Innholdsfortegnelse for 17-04-2017 i The Big Issue

A small family-run local newspaper, which is embroiled in a David and Goliath battle against giant agricultural conglomerates polluting farmland, has scooped the most prestigious prize in journalism. The Storm Lake Times, run by brothers Art and John Cullen and their family, who comprise most of the staff of 10, has a circulation of 3,300 and publishes twice-weekly in Buena Vista County, Iowa. But it beat the Washington Post and Houston Chronicle to this year’s coveted Pulitzer Prize for its investigative reporting into pollution of the local Raccoon River, Des Moines River and Storm Lake itself. Art said: “We’re here to challenge people’s assumptions and I think that’s what every good newspaper should do.” A sentiment every publication worth its ink would agree with. Celebrating the win, the newspaper’s splash…

Standing on the bank I can feel the mud squidge between my toes, the water is smooth and inviting; cool but not frigid. The backdrop of pines shelters me from the wind and imparts a pine-fresh scent to the clean over-water air. I pause to take in the angry chatter of crows bartering in the branches and the lap of the gentle waves on the shore. I feel the familiar clench in my stomach, a mix of anticipatory excitement and adrenaline, that always precedes a wild swim… that launch into the unknown. The most perfect physical exercise, swimming develops flexibility and strength without the wear and tear of land-based activities. But swimming is also good for the spirit. The incidence of mental health problems and social and cultural dysfunctionality is…

“I found that when I hovered in front of these sea animals, they seemed interested in me – watchful, inquisitive and engaged” My book Other Minds has its origins in a series of encounters with some unusual animals. The encounters took place in the ocean around Sydney, Australia, and the animals were cephalopods – members of the group that includes octopuses, cuttlefish and squid. I hadn’t been looking for these animals or planning to become obsessed with a wild bunch of molluscs. The meetings began by chance, when I came across them in the water. I had a vague knowledge beforehand that these animals were unusually smart compared to other invertebrates but my early encounters with them were still startling. The first ones I met were giant cuttlefish, hovercraft-with-tentacles that…

Warren Beatty was once one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. But he hasn’t made a film in 15 years. So it’s entirely possible that the most memorable mark he’s made on the latest generation of film-goers is as the guy left holding the envelope when the Oscar for Best Picture was given to the wrong film this year. It wasn’t Beatty’s fault but it must have rankled to be the face of such a high-profile gaffe. Any reputational damage is ably smoothed over by Rules Don’t Apply, which Beatty stars in and directs. But with this new film he make no effort to reach out to millennials unfamiliar with his work – a strange turn from someone who was so assiduous about staying relevant at the peak of his fame. A…

The Sony World Photography Awards (April 21–May 7, Aldwych, London; somersethouse.org.uk) is back for a 10th year to celebrate the best new photographers, including Colombian winner Camilo Diaz (whose photograph is the main image above). This year the awards pay special tribute to British documentary photographer Martin Parr, with three rooms dedicated to him. For many Londoners, the Tube flips from being an incredible feat of engineering to becoming a massive inconvenience, and they quickly lose any sense of romance about it. You can rekindle that at Depot Open Weekend: Secrets of the Underground (April 22 & 23, Acton, London; ltmuseum.co.uk) where the London Transport Museum Depot hosts a rare open weekend. You can see inside a working depot, hear about the system’s disused stations and peek behind the scenes…

I’m a lucky man. I have a very good pitch here in Bath, at Green Park, it is a lovely area. Bath is a very nice city, of course, and it’s a fine place to be outside when the weather is good. Being a Big Issue vendor is going very well for me. I enjoy selling the magazine and talking to my customers. I moved from Bucharest to the UK in 2007. My partner and I tried to make a go of things in London and then Slough but it was very difficult to find work and it was also hard to find somewhere to live. I did some painting and decorating work, and I also worked in furniture removal. I knew some friends who lived in Bath, so we…

In this week’s magazine, The Big Issue looks at science and climate change (pages 18-21), ahead of Earth Day on Saturday. I myself moved out of London to get away from the big city. Now I am living in Bath. I like to have some nature around me, some fresh air, and Bath has very nice parks. It’s important that we listen to scientists and look after the environment so we can all enjoy these things. I want to make a good life for my family, that is the most important thing. Read more on page 46.…

“They recoiled when I said the city was being destroyed by artists posing as architects” I have not loved architects. And at the same time adored them. The late and dearly missed Zaha Hadid features in a new book about London and I am sadly reminded of our one and only meeting. Why I was invited with others to talk to a few thousand architect students at the newly open Tate Modern some 15 years ago, I have no idea. I think it was about a positive spin on London. When the Tate Modern, a giant and grim piece of electrical power-stationism, first was opened I was asked what I thought about it. I stood before the whirling TV camera and looked about as if I was thinking deeply, and…

At 16 I was into jazz fusion. Not even jazz, just jazz fusion. Rock instruments played like jazz. Really not fashionable in any way. People like Weather Report, Jack Pastorius. My dad was bang into it, so I thought it was normal. Until I played some to my mates. Then when I saw their reaction, it became my dirty secret. I could play guitar pretty well. Or pretty fast anyway. Me and my mate had duels, trying to outspeed each other to become the fastest guitarist in Yorkshire. That was all that mattered to me. One of my first pieces of advice to the teenage me would be not to go with the white Whitesnakestyle suit for his first live gig. Though it did have the benefit of disguising my…

As we celebrate Earth Day, it’s worth stepping back to remember what Earth is… It’s a tiny sphere that orbits an ordinary, middle-aged star in a quiet backwater of the Milky Way, among the vastness of space. It’s probably one of billions of trillions of worlds, yet it is the only place we know of that supports life. It provides an ever-changing environment, filled with fleeting beauty – 99 per cent of species that have ever existed are now extinct for one reason or another. But what remains is a truly astonishing spectacle – a carnival of natural wonders, from lemurs to lemmings and from Antarctic mosses to giant sequoias. In recent times, Earth’s story has become intertwined with the human story, as we have created new urban and rural…

The Big Issue: Are crime dramas popular because you see cases getting resolved and justice being done, which doesn’t always happen neatly in real life? Carl Weathers: That’s maybe a good analysis of why these shows work. We like to have conclusions, we all more or less would like to have things settled, something final, something definitive, and very often in life things are not that black and white with a nice neat ending. We present these stories where the ending may not be the one you agree with so as an audience member you say, that’s bullshhh and throw your shoe at the television. That’s entertainment as well. With the #BlackLivesMatter movement, a lot of people in Chicago – and other cities in America – do not seem to…

In a recent interview in The Big Issue, Pope Francis reiterated the need for compassion and humanity in encounters with homeless people. And he is leading by example, opening a free launderette with washing machines, dryers and free detergent in Rome for the city’s homeless population to use. Echoing the pontiff’s call in our interview, the Vatican said the centre aims to “restore dignity” to users. Showers, a barber shop and medical centre will be added soon. “I certainly am not going to stand around and watch America go down” John Legend strikes a political note in next week’s Big Issue music special edition…

What a difference a year makes. Earth Day is coming on Saturday, April 22 – it is the same date every year. On Earth Day 2016, the Accord de Paris was signed by 195 countries, pledging to limit the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to halt the effects of climate change. In short, it was going to save us all. The agreement came into force on November 4 – they even illuminated the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe green to celebrate. Then four days later President Donald Trump was elected, and today the Paris Agreement is hardly worth the (presumably) recycled paper it’s printed on. Trump is diligently tearing up the previous administration’s most environmentally progressive policies: approving controversial pipelines, ditching the plans for power stations to…

“A character can be so bad,” says Bob Odenkirk, “and people are still on their side? You think, really? How bad can you be?” Breaking Bad, the multi-award winning TV series that launched Odenkirk into the big time as loveable rogue lawyer Saul Goodman, was a masterclass in the art of the anti-hero. Walter White, the chemistry teacher dying from lung cancer who turned to manufacturing and selling the purest methamphetamine to support his disabled son and pregnant wife, was transformed over the course of five series from unlucky good guy into a savage, power-mad crime lord. “People sympathised with Walter White!” Odenkirk exclaims. “Vince Gilligan [Breaking Bad creator] said that he hated this guy, how he couldn’t live in that life anymore, how he was an awful person. Maybe…

I have heard recently through the literary grapevine about some older, male authors who confess to only reading works by dead writers. What an arrogant and self-defeating attitude that is. Imagine all the glorious fictional worlds they’re missing out on, the energy and innovation of all that new writing that they’ll never experience. Here at The Big Issue we champion as many new writers as possible, and this week we have another couple of whip-smart and razor-sharp novels by debut writers. First up is Six Stories by the young English writer Matt Wesolowski. The book has a terrific and highly original structural hook, the story arranged as six separate interviews with six characters, each of whom was involved somehow in the death of a teenager 20 years previously. Six Stories…

Radio 4’s new commissioning editor of arts, James Runcie, stated that he wanted to do for the arts what Radio 4 has done to science. This was clumsily reported in The Observer , which wrote, “with mathematicians, physicists and doctors dominating much of the airtime on BBC Radio 4, science coverage has never had it so good. But is it time to restore some balance?” I should declare my interest, I work for the Radio 4 Science Unit. For this reason, I thought I better use evidence before becoming tetchy. Looking at the Radio 4 listings for that week, arts-based shows outnumbered science-based programmes by at least three to one, even if I didn’t include adaptations of books or afternoon plays. The continuing desire by some to draw a line…