Innholdsfortegnelse for 1/30/2023 i The Big Issue

It has become the tradition in London’s Trafalgar Square to place a temporary sculpture or object on an empty plinth, now known as the Fourth Plinth. Most of the pieces chosen have been comical; one I remember looking like a large multicoloured, muffin-like cake. Another, an elongated thumb. But a problem has developed for the makers of these objets d’art, it would seem. The scheme has been running for a few decades and most of the pieces have not found a home after their two-year stint on the plinth. A few weeks ago the renowned and much-loved sculptor and Turner Prize winner Rachel Whiteread suggested an end to this process. Because most of the objects have subsequently been kept in storage at great expense. I have not kept my eye…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue People power John Bird made a vital point in his column [Issue 1543, December 12], and that is the community voice is the one that can guide the way in a democratic nation. Years of promises by political parties that somehow always end in failure can no longer be acceptable. Ideologies are out of touch because they exclude too many people. The nonsense of the over-paged newspapers seldom reflect the people’s voice. Their voices could really explain why the NHS is in a mess and why the railway system can be so unreliable. Or why workers on a steady income cannot compete with the wealth that is generated by the oligarchs.…

REVIEWS A broken world and the love that endures Displacement, homelessness, rootlessness – all themes that were ingrained in our histories and conflicts of the 20th century. Aleksandar Hemon’s writing underlines the continuing importance of those themes, even when depicting the wanderings of the people and the consequences of the events from the last century. His new novel The World and All That It Holds begins, strikingly, in 1914 Sarajevo, with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. From the street corner, Pinto looks on perplexed, as his life and the life of his world is transformed, destroyed and reborn in the succeeding years. With his secret lover Osman, he is carried away by the tides of war, first as a prisoner to the steppes after the Russian Revolution, then to Tashkent,…

INTERVIEW Waterloo Road Some TV stands the test of time – and Waterloo Road has proved itself to be one of those shows. In 2021, as we isolated in uncertain and increasingly precarious times while the pandemic raged, many of us turned to familiar comforts. This, in part, explains the viewing figures for Waterloo Road. Although it ended in 2015, six years on it became iPlay-er’s fourth most watched series of the year. In addition, new audiences were tuning in for the first time, demonstrating the cross-generational appeal of the schoolyard-based TV drama. Come 2023, the series is back on our TV screens in the form of a reboot for old and new audiences alike. With a cast made up of familiar (Katie Griffiths, Angela Griffin and Adam Thomas…

CLASSICAL Opening doors and opening ears “Can you hold back a bit?” the conductor asked the percussionist. “The acoustic is great here.” Sitting in the back of Warwick Hall listening in on Orchestra of the Swan (OOTS) rehearsing Elgar’s Enigma Variations, the balance was indeed pristine. Cleaner, in fact, than many better-known concert venues: if you haven’t heard of Warwick Hall, it’s because the 500-seat space is primarily a school stage, built in the town of Warwick in 2016 by private education group Warwick Schools Foundation (WSF), a consortium of five fee-paying institutions. The brick-pillared, purpose-built building with its glass facade and cavernous ceiling is a world away from the Portakabins seen in many secondary schools. As has been covered regularly in these pages, music provision in the state sector…

IAN DUFF, 57 A year ago just now, I was still mourning Boycie [Ian’s dog Boycie was a much-loved sight in Bath for many years]. I was devastated when he died. I didn’t know where to turn or what to do. And then in March I was approached by this woman who had an affiliation with the adoption agency and everything changed when I got Trigger. I’ve had Trigger for eight months now. I’ve got him down as alsatian-collie cross. Because he’s very young, he’s very bouncy and very excitable. He’s at that chewing stage. Everything gets chewed. His recall is null and void. If you let him off, he just runs away. As long as we’ve gone out for long walks, he’s quite content. He’s really good on the…

What is your thing? You know, your THING. If your friends were asked, what would they say? That you’re good with dogs? Dogs always know. That you can cook effortlessly well, without panic? That you can walk on your hands or recite the names of all kings and queens of England, post-Norman conquest? Everybody has their thing. What would happen if you lost it? What if the immutable just dissolved? It’s where we are now. For as long as I can remember the Conservative and Unionist Party of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have thought of themselves as the natural party of government. Such is the power of their thundering self-belief and ability to embed the idea so indelibly in the national consciousness that it has…

At 16 I was a bit lonely. I am an only child and my dad had aspirations for me, which was great. So instead of going to the local school with my mates I got sent to the grammar school. I was a fish out of water. And my birthday is at the end of August, so I was always younger than everybody else and maybe not quite as worldly wise. Growing up, I was a mix of things – playing football for my school, struggling with maths homework, and I did find from an early age you can only do so much homework. Even less if you’re trying to learn C minor seventh on your acoustic guitar. I got a guitar for Christmas when I was 10 but it…

When I was 23, my self-published graphic novel won an award at the Cairo Comix Festival. Called Shubeik Lubeik, it was about a world where people could buy and sell wishes; the more expensive they were, the more powerful they would be at granting your wish. I privately planned a trilogy, each revolving around a kiosk in Cairo where three first-class wishes would be sold at a huge discount. I knew it was a bit delusional to plan a project where each part would require over a hundred pages of drawing. I had seen many ambitious comics projects in Egypt fall apart from a lack of support, so I kept it to myself. After it won the award, I got the opportunity to pitch it for an agent in the…

Remember when the world of work, which always seemed so monolithic and permanent, crumbled like a leftover Digestive in an empty boardroom? We always knew that corporate life was bollocks, of course; all those David Brents talking about how you should rise and grind at 3am if you want to get results (usually a heart attack, followed by a LinkedIn post about the importance of spending time with family). For a couple of months in 2020, though, it really felt like work was going to implode for good. Managers appeared on Teams with uncut hair and frizzy beards, looking haggard and sad after actually spending time with their families – which turned out to be the last thing on Earth they wanted to do. But even though the office closed,…