Innholdsfortegnelse for 23-01-2017 i The Big Issue

WE BELIEVE in a hand up, not a handout... Which is why our sellers BUY every copy of the magazine for £1.25 and sell it for £2.50. WE BELIEVE in 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. WE BELIEVE poverty is indiscriminate… Which is why we provide ANYONE whose life is blighted by poverty with the opportunity to earn a LEGITIMATE income. WE BELIEVE in the right to citizenship… Which is why The Big Issue Foundation, our charitable arm, helps sellers tackle social and financial exclusion. WE BELIEVE in prevention… Which is why Big Issue Invest offers backing and investments to social enterprises, charities and businesses which deliver social value to communities.…

Where have all the grown-ups gone? I’m not referring specifically to that man-child Ozymandias now taking the biggest of thrones. Though there is something teenage about those self-centred tweets, hissy and peeved, overreacting immediately to perceived injustice, caring not a jot about the lives that could be damaged and jobs lost as company values plummet substantially in 140 characters or less. It’s more about the adult men – and it’s mostly men – who collect around him, like sniggering schoolboys, keen to have the popular boy like them by telling him how great he is, how wonderful his plans, how shiny his YUUUGE golden elevator. Any challenge to this sort of behaviour is increasingly met with accusations of being a ‘snowflake’ – Michael Gove used the term himself last week.…

“We must acknowledge the present state of emergency but live as calmly as we can” One step forwards, two steps back. That’s how I walked home from primary school. Even the slowest kid overtook me long before I was halfway, and I was sad to miss He-Man but not so bothered about Blue Peter. This way, I could make half a mile last two hours before finally putting my hand on the door handle of the flat my wee sister and me now lived in with our Mum and her new man. No matter how much I stayed in my room, in my books, I couldn’t avoid him. I took a deep breath before opening the door and held it until next morning – dreaded weekends and holidays, wished school…

“Last year,” says Irvine Welsh, the bestselling Scottish author, “was the year of misery for everyone. Obviously it started terribly with Bowie’s death. And we had Trump and Brexit. “But for me,” he pauses, before bringing The Big Issue back from the abyss, “it was absolutely fantastic.” For Welsh, his euphoric outlook can be boiled down to one spring weekend in Glasgow last year. On May 21, Welsh and his oldest mates witnessed something that will live on forever for one half of Edinburgh, as his beloved Hibs FC won a historic Scottish Cup courtesy of a dramatic injury time winner at Hampden Park. Bedlam, quite understandably, ensued. Welsh beams: “114 years since we last won it.” The previous night across the city, the 59-year-old reprised his cameo role as…

1. ICE STATION Matthew Reilly This ground-breaking Antarctic thriller featuring US Marine Shane Schofield (Scarecrow) offers non-stop action, adrenaline-charged battle scenes, strange sea creatures and dark secrets. 2. SUBTERRANEAN James Rollins Action, adventure, mystery and suspense, in a terrifying subterranean labyrinth beneath Antarctica’s ice, where a civilisation once lived and where killers lurk. 3. MISS SMILLA’S FEELING FOR SNOW Peter Hoeg This original Scandinavian thriller is atmospheric, subtle and beautifully written with unusual characters, especially the fascinating Smilla Jaspersen, who sets out to prove the accidental death of a little boy was, in fact, murder. 4. THE QUALITY OF SILENCE Rosamund Lupton Tense psychological mother-daughter story set in Alaska during the winter of permanent night. Yasmin and her deaf daughter Ruby put their lives at risk to search for Yasmin’s…

In the deliciously melancholy and offbeat indie comedy Wiener-Dog, director Todd Solondz resurrects Dawn Wiener (played by Greta Gerwig, below), the awkward lead from his 1995 breakout hit Welcome to the Dollhouse, to deliver one of his funniest films to date. A suburban family, a frustrated screenwriting teacher, an elderly depressive and a resilient pooch all feature in this bracing, often moving film. With a top cast including Julie Delpy, Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Ellen Burstyn and young star Keaton Nigel Cooke, it explores typically bold themes, while Solondz lets the titular dog steal the show. Wiener-Dog is out now on DVD. We have five copies to be won on DVD. To enter, tell us: What is the name of Greta Gerwig’s character in Wiener-Dog? Send your answers…

Survival kit Recently, while chatting to a homeless person, in the South West, we noted that he looked a bit cold, so we gave him a snow-boarding jacket that we weren’t using any more. Then we thought he probably needed other things to help keep him warm and dry. We nipped into Poundland and got him a hat, gloves and socks. Then we thought: how about a kit to help the homeless? In Poundland you can find these items to give someone a lifeline for approximately £10: 1. Hat 2. Gloves 3. Socks 4. Paracord 5. Gaffer tape 6 . Tarpaulin (3m x 2m or larger with eyelets) 7. Emergency shelter/blanket 8. Toothpaste 9. Toothbrush 10. Handwarmers If you have come up with your own kit, why not write in…

“I used to worry that acting was a bit frivolous but playing Hayley I saw how that changed things” I grew up in Accrington and by the time I was 16 I was very into booze and trying to get into clubs underage. There was a nightclub called The La-di-das, all plastic palm trees and fountains, not quite like the terraces of the industrial north. Thursday nights were alternative nights and we’d all go in, trying to pass for 18, drinking ridiculous cocktails and dancing to The Smiths. I was doing that but I was also a bit of a do-gooder. I was head girl, always going around with tins collecting for some cause. Both those sides of me still co-exist. I was really lucky. The time I was a…

The first hit. That’s where it starts. Just before it, you’ve got control, you’ve got your head on straight, you know you’re just trying it out. You were fine wi weed, banging on Coke, you popped five eccies and you were just fine, better than fine. You were fucking magic. So what’s the big deal about trying it oot. It’s just to see what aw the fuss is aboot. You trust the fella that’s offering you it. Its yer mate’s brother for fuck sake. So you take the hit and its fucking brilliant...for five minutes...every cunt is gouchin. Some dude on the telly is talking about how to start a fucking lawnmower and you canny get comfy. You lie in every position you can think of and manage to get…

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Marrying Hollywood legends, silver screen classics, cult favourites and the finest new film-making from around the globe, Glasgow Film Festival has become a serious player on the international circuit. This year’s line-up includes steamy thriller The Postman Always Rings Twice, starring screen siren Lana Turner (main image), unstoppable Arnie in Predator, 1980s adventure The Lost Boys, and many more. The Big Issue is partner for three new films: Tresspass Against Us, starring Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson, Neruda, with Gael Garcia Bernal, and Mindhorn, a spy romp written by and starring Julian Barratt. See our competition on page eight to win a VIP trip to the Opening Gala, and we’ll have interviews and ticket giveaways in the coming weeks at bigissue.com…

I was very surprised to read June Gowland’s letter [January 9-15] in which she stated that, in Scotland, “anti-English racism” is “rife”. Having previously lived in Scotland for 29 years, first in Edinburgh then in Glasgow, and having a (southern) English father and (northern) English husband, I have never known of such “intolerant attitudes” and have always found Scottish people to be some of the most welcoming and friendly people in the world, to all nationalities. Perhaps it is something else besides being English that has attracted negativity?…

The first issue of the world’s newest street paper, set up by a woman who has been homeless for two years, has gone on sale in Colorado Springs. Raven Canon set up The Springs Echo after the city council made it a crime for homeless people to sit or lie in a public space. “Until I did this we had no voice here. The city council, police department, the mayor walked all over us. I got tired of it.” Having previously sold a street paper in Seattle she decided to set up her own to help other homeless people earn an income. After a year-and-a-half of planning the first edition was printed at the start of 2017 and 10 vendors have been recruited, buying the paper for 50 cents and…

“To those who would be ill in 2050 – put down that doughnut and take up that skipping rope!” I was standing in my local station urinal and on the wall to inform me was an ad for a flu jab. For £10 you could get the jab and save yourself the chances of getting flu. It got me thinking: wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could get a jab for stopping you catching poverty? A jab to stop you getting unhealthy in ways other than flu. A jab to get you into university, or a good job? I’m being fanciful. But if you stop and think about the jab, as postulated on my local station urinal wall, it was an ACT OF PREVENTION. Last week there was a debate…

“The floor tilted violently and I knew that if I moved an inch, I would slide off the edge of the world” It had taken me 20 minutes to walk to the doctor’s surgery having been daft enough to turn down the offer of help to cross the road. The walk should have taken two or three minutes but I had allowed 10 because I knew that I would have to walk very slowly. What I hadn’t predicted is that I would spend 10 minutes clinging to my railings, suffragette-like, unable to get down my own front steps. I had to close my eyes, ignore the spinning sensation and tell myself that I would not end up on the ground. Once at the surgery, the stairs to the basement consulting…

Gerald Finley is one of the most celebrated singers around today, and so any composer would jump at the chance to write for his wonderfully dramatic baritone. Einojuhani Rautavaara, the Finnish composer who died last summer, did just that in 2014 when he composed his song cycle Rubáiyát. The partnership was such a success that Finley approached Rautavaara to orchestrate a selection of songs by fellow Finn Jean Sibelius . The resulting cycle, In the Stream of Life, has just been released on CD, and what a compelling work it is. Sibelius is best known for his orchestral music but he also wrote more than a hundred songs, predominantly for voice and piano. Rautavaara picked seven of these and transformed them into orchestral works, drawing on the orchestra’s enhanced timbral…