Innholdsfortegnelse for 6/14/2021 i The Big Issue

Street Cat Bob died last June, but he is still having a positive impact on many lives. The much-missed moggy helped Big Issue vendor and busker James Bowen beat addiction and became the subject of a series of bestselling books and blockbuster films, winning an army of devoted fans around the world. His was a story of one man and his cat, but millions could relate. It shone a spotlight on big issues, including homelessness, and changed the perception of people experiencing that kind of trauma. In Japan, a country famous for its love of cats, Bob was massive. James and Bob took a trip there to promote their film A Street Cat Named Bob and were besieged by followers. Every time Bob was on the cover of The Big…

VENDORS Following a long lockdown, vendors in England, Scotland and Wales are back out selling the magazine. Please continue to support them. SUBSCRIPTIONS AND SHOPS Since the first lockdown in March last year, we have supported our vendors with more than £1m of financial assistance to make up for lost sales. We still need your help to make sure we can continue to support them through uncertain times. HOW YOU CAN HELP 1. If your local vendor is selling The Big Issue, please buy from them. Vendors buy magazines for £1.50 and sell for £3, keeping the difference and working their way out of poverty. 2. If you cannot buy from a vendor, subscriptions to the magazine are available on a three, six or 12-month basis with a new edition…

People love libraries. People are passionate about libraries. As we emerge from the restrictions of the pandemic, we’ve heard calls from communities urging services to reopen buildings as quickly as possible. This passion and desire for reopening library buildings proves there is a much deeper connection with libraries that goes far beyond book borrowing and reading. Hundreds of library staff across the UK have worked remotely throughout the pandemic to maintain services as far as possible. But books and reading are only part of the service and do not demonstrate the full extent of how they support communities. They are deep-rooted and cut across and contribute to all areas of social, cultural and political life, giving everyone equal access to services, resources and information. From the young parents who seek…

The Netanyahus Joshua Cohen (Fitzcarraldo, £12.99) That this Jewish historian’s story is subtitled ‘An account of a minor and ultimately even negligible episode in the history of a very famous family’tells you much aboutthe witty, self-deprecating tone of this dazzling, delightful novel. It might be more helpful to pondering purchasers if I simply replicated the extremely funny first page here, but sadly I don’t have enough space. Suffice to say Joshua Cohen’s true-ish tale of an American academic (a thinly disguised Narold Bloom) who finds himself playing host to a rather high-profile and somewhat pass-remarkable Israeli family is one of the most inspired, original and entertaining novels I’ve read since Benjamin Labatut’s equally compelling When We Cease to Understand the World. The Netanyahus, Cohen’s sixth and best book, has the…

I first saw Akala where S discover most of my rappers, watching BBC’s Question Time. His eloquence and intelligence shone out in this arena of pomposity, hypocrisy and arrogance. It is a programme whose primary purpose is to make everyone unhappy and, according to social media, it usually achieves that. It says much for our political discourse that any glimmers of sanity or inspiration will usually come from the “celebrity” guest such as Benjamin Zephaniah, Charlotte Church or Akala, people whose experience mixed with unbounded curiosity is in stark contrast to the fenced-in and spin dizzy minds of so many politicians and professional commentators. Radio 4 recently serialised Akala’s book, Natives: Race & Class in the Ruins of Empire. Like Russell T Davies’s It’s A Sin , the brutality of…

Archaeology: it’s Sndiana Jones whip-cracking through exotic locations, or weirdy-beardy bo›fins “unearthing the mysteries of the past”. Cavemen, bones, bits of broken pot, Itonehenge, a series of small walls. Nothing to do with us bustling through our complicated modern lives. That’s absolute rubbish. Archaeology is part of all our lives. It’s not just picturesque landscapes, castles, muddy holes and heaps of old stuff. It’s a subject that tells us about who we are now, how we live today. How we got here, what we can achieve. It’s inspiration, aspiration and rigorous investigation. Curiosity about the past that reassuringly tells us we have been doing more or less OK for more than 10,000 years on this strip of land. And that is why shutting the University of Sheffield’s world-renowned archaeology department…

A hand up... Our sellers BUY the magazine for £1.50 and sell it on for £3, keeping the difference. Not a handout… Vendors earn a legitimate income, and gain valuable social and employability skills. With your support, we can continue to help them now and in the future. The right to citizenship… The Big Issue Foundation, our charitable arm, helps sellers to tackle social and financial exclusion. Prevention… Big Issue Invest offers backing and investments to social enterprises, charities and businesses which deliver social value to communities.…

Once upon a time a pandemic swept through the land. People had to stay closer to home, the escapism they found in reading became more important than ever. However, high streets have been hammered, libraries – already decimated by pre-Covid cuts – continue to be threatened. Luckily a new kind of hero has risen: the humble local bookshop. Despite everything that’s happened, the number of independent bookshops has increased for the fourth year in a row, following two decades of decline. There now are close to 1,000 across the UK – the highest number since 2013 – breathing life into shuttered town centres, and serving as vital hubs for communities. As we celebrate Independent Bookshop Week, we visit just a few of the people and places that stepped up through…

Twenty years ago, when Vin Diesel uttered the immortal line “it don’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile”, to Paul Walker’s grinning Brian O’Conner in The Fast and the Furious, he probably hadn’t bet on being back for a ninth outing as the now-iconic Dom Toretto in F9. But “winning is winning”, and the Fast franchise has continued to do so to become one of the most popular and lucrative movie series of all time. Io what is it about Universal Itudios’ cinematic behemoth that has managed to draw in an increasing global audience, as well as an increasing number of A-list Hollywood stars, including Charlize Theron, Nelen Mirren and Idris Elba, as the antics of this rag-tag group of former auto hijackers and drag racers…

1. In which London venue did Prince Charles and Diana Spencer marry in 1981? 2. Who played Neil in the ‘80s UK comedy The Young Ones? 3. Which famous singer was born Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel? 4. Which three colours make up the Belgian flag? 5. Khal Drogo and Ramsay Bolton are characters in which popular TV show? 6. Which is the only team to have beaten current holders Chelsea in a Champions League final? 7. Which legendary band have released albums called Bridges to Babylon and A Bigger Bang? 8. Brasov and Sighisoara are cities in which European country? 9. What was the UK’s best-selling boxed video game (across all consoles) in 2020? 10. Who was the first US president to be impeached? 11. How many World Snooker Championships…

GET IN TOUCH letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk Walk of life Big Issue vendor Richard Cotterill is currently walking the length of Britain. Last week we saw him set o›f from John O’Groats and he’s sent us updates from the road… When we went to press, Richard had reached Tyndrum in Stirlingshire, where he was enjoying a rest day. He said: “I’m going to sleep, wash my hair in the stream and cut my beard off. I look like Worzel Gummidge! I can’t remember enjoying anything so much in my life ever. These last two weeks in Scotland have been the best of my life. I’m on a real high.” After reading the article on Richard Cotterill’s UK walk from your latest issue I wanted to get in touch and give…

HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR SKILLS AND STRENGTHS “Before an applicant can sell their skills, they need to know what they are,” says Tammy Harman, specialist career coach at Evenbreak, an accessible job search site for disabled people. Start by asking yourself three questions: What skills do I have? How will an employer value them? How can I prove I have them? • Write a list “Sit down and list all the jobs you’ve done and all the activities you did there. Harrow it down further and think about the skills you used,” says Harman. “Skills aren’t just about the workplace, they can be from any aspect of your life.” • Talk it out “For some people it works to sit down with someone else and talk about the things that you’ve done,”…

Last week I went back to Notting Hill where I was born and whose slum streets have been transformed into a kind of gracious place of wealth. Showing a colleague around, they could not believe that these splendid streets were once in one of the worst places in Great Britain – as it was then referred to – to raise a child. What a reversal. One of the most extreme forms of gentrification and social improvement imaginable. The school that I once attended, a small almost village school, is a house now probably worth £20m. Fortunately the church building next door is still in the hands of the church and has not been converted to luxury flats. But I can imagine, if the church decides there are not enough attendees…

The Book Nook, Stirling Leanne Brown and Jasmine Stenhouse’s city centre bookshop/coffee shop bravely opened just last September before it was made to close, then allowed to open again. Selling mainly secondhand books, but with a small and growing collection of new books, it has quickly become a much loved hub. thebooknookstirling.co.uk Wonderland Bookshop, Nottingham Specialist children’s bookshop Wonderland opened in the market town of Retford in May 2019. Customers rave about new owner Helen Tamblyn-Saville’s contagious enthusiasm, as well as the upside-down tea party on the ceiling). wonderlandbookshop.co.uk The Stripey Badger, Grassington, Yorkshire Hot just worth visiting for its appearances in the updated All Creatures Great and Small, this popular bookshop was opened by mother and son team, Linda Furniss and award-winning bookseller James Firth, in 2018. As well…

‘The people here are genuinely interested in me. That’s a really good feeling’ I started off with The Big Issue a long time ago when I had a partner who used to sell it. And then I did some other jobs – promotions manager, PA, negotiator and for my sins for a very short time I was the person who used to give out parking tickets. But I didn’t like that, it wasn’t for me. And I’ve been a customer services manager and a painter and decorator, so I’ve got a wide skills set. That was when I lived down south. I had a stalker there unfortunately so when a friend, who’s like a brother to me, decided to move to Leicester for work he said, why don’t you just…