Innholdsfortegnelse for 2/28/2022 i The Big Issue

Our vendors buy magazines for £1.50 and sell them for £3, keeping the proceeds and working their way out of poverty. Every vendor has a unique story – they may be homeless, at risk of losing their home, long-term unemployed or dealing with mental health issues. What they all have in common is they are earning a legitimate income while gaining valuable social and transferable skills. If you cannot buy from a vendor, take a subscription via SUBS.BIGISSUE.COM or through The Big Issue UK app. Retailers including the Co-op and Sainsbury’s also stock the magazine in many branches. EVERY COPY BOUGHT MAKES A DIFFERENCE. IT’S A HAND UP, NOT A HANDOUT.…

It’s a commonly held view that ending rough sleeping is merely a question of political will. Former housing secretary Robert Jenrick told The Big Issue in a recent interview it’s a view he subscribes to. So if the government has shown the political will to consign the Vagrancy Act to the history books, is it on track to end rough sleeping by 2024 as was promised in the 2019 manifesto? Jenrick, who convinced Boris Johnson to pursue the target, was cagey when asked by The Big Issue. He said, “I’d like to think we could end this Parliament with rough sleeping down to at least the levels that we Conservatives found when we came into power originally in 2010.” Part of that system may well be a mechanism to get…

I gave the new Big Issue e-bikes a spin around Bristol and was pleasantly surprised @BristolBizz A cruel policy I would just like to add something to the excellent item by Paul McNamee, titled ‘Our migrants deserve an Irish welcome’ (issue 1498 – I bought it late). In the article Paul talks of the heartlessness of new government immigration proposals and how short-sighted the whole immigration policy is, in a country with an ageing population and so many job vacancies currently unfilled. I would like to mention an example of this short-sightedness which I’ve found. A man (known peripherally to me), in his thirties, came here as a child after being tortured in his country of origin. He has been here for 23 years waiting for his citizenship to be…

On June 27, 2007, the residents of Bentley, South Yorkshire, looked out of their windows to a horrifying sight: the devastating floods sweeping their way through Britain had finally arrived at their doorstep. Already, tens of thousands of homes across the country had been submerged following the wettest summer since records began in 1766. Now, locals in the Doncaster suburb were forced out too, saving only what they could carry. Hundreds watched in disbelief as water rushed down Bentley high street, seeped under doors and swelled up through floorboards. Dozens of local businesses were destroyed and family homes rendered uninhabitable. In the coming days, freshly installed Prime Minister Gordon Brown would promise a shell-shocked nation that “lessons would be learned” from institutional failures to prepare for flooding. More than a…

I was a gangly teenager, all elbows and legs. I loved playing sports – football and cricket – and I’ve been a Manchester City fan since I was about seven or eight so I’ve known the lows as well as the highs. I’m one of these weird Leo/Virgo mixes. I have all the Virgo traits – I’m very fastidious and tidy, I have a good organisational brain and I pay attention to detail. But at the same time, I am all Leo. Loud, mouthy, don’t mind being in a crowd, don’t mind being the centre of attention. I was always the one at school with my hand up to perform if we were asked to read out loud. It’s interesting that that’s pretty much the career that I have now,…

Selected by Tahereh Mafi TikTok sensation author of the acclaimed Shatter Me series 1 An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir I loved this beautiful, brutal first book in Tahir’s bestselling series. The Martial Empire – and the characters at its mercy – are masterfully constructed. This story will stay with me for a long time. 2 The Cruel Prince by Holly Black The stakes are high; the drama abundant; Holly Black builds the High Courts of Faerie with a skill that seems effortless. A true delight – this series is addictive. 3 Caraval by Stephanie Garber I loved getting lost in the magical world of Caraval; Garber designs her fantastical landscapes with elegance and finesse and then populates them with characters you fall in love…

“I don’t know if trepidation is the right word, but I’m waiting for the backlash. The keyboard warriors will be out.” Joe Cole is under no illusions, aware that he is stepping into illustrious shoes, wearing iconic clobber and sporting some legendary specs in his new role. It takes a brave actor to take on Harry Palmer, arguably the coolest character in Michael Caine’s impeccable early career. But Cole feels no fear as he stars in a new six-part version of The Ipcress File, adapted from Len Deighton’s Cold War classic. Best known for Peaky Blinders, Gangs of London and Black Mirror, Cole is afraid of neither aggro nor online trolls. Besides, he has just returned from a ju-jitsu class when The Big Issue calls. THE BIG ISSUE: What convinced…

Although their marriage lasted only a year, their influence on one another continues to reverberate through modern music Betty Davis, funk’s founding mother, famous for her rough, raw vocal style and sexually assertive lyrics passed away earlier this month, and although she hadn’t engaged with the music industry or the public at large in several decades, her departure is a blow. A pioneer in a most combatant sense, Davis fought to make music her way, and when she realised that couldn’t be done, returned to the ether of her Pennsylvania home town and lived out the rest of her days in quiet obscurity. She grew up with a love of the blues and exhibited a flair for composition early on, writing her first song at age 13. She moved to…

This gives me a purpose to get up every morning, get out of the house and meet customers GARY AKA COZ, 55 I enjoy selling The Big Issue and I’m very passionate about it. I’ve been doing it on and off now for about 20 years. It’s not a money spinner, I’m not going to be able to run a mortgage on it or anything like that. But it’s not about the money. It gives me a purpose to get up every morning, get out of the house and meet customers on a give-and-take situation. They’ll tell me their problems, I’ll tell them mine. It’s therapeutic. For the mental side of it, I isolated myself quite a bit during the pandemic and got depressed and all that with it. So…

120,000 The number of new homes built on flood-prone land in England and Wales in the last decade. 37% Number of tenants in Bentley, a flood-prone area of Doncaster, who have no contents insurance at all. 25% People who’ve been flooded who are still living with mental health consequences two years after the event. (Research by the Environment Agency and Public Health England) 5.2 million The number of properties at risk from flooding in the UK. This is predicted to double in the next 50 years. (Environment Agency)…

Dear Jon, It won’t matter how far you pedal your pushbike along the riverbank. A big sky grazing your head along the way. You’ll never dodge being different. Unlike those shirtless lads with sunburnt shoulders, kicking a ball about on the field behind your yard. Where the line is rammed with washing, and lilac hugs the wall. Not the same as your brothers, who pulled on their soldier’s uniforms and left you behind. You’re you. You’re funny. You’re 16 years old. That restlessness that keeps you up all night, when the moon is as bright as a dinner plate licked clean, won’t last for ever. Because it’s more than the mess whirling around inside your head. It’s limbs getting longer, hair growing like grass, and an ache in your underpants…

Finland 1 The first edition of Iso Numero this year focuses on some of the Roma vendors who sell the magazine in Helsinki. In interviews they talk about their dreams and wishes for 2022. Nadia Tinuța said, “I started working when I was 12 years old. In Romania, my husband and I did agricultural work, such as picking grapes. You don’t have to have studied to do that. We got 20 euros a day for it, but it wasn’t even enough for the family’s food. In the winter, a lot of money goes to keeping the house warm. Jobs are hard to find in Romania. My sister works as a clothing seamstress for a company, she earns 150 euros a month. It’s really little, but she’s still forced to do…

Just because they are unlike humans, doesn’t mean that dogs or octopuses or ants don’t have a kind of intelligence The best non-fiction tends to make you look at the world around you a little differently after you’ve read it. That’s certainly the case with this week’s two insightful and fascinating books. First up we have the superb How To Be Animal by Melanie Challenger. The author has spent her career writing and broadcasting on nature, the environment and philosophy and this book, which looks at the struggle within humans over our animal nature, is a scintillating blend of all three. Over the last few thousand years, we humans have tended to think of ourselves as somehow apart from the natural world, beings that are above the animals and plants…

9 Ben Affleck He does have a mighty chin but everything else about Affleck’s pained billionaire – who debuted in 2016’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice before putting a super-team together in 2017’s Justice League – felt leaden and lifeless. The actor (above) described it as “the worst experience” for him, and frankly it was no fun for us either. 8 Val Kilmer When Michael Keaton hung up the cowl after two films with Tim Burton, the hunky Kilmer was cast in 1995’s Batman Forever. Perhaps to differentiate himself from gurning villains the Riddler (Jim Carrey) and Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones), the headline star went for a sort of sleepy disaffection. One Bat-dance was enough; Kilmer did not return for Batman and Robin. 7 George Clooney Poor George. The…

On the estate where I grew up, there was this wild tortoise. It was a pretty large estate in West London, comprising high-rises, low-block maisonettes and clusters of small houses. There were play areas, a network of concrete walkways and vast underground garages where local bad lads would hide in the daytime while bunking off school. This tortoise just roamed free, wandering among buildings and gardens like any other local resident. As far as anyone knew, it was ownerless. Everyone on the estate knew it and would say hello when it slowly passed them by. It survived on whatever wild vegetation it could find plus the odd titbit left out by compassionate locals. Nice story, right? Mind you, I haven’t visited that estate in years. For all I know a…