife. Anti-English racism, in particular, is outdated and damaging. June Gowland (half Scottish, half English) Alan Cumming states that America will have to take responsibility for allowing a huge swathe of its population to be “affected by jingoism and propaganda” [December 12-18]. Should Scotland do the…

“Culture matters – we all need fun to escape misery, and shared joy binds us” History rarely falls into neat numerical decades. I would assert the 1980s (yuppies, power suits, a money obsession) didn’t really end till the mid 1990s when a new generation of politicians began to take power. Policies and attitudes take a while to gain momentum and once they do (as with equal marriage and attitudes to homosexuality) they can make a seismic impact. Similarly, since the US presidential election and the EU referendum, there’s a major debate about whether supposed liberal progressive values have been rejected and the alt-right is in the ascendant. But go to the cinema, turn on the TV, read some books, and you’ll find that ‘mainstream’ doesn’t change that quickly. Shortly after…

The reluctant superstar was also a reluctant interviewee. The object of huge attention, gossip and rumour, he decided that The Big Issue was the one place to finally talk openly about his sexuality and pressures of fame. He would choose this magazine first again in subsequent years. Here are some of his most memorable quotes from The Big Issue interviews… March 2004 ON COMING OUT “Subconsciously I had to find some way of coming out that didn’t give one grinning journalist what they wanted...I wanted people to understand that I was gay and I didn’t have any problem with it. Somehow this was my way out.” ON TONY BLAIR “I wish to God that the Labour Party had the guts to get rid of Blair...I think globally he is a…

Half Tower of Babel, half Cinderella’s fairytale castle, this painting by Wolfe von Lenkiewicz, called Heaven is Made of Iron, blends the mythical city of the past with a magical kingdom of today. Adding another level of meta, Lenkiewicz’s great-grandfather was court painter to King Ludwig II of Bavaria whose elaborate Neuschwanstein Castle inspired Walt Disney when he was establishing his own empire. The painting is part of a new exhibition exploring authorship, influence and artists’ relationships with the historical art canon. I Lost my Heart to a Starship Trooper , Griffin Gallery, Jan 12–Feb 24…

Love, lust, desire, death: all pretty standard fare when it comes to opera. This month sees these eternal themes entwined in two extraordinary modern operas, both taking place in London and both featuring some of the world’s most renowned artists. It’s going to be quite some start to 2017. George Benjamin’s Written on Skin is one of the most highly acclaimed operatic creations of the 21st century. Based on a medieval razo (the background story to a troubadour song), Martin Crimp’s text tells the tale of a powerful nobleman who commissions an artist to celebrate his life by creating an illuminated manuscript. His repressed wife becomes enamoured with the artist and emboldened towards her abusive husband. Benjamin’s music is magical – sparse, subtle and tensely impassioned – and has garnered…

A preference for unsupported statements rather than facts seems to be creeping into your letters page [December 12-18]. First, Trevor Springthorpe says: “Blair was going to mend the broken NHS”, and implies he did nothing. Not a complete solution maybe but waiting lists were 1.5 million in 1997, yet near zero in 2008. Health spending went up from five per cent GDP to seven per cent. Second, Lynne Reece says: “Europe has been an economic mess for a long time and opening the floodgates to all and sundry was bound to end in disaster.” In fact, EU growth has averaged 1.7 per cent over the 20 years from 1996-2016. The latest growth figure for 2016 is slightly higher, at 1.9 per cent. Also, nearly half the immigrants to the UK…

In the mid 1990s I lived in North London, in Crouch End. One afternoon a very nice young woman moved over to my table in a cafe and started to talk to me with great passion about The Big Issue. Her and her brother were great followers of it and bought it and read it whenever they got a chance. I listened as I ate my sausage roll; or was it a piece of pecan pie? Then she stood up and was about to go when she dropped a kind of bombshell on me. That her brother was George Michael. I stood up and got her to sit down and then begged her that she asked George to do a Big Issue interview. A full cover job. She politely said…

Helmed by Oscar-winning Italian director Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty, This Must Be the Place), Sky Atlantic’s The Young Pope was one of the most talked-about series of 2016. Starring Jude Law in one of his finest performances yet, The Young Pope took the world by storm with its controversial subject matter, stunning performances, epic sets, dark humour, atmospheric mood and gripping plot. The Young Pope follows the early days of Pope Pius XIII (Jude Law), a young American elected to the highest office in the Catholic church after a failed plot by his mentor. It soon becomes clear this is no ordinary pope, with his outrageous demands and rebellious ways. Co-starring Diane Keaton, James Cromwell and Javier Cámara, the 10-part series is out now on a four-disc set on…

My local council is flexing their muscles. They want to introduce parking charges outside a library and beside a park near where I live. I know, I know – hold ALL front pages! While this is not quite Watergate, it does get to the heart of the year ahead. I was indignant when I heard the news. The benefits of literacy and access to books are not even arguable any more, not for a second. Yet here is a council wanting to make it billable to access the library. And why introduce a cost for families or local football teams to pay in order to get outside, exercise and get fresh air? The whole thing is foolish short-termism, I raged. But the council, like all councils, needs money. There has…

THE LAST POST MARC CARVER Homeless when he first started writing poetry seven years ago, Marc has written many hundreds of poems since. “I really owe my life to poetry,” he says, “and have tried very hard to promote poetry in various places but, alas, to not very much success. I recognise the importance of poetry as an outlet and a way to express yourself in a very positive way.” If this was the last thing that I ever wrote what would it be, what would it be about, how would it end, begin what would be in the middle, the body I guess the most important thing to do, is treat every poem as if it really is your last. A last testament put everything into it heart and…

“My parents taught me not to waste my emotions over-worrying about my own kids” When I was 16, I was living between three different places. My parents had just divorced – which was better for everybody. They needed to get divorced a long time before, so it wasn’t a great existential crisis for me. I was at boarding school in Somerset, then spent the holidays with my mum in Wiltshire or with my dad in Hong Kong. We’d always moved around because my dad was in the air force. I had a Canadian accent until I was 10. My dad still has tapes of it. Very strange. We were in Germany for a time. My dad flew transport planes and later flew the Queen – he was her navigator. I…

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN NOVEMBER 1996, HERE WE REPRODUCE GEORGE MICHAEL’S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH THE BIG ISSUE Despite being one of the world’s biggest stars, George Michael hadn’t given an interview in six years. The singer chose The Big Issue as the place to break that silence. He spoke to Adrian Deevoy about dope, death and his much-debated sexuality. George Michael’s toilet seat is broken. Cleaved clean off. How could it be that the sophisticated sovereign of subdued and silky soul came to find himself in such a sorry situation? “I couldn’t possibly tell you,” he says, busying himself with tea bags in the kitchen. “It’s too embarrassing.” The media-reclusive multi-millionaire hasn’t invited a member of the press into his home for six years. He’s been taking stock, making music –…

When pushed, on a recent photoshoot, Andrea Riseborough came up with short description of herself: “A Geordie punk who started out in classical theatre.” Hearing it quoted back to her, she’s cringing. “So embarrassing,” she says. “The last thing you want to say if you even lean remotely towards punk is ‘I am a punk’. But it is the easiest shorthand to say: ‘Please don’t put me in a frock.’” She may cringe now, but there is merit in her label. Nothing is conventional. Since breakout roles in 2007’s political drama Party Animals and with Michael Fassbender in C4 English Civil War epic The Devil’s Whore, Riseborough has danced through the mainstream while retaining her outsider edge. From playing Margaret Thatcher in The Long Walk to Finchley to a striking…