Innholdsfortegnelse for 30-10-2017 i The Big Issue

Welcome to the latest edition of The Big Issue. We have some really great people in this week’s magazine – the actor Kit Harington on page 18 and boxing legend Frank Bruno talking about his early years on page 14. There’s also news of the social enterprises using business to change people’s lives – like The Big Issue – on page 24. A lot of them are using food and drink to do good. I’m a trained chef so that’s inspiring to hear. If you’re interested, you can read more about my own story on page 46. WIN!  GAME OF THRONES WHITE WALKER MASK & NIGHT KING T-SHIRT…

Some facts are great. Like we only use 10 per cent of our brain. Ten per cent! Think of the possibilities. Think what wonders we could unleash as technology marches. The Great Wall of China is the only man-made object viewable from space. Those ancient engineers charting that work, and it’s lasted until it could be viewed from beyond. Incredible. Really quite spine-tingling. I can feel the hairs standing. It’s not true. In fact, neither of these pieces of information are true. They’re bunkum, received notions that we’ve allowed to become hardwired without a challenge. Scientists know that head injuries to any part of the brain, that incredible complex mass, could lead to huge impairment. The idea that we only use 10 per cent is crazy. As for the Great…

• The Genius of George – Mark Ronson explains how George Michael changed his life, and how he came within touching distance of working with the pop icon. • EXCLUSIVE Controversial sprinter Justin Gatlin tells his story of the fallen athlete who kept running, the doping scandals and turning mistakes into lessons. • The Dark Room, a play looking at young people in care, makes its UK debut, exposing the failures of a system that’s supposed to help our most vulnerable.…

I got a message about Eric recently. He had died in The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North London. He was in his mid-50s. He had a way with people that I had not seen amongst anyone else. He got talking to people who seemed to be made sensitive and good with him. Wherever he went, he seemed to bloom friends. We got on very well. He was a one-time Big Issue vendor. Once, he had gone into a Royal Albert Hall charity ball with a Big Issue camera team and asked people how rich they were. And embarrassed people in an innocent way. He, along with the camera team, were thrown out. He was a heavy smoker and not a good eater. I don’t know what killed him, but…

Harington is at Broadcasting House. And as a fan of the BBC’s own self-mocking comedy W1A he’s finding the experience pretty funny. A quarter of an hour earlier, the actor was appearing on The One Show. “A really thorough grilling, you can imagine,” he says, with a gently mocking raise of the eyebrow. After a quick cigarette, hidden from adoring fans waiting patiently just yards away, we wander back through the now-deserted television studio; smaller, tattier and less homely with no lights or topical banter to warm the atmosphere. Upstairs we venture past Royston Vasey (a meeting room) towards The Queen Vic (another meeting room), before settling down on the bright sofas of Albert Square (a communal meeting space). Next Monday he begins filming the eighth and final series of…

Some of the sharpest-looking pencils are collected in a new book presenting over 70 styluses used by celebrated artists, designers and other famous figures. From David Shrigley’s nibbled nibs (bottom) to Gerald Scarfe’s paint-splattered set and James Dyson’s elegant gadget, this book is anything but pointless. The Secret Life of the Pencil: Great creatives and their pencils by Alex Hammond and Mike Tinney (Laurence King, £12.99) is out now…

1. FATHERLAND Robert Harris This is drenched in chilling realism. I read it as a teen, and was so absorbed by the plot it was a while before I understood a Nazi victory had taken place. I still remember the cold, delicious jolt of realisation, knowing I was in the hands of a master storyteller. 2. SSGB Len Deighton This exploration of 1940s Nazi Britain in SSGB forces us to ask difficult questions. We all like to think we’d have had the courage to be in the Resistance, but collaboration must have seemed the easier option. 3. JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL Susanna Clarke An immersive tour-de-force, this tale occupies an alternative reality where magic has returned to an England threatened by Napoleon, and the Raven King is still venerated…

Write on time I recently enrolled on a writing course that I’d seen advertised in The Big Issue. In the first module they advised investing in a good dictionary. I remembered that the winning prize for TBI crossword was a Chambers dictionary, so I decided I might as well enter that week’s competition. As soon as I posted it off I forgot about it, so imagine my delight when a package arrived for me today, and it was the winner’s Chambers Dictionary! So I’m writing with a big smile on my face as I use my new dictionary to check the spelling of the word, “ecstatic”! Thank you TBI! Daniel Castle, Chalfont St Giles Christmas Dishes Saw your advert in issue Sept 15-Oct 1 for the Gardener’s Lament tea towel…

The giant trevally leaping out of the water to feed on birds, tuskfish using tools to crack open clams, grouper fish communicating via sign language, an octopus constructing a suit of armour… Incredible sea life take centre stage in the long-awaited second series of Blue Planet , which premiered on Saturday but never far away is the destructive impact human activity is having on the oceans. About half of the planet’s total atmospheric oxygen is produced by ocean phytoplankton The equivalent of one football pitch-worth of sea grass is lost every 30 minutes, crucial because it can be 35 times more efficient than a rainforest at storing carbon dioxide Coral reefs cover just 0.1% of the ocean’s surface area, yet are home to 25% of all…

The bill was hailed as ‘genius’ during a House of Commons petitions committee debate on taking into account rental data during mortgage applications, which was triggered by Plymouth dad Jamie Pogson’s 147,307 signature-strong petition on the subject. The Big Issue’s rental exchange scheme, run in collaboration with credit reference agency Experian, helps to build up a positive credit file for tenants based on this idea – and has already seen more than one million social housing tenants sign up to the initiative. Big Issue founder and cross-bench peer Lord Bird has been actively pushing for his Creditworthiness Assessment Bill which is making its way through the Lords. The bill aims to make it compulsory for lenders to take rental payment and council tax payment into account when assessing potential borrowers.…

TUCKER OR PARTRIDGE? Oh, that is so hard. Partridge. Oh God, but not because he is Brexit. I just love Partridge. DRAMA OR DOCUMENTARY? I should be watching a lot of drama, but I live it every day. My kickback at the moment is listening to the Harry Potters again. I am on Goblet of Fire – I have listened to the first three. It is so relaxing, going back to the world of wizards and sorcery. HALLOWEEN OR BONFIRE NIGHT? Halloween is all about dress up, and I feel I play dress up every day. I’m a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to buying a costume. But this year I’ll be at a huge bonfire with loads of mates – and it will have extra significance because…

With more than 70,000 social enterprises in the UK, employing almost a million people and contributing £18.5bn to the economy– they’re certainly worth shouting about. The best and brightest in the UK will be honoured at the UK Social Enterprise Awards on November 23 as they return for another year to celebrate the best in businesses for good. The Big Issue is giving you the chance to celebrate your favourite in the prestigious Consumer Facing Social Enterprise category, in association with the Co-op. It’s up to you, our readers, to pick the best – but we’ll help you out! Take a nosey at the nominees and vote at bigissue.com/seukawardsvote before midnight on Sunday, November 5. ALNWICK GARDEN The Alnwick Garden is an iconic visitor attraction, committed to improving the community…

“To appreciate solitude in its fullness one needs to be at peace with oneself and at peace with the world” I have vivid memories of the first time I became conscious of solitude. I had travelled all day in my car to a remote region in northernUganda. Gradually the vegetation became sparser until eventually it virtually disappeared, leaving but few visible signs that anything ever grew in this barren region. I stopped the car and clambered out on to the rutted highway. It was totally silent. I had never previously experienced such peace. I might have been the only person left on earth in this beautiful yet barren landscape. It was truly beautiful. Years later I experienced a very different form of solitude. I was alone. My wrists and feet…

Music to my ears Whilst I share Ian Martin’s assessment of Vaughan Williams as a great National Composer (Celebrity clef-match 16-22 Oct), he is wrong to traduce Elgar, who led the way out of the hiatus when Britain was dubbed – by the Germans – as ‘the land without music’. Elgar was also a pioneer in classical music recordings with HMV at the Abbey Road Studios. Admittedly, views of Elgar may be skewed by his Catholic oratorios like the Dream of Gerontius, or by Nimrod from the Enigma Variations churned out for Remembrance services, or worse by the words of Land of Hope and Glory set to the tune from Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1. In fact Elgar hated the jingoism of the latter, just as he hated the…

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? BY MICHAEL CROWKEY After years spent travelling and squatting, Michael ended up homeless in London with a drug habit. “I got into a hostel and eventually got myself clean,” he says. “Now I’ve got a Peabody flat and things are cool.” UNTITLED BY DAVID MARTIN David is a Big Issue vendor whose pitch is at Hammersmith in London. His love of Henri Matisse inspired him to try his hand at producing his own artworks, comprising abstract designs made from coloured card. “One of my customers took me to see Matisse paintings at the Tate Modern because he thought they were similar,” he says. “I was blown away.” Street Art is created by people who are marginalised by issues like homelessness, disability and mental health conditions.…

IN 1977 THE YEAR FRANK BRUNO TURNS 16… Red Rum makes history with a third Grand National win/ The Queen celebrates her Silver Jubilee/ Elvis Presley dies in Memphis I’d been to boarding school before I was 16 and now I was getting ready to come into the big wide world. I was a boy turning into a man. I was a pretty happy teenager. I was the youngest of six. I was the baby but I could hold my own with the adults and I had dreams and plans for what I wanted to do. My dad was a tough character but a man of few words. He taught me some skills for life. He told me he wouldn’t be here forever so I had to learn how to…

There is a huge issue at the moment, called the Sleep-in Crisis, which relates to care for the most vulnerable people in our society. There has been a change in the law. There was an agreement whereby sleep-in workers were paid below the minimum wage when they were sleeping. This meant more support for people with learning disabilities could be paid for by the charities. A trial was brought and there is now a backdated bill of all the workers needing to be paid the full minimum wage when they were at work, sleeping or not. I agree with that. If the government said this is what needs to happen from now on, that is something we could deal with. And I do think the carers are owed their money.…

The Big Issue: This might not be a long answer, but tell us everything you are allowed to about Bob Newby and Stranger Things 2 … Sean Astin: It is not hard to tell you everything. Bob Newby works at Radio Shack. Do you know about Radio Shack? It gained its prominence in the 1980s, and if you needed a soldering iron or any coaxial cable, that is where you went. Bob is a geek and a thoughtful, kind guy. He comes in as a love interest for Winona Ryder’s character, Joyce. That might be all I can say. Casting you opposite Winona Ryder, who also achieved fame at a young age, is many a film fan’s dream… We love each other. Winona is just fantastic –…

National treasure (she’ll love that...) Ali Smith has developed a style so original and successful we can now describe something as Ali Smithian and assume readers will know what to expect. A bewitching mood half-way between the everyday and illusion; intoxicating flights of imagination; an effortless combination of pathos and humour. A word-playing mystery as mind-bending as it is heart-thumping. Winter , however, is a disaster, failing to deliver on every level. Nah, just joking. It’s a joy. Yes, another one. After a cute little nod to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Smith introduces us to Sophia, a cantankerous sexagenarian who is being stalked by the disembodied head of a young child. The head is described so simply and naturally that its constant presence quickly seems entirely normal, rather like that…