Innholdsfortegnelse for 13-02-2017 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.…

It’s easy to make bold claims. We’re living in a time when the boldest and brassiest are coming from the top of the tree. Many aren’t true, of course. We could tie ourselves in knots worrying about fake news, spin, false figures and alternative realities. It would ultimately frustrate us. Instead, this week we reveal a truth. The Big Issue is selling more copies than it did last year. And last year we sold more than the year before. That is a measurable truth. Our five per cent rise is not fabricated or conveniently twisted. It’s heartening. Over the last number of days people have been asking me why I think that is. Here’s another truth. I don’t know, exactly. I know we have an incredible distribution team who have…

“ If you are going to cut libraries you must be prepared to build more prisons and more homeless hostels . Libraries are essential . ” John Bird . The Big Issue founder “If you are going to cut libraries you must be prepared to build more prisons and more homeless hostels,” said John Bird in a speech in the Lords. “Libraries are essential.” When The Big Issue founder said this last autumn he lit the touch-paper on our new campaign. We are launching our Big Issue literacy campaign this week. We believe books matter. We believe reading matters. We believe early help can improve the life chances of those who need it most. Our future success is dependent on providing the next generation with the tools they need. And…

Independent booksellers need a fair platform to compete. Amazon is going offline, opening three bookshops in the US and five more soon, with London next in its sights. And Waterstones has pledged to open at least 10 outlets across the UK this year. In a House of Lords debate, John Bird warned that the crisis facing public libraries and bookshops is not being addressed. He called for a reduction in rates for independent bookshops, saying: “I am here to talk about poverty, the poverty of the streets, the poverty our libraries and the poverty of our bookshops.” Baroness Rebuck, Labour peer and chair of Penguin Random House publishing group said bookshops are an essential element to achieving 100 per cent literacy, “which is a bedrock of social mobility, social cohesion…

1. DOUBLE INDEMNITY James M Cain Cain’s novella sees a weak-willed insurance salesman seduced into helping a housewife kill her husband for the insurance money. The film adaptation was written by noir peer Raymond Chandler. 2. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL James Ellroy Three detectives are forced to put their differences aside to unravel a city-wide conspiracy. While the spare prose and clipped dialogue is hard to digest, Ellroy’s neonoir is an epic of the genre. The film adaptation happens to be my favourite movie. 3. THE LONG GOODBYE Raymond Chandler He’s best known for The Big Sleep but Chandler thought wisecracking PI Philip Marlowe’s sixth outing was his best, and most personal, novel. Being a British writer myself, I was surprised to know Chandler was born in America but spent most of…

Budget blues In 1948, three per cent of the NHS budget was spent on administration, Aneurin Bevan wrote in In Place of Fear. In 2010, the Commons Health Select Committee found the cost of administration had been about five per cent in the 1980s. When the internal market was introduced into the NHS in 1991, costs rose to 14 per cent. The nine per cent difference was worth £10bn in 2014. The NHS needs simpler administration. Roger Gartland, London What drama! I always enjoy reading Sam Delaney’s TV reviews, and I share his high regard for the BBC’s adaptation of Apple Tree Yard. I am, however, puzzled by his previous “rule” of avoiding “all” BBC dramas “on account of them being uniformly shit” [January 30–February 5]. Had he seen Peter…

“As parliament votes, in both houses, there may well be some results that will satisfy no one in particular” What happens to those people who voted for Brexit and sincerely want it, if anti-Brexits get to overthrow the referendum result? Will they just go away? Will they live with it? Will they disappear? I keep getting letters from people who say I must, must vote against Brexit. It is imperative for the continuation of our civilisation; or that part of it out here in our island life. Okay, but what do we do with the other lot who saw their side win the referendum in terms of the vote? Do we ignore them, write them off, see them as misled fools? What do we do about this slightly more people…

“Everything I have done is wonderful” At 16 it was obvious that I would make films but, of course, I failed to get anything off the ground. I realised I had to become my own producer or I’d never make a film. So I started working the night shift as a welder in a small steel factory. That’s how I made money to fund my first film. But of course during the day I was in school so that was not too much sleep in those two-and-a-half years. I was in high school, a classical school. So we had nine years studying Latin, six years Ancient Greek, some English at the end. I hated it all. Everything. The idea of gaining knowledge did appeal but I never trusted textbooks and…

We want to know what your library means to you, and how we can use our Big Issue networks to help your fight to keep it open. Tell us on email: editorial@bigissue.com, Twitter: @BigIssue and facebook.com/BigIssueUK Next week we will be revealing our ambitious new plan to take books to where they’re needed, making sure everyone has an opportunity to open a new chapter. We will also be working with The Reading Agency and others fighting to save libraries, as well as helping to share books and keep our independent bookshops thriving. We will highlight events happening around the UK, from World Book Night to Libraries Week – if you have something going on, tell us about it and we’ll spread the word.…

Darren Taylor has learned to love books. His dyslexia meant he did not learn to read properly until the age of 23. He now reads to his two children, aged two and four, every night. “Julia Donaldson’s book, The Gruffalo, that’s their favourite,” he says. “I must have read it with them hundreds of times now. I love to see their passion for books and the joy of reading – it seems to be starting at a young age for them.” Taylor’s first love was computers. A former IT manager who opened a computer repair shop in Sydenham, south London, he is now responsible for running seven public libraries in the capital. “It’s been a strange journey but, actually, one thing grew quite naturally from the other.” Starting from his…

His masterpieces are instantly recognisable but their seductive serenity belies the turbulent inner life that fuelled the creativity of Claude Monet. For the first time, a complex portrait of one of the world’s best-loved artists is being told through his own words. More than 3,000 letters written by Monet record swings from euphoria to depression. “I can’t begin to describe a day as wonderful as this,” he wrote while painting in London in 1901. “One marvel after another, each lasting less than five minutes, it was enough to drive one mad.” I, Claude Monet is in cinemas from February 21…

This is award-winning cinema EVERYONE should own! To help you prepare for this year’s Academy Awards on February 26, we are offering three lucky film buffs a fantastic Oscar-winning prize package. Up for grabs are a bunch of unmissable DVD titles – all of them Oscar-winners. The bundle includes: American Sniper The 2014 Clint Eastwood-directed war drama starring Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller won one of its six Oscar nominations. Blue Jasmine Woody Allen’s black comedy drama with Cate Blanchett in an Oscar-winning role as a Manhattan socialite who hits the skids. The Blind Side Real-life sports drama about American football star Michael Oher, played by Quinton Aaron, with a supporting cast that includes Kathy Bates, Tim McGraw and an Oscar-winning turn from Sandra Bullock. Mystic River…

It’s great to see so many high-profile campaigners working towards improving our mental health services but it’s a pity that Alastair Campbell [January 30–February 5] didn’t go into the many reasons for the increase in mental illness. Perhaps mental illness is a natural response to the conditions under which we live today. The ‘American Dream’, which has long been the driving force of our society, is based on material consumption, competition and looking after number one, and continually drives home the message of how we should dress, how our homes should look and the rest. New fashions and gizmos keep us continually dissatisfied and striving so that we will go out to buy. We get depressed when we can’t keep up. Research has found that even those who seem to…

“The government cannot afford to give everyone the support they need, with the result thousands of our young people find themselves adrift” I’ve always tried to do my bit for the homeless. After all, growing up in London you can’t help but be aware of the issue. When I was younger I would hang out with Big Issue sellers, and more recently I have run campaigns to support homeless military veterans. But it wasn’t until last November, when the Duke of Cambridge delivered an impassioned call to arms at Centrepoint’s annual gala, did I fully appreciate the scale of homelessness among our young people. As he explained, every year 150,000 young people approach their local authorities because they are homeless or at-risk of homelessness. Rough sleeping was only the most…

40% of prisoners have literacy skills so low they are ineligible for 90 per cent of jobs2 10% Rate of reoffending if a person goes straight into employment after prison; otherwise it’s 90 per cent2 The cost of reoffending by recent ex-prisoners to the UK economy each year is between £9.5bn and £13bn2 £748.1 million How much libraries save society each year1 £27.5 million Saving to the NHS every year through public libraries1 £25 MILLION less spent on libraries in Britain in 2015-16 compared to the previous year – a total of £919m4 27p per week is the amount spent per person by local councils in England on libraries in 2014-15, which totals £762m3 76% of people would be willing to pay more council tax…

The Golden Arches are known the world over: a symbol of globalisation, a sign of the reaching influence of America and, of course, where to get a fair standard of fast food. The story of McDonald’s rise is as remarkable as it is murky. From a single restaurant in San Bernardino, California, which opened in the 1940s, the chain now stretches to more than 36,000 outlets in 118 countries around the world. But the people behind the first McDonald’s, Dick and Mac McDonald, are bizarrely not recognised as being the founders. That title was grabbed by Ray Kroc, an entrepreneur who purchased the franchising rights and reinvented the business in his own image. In his relentless pursuit of power and success, he created one of the world’s most famous and…

“My hand went on writing. The words formed in front of my eyes: I am to become a nun. I raged against my God for allowing me to lose everything I held dear ” I first opened my eyes 85 years ago almost as my mother stepped off our ship in Dover. Father and his three daughters had come home from India where he had an important post in mining but had lost the job, having advised the Indian government a coal mine was in an imminent state of collapse. Having been dismissed and put upon a ship, the roof of the mine collapsed and 700 people in the town above were killed, but it was too late for my father. Arriving home with no work, a Depression in full…

Of all of the artists to be given the Brits Critics’ Choice award for potential in recent years, Uckfield, East Sussex’s Rory Graham, AKA Rag’n’Bone Man, is fairly unusual insofar as he already has a bona fide big hit. A bludgeoning blues set to a thumping hip hop beat, Human topped the chart in December and would have been the official Christmas number one were downloads still worth as much as streams in chart calculations. By that measure, Graham already seems too big to fail with his debut album, also titled Human. But something similar could have been said of Jack Garratt this time last year, and while 60,000 sales of Garratt’s debut album Phase hardly seems tantamount to failure – especially in an age when mostly free streams far…