Innholdsfortegnelse for 8/29/2022 i The Big Issue

Preventing mass poverty is one of our biggest battles yet To recap: on the 10th anniversary of The Big Issue I was asked by a reporter what I planned that was different for the next 10 or 20 years. I said that for the previous 10 years I had been mending broken clocks. And now I was going to spend the next 20 years trying to prevent clocks breaking. It was then that I started to talk about prevention. I became a pain in the rear to many, many people who kept saying, “How can you talk about preventing homelessness and poverty when you have so many people who are already homeless and in poverty?” I stuck to my prevention guns, but did not abandon the idea that we still…

At 16 I was at the Sacred Heart convent school [in Drogheda, on the east coast of Ireland] just finishing my exams. I was a mixture of outgoing and really shy. I liked to party, but I hid behind my more outgoing friends. I don’t think I was academic. I was in the top class but nearer the bottom than the top. I wanted to leave, it was stifling. The head nun was terrifying. She was a monster. But you could also have a kind of fun that you can only have in a confined environment like that. If you’re a bit naughty in a convent school, that has its own kind of excitement. I was both rebellious and terrified. I was constantly getting caught just because I’m an idiot,…

On our last night before a 10-day tour break, Professor Brian Cox is stumped by a question. The audience in Salt Lake City are relieved. The replicant physicist becomes a real human; it turns out that he doesn’t know everything. It has happened before. In our culture of hasty certainty, moments of “I don’t know” are strangely empowering. If the wise scientist doesn’t know, and is prepared to admit it publicly, maybe we all can every now and again. The question that stumped the professor tonight was from a seven-year-old. He wanted to know how crayons were made. After the show, we spend a while contemplating the construction of crayons. Next time, he will be ready for the seven-year-olds. I was also pleased to see that the musical The Book…

STEVE CORBETT, 48 I’ve been selling the magazine about five years or so. I started in Bath because I knew a couple of people who sold it and they got me badged up. I do enjoy selling it. You get to meet lots of people. Especially when you’re new to a town you don’t really know anyone. But when you’re selling the magazine over a period of time you start to build up sort of a network of people. I was on my pitch in Truro at the start of August when I lost my tent and all my things due to a wildfire at Boscawen Park in Truro. I’d noticed that the field I was staying in had very dry grass and it had started to turn brown as…

Travelling overland by train from London to Morocco is like a long, slow teleport to another world. Of course, it’s much quicker to fly, but the two-day journey through France and Spain to North Africa is a bit special. After taking the Eurostar to Paris then a modern French train from Paris to Madrid and south to Algeciras, I watched the world whizz by. Rivers, hilltop villages and wide-open expanses of the French countryside; the mountainous border at the Pyrenees; the Spanish countryside north to south as it morphs into its Moorish influence. After a simple, delicious tapas and night in a small hotel close to the Spanish port of Algeciras, I took the early-morning ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar, sailing past the famous Rock of Gibraltar before slipping…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue Fruit of the union I read with interest Feargal Cochrane’s article about James Connolly [Issue 1524, August 1] and his influence on the British Trade Union movement. I first learned about the man and his socialist principles in the context of the 1916 Easter Rising when we moved to Ireland in 2003. It is tragic that his socialist vision was not realised in the formation and development of the Irish Free State. Instead, the iron hand of the authoritarian Catholic Church held sway over government policy to the extent that when the Mother and Child Scheme, a bill advocating free maternity care and education for children up to 16 was advocated…

When I was asked to interview Arctic Monkeys for The Big Issue, the first feeling was panic. You want to do it so much. I was supposed to meet the boys in London, then it was potentially in Las Vegas – it felt like one of those ones that just ain’t gonna happen. So when it all fell into place, there was just elation. Doing it for The Big Issue is an amazing gesture from the boys. And they are heroes of mine and have been for a big part of my life. The boys were unbelievably kind. Over the years, I judge people by how they treat the plus one. And from the group to the manager to the roadies, they couldn’t have been nicer to my wife. She…

SONGBIRD Lui submits his work via the 240 Project, an activity centre in London supporting vulnerable adults. He takes inspiration, he says, “from the world around me, the images, ideas and people that fill this city. Just 15 short years ago I was a sign maker. Just goes to show what you can do with a small idea and big dreams. “I am self-taught and drawn to many genres of art,” Lui continues. “I tend to follow my own intuition, creating fluid pieces that do not necessarily pay homage to any specific artist, but there may be the occasional trace of influence. “Whatever you want in life start chasing it now, before it’s too late.”…

ETHIO-JAZZ Let a 99-year-old nun be your entry to the wonders of this genre I once read the artist Dan Clowes describe Chopin’s Nocturnes as “like listening to ice water”. That description has often resonated with regards to the sound of a solo piano, but never more so than when I’m listening to the Ethiopian pianist and composer Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou (pictured), who turns 99 this year, and whose music has a pure, restorative quality unlike anything else I’ve ever come across. Somewhere between classical, blues and church music, academic and yet entirely unconventional, the kind of sound that quenches a certain intangible thirst. I first discovered Guèbrou’s work through a series of albums called Éthiopiques, a showcase for popular Ethiopian music from the 1960s and ’70s. Ethiopian jazz, or…

Go glamping at a hostel An increasing number of hotels in The Youth Hotel Association have campsites where you can stay in a tipi, bell tent, pod, safari tent, shepherd’s hut or Airstream for a fraction of the price of upmarket glampsites. yha.org.uk Go ‘Champing’ (camping in a church) Pack a sleeping bag and stay overnight at one of 20 redundant historic churches in England and Wales, from £49 per night per adult. You’re provided with basic facilities though you can pay extra to have the beds made up with duvets, blankets, and hot-water bottles before you arrive. champing.co.uk Travel as a ferry foot passenger Packing light and travelling as a foot passenger on a ferry crossing can save you the expense of taking a car. Not all services take…

As the cost-of-living crisis deepens, the people are rising Everything feels like we’re waiting. If we were in a movie, there would have been footsteps outside, maybe a momentary flash of light through the curtains. We would be holding our breath, unsure if relief or terror is to follow. But, of course, it’s not a film. More of a grim, six-part fly-on-the-wall documentary. Besides, films are one thing that the current circling crisis may make less readily available. The future of global cinema mega-chain Cineworld is a new uncertainty. Buckling under £4.2 billion of debt, difficult times lie ahead for it. It feels like we’re a hair’s breadth from a general strike. Had the government hoped that by stonewalling RMT rail staff demands they’d raise public hostility to the point…

Sweden 1 Nordic countries often top the lists of best places to live, but they still struggle with the same big issues we do. Ahead of elections next month in Sweden, Gothenburg-based street paper Faktum fires tough questions at the politicians. It asks about overcrowded housing, people – including children – being evicted, begging and drug policy. There’s also an in-depth exploration of Housing First, told through Faktum vendor Larry’s story, who secured his own home through the innovative model. Why then, the magazine asks, is implementation of it so slow? Brazil 2 A small city in southern Brazil has found a way to attract more homeless people to one of its shelters on chilly winter nights: They now also take in people’s pets. Canoas – a city…

REVIEWS In war’s long shadow, what have we learned? Discomfited is the best word to describe Ian McEwan’s fictional world. He is the master of the half-surprise, the nightmarish possibilities of the seemingly common character. Mixed with a solid grasp of history and his characters’ places within its tumult, this psychological acuity is his main appeal. Some call it manipulation, others see it as skilful suspense. Nevertheless, his novels do speak of a world easily recognisable and yet unerringly disturbing: the English gardens and war tragedies of Atonement, the political turmoil in Black Dogs, the hauntingly silent, fork-rattling tragedy of On Chesil Beach. Few can describe better what it felt like to have seen the history of the last half-century unfolding around them. Lessons seems a suitable title, then, for…

INTERVIEW A police officer is standing beside a body, dumped in a graveyard and poorly covered in overturned soil. “It doesn’t get any easier, turning up to the murder of yet another young woman,” he says. “Knowing there’ll be another one, and another one. I don’t have the words for it any more.” If you’re used to crime dramas as escapism, this is the moment when ITV’s new miniseries The Suspect reaches out through the telly and forces you to look at real life. “It gave me a chill even when you said it,” says the programme’s star Aidan Turner. “It is a reflection, unfortunately, of the reality of the world that we live in.” At least 144 women were killed by men (or where a man was the principal…

However long we spend agonising over the fine details of our longed-for holidays, we’ll never have the know-how that an experienced travel company can offer – especially one that specialises in unique, sustainable adventures. That is exactly what Intrepid Travel offer. Founded in 1989 by Darrell Wade and Geoff Manchester – two backpacker friends keen to create an alternative to traditional group holidays – it has quietly grown to become the world’s largest purpose-led adventure travel company. Today, Intrepid runs more than 900 itineraries across the globe, offering a range of innovative and inspiring experiences. And all are the result of years of research. There are all-action adventure getaways for thrill seekers, journeys through some of the world’s most unusual culinary cultures for foodies, and retreats designed to rejuvenate the…