Innholdsfortegnelse for 2/20/2023 i The Big Issue

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue A satisfied customer writes My wife and I are sitting here in East Lothian, enjoying some winter sun. My wife is reading parts of last week’s Big Issue. We loved the piece on Rishi’s rabbit [Issue 1546, January 9]. I am reading the powerful article about the man who was sent to Belsen as a child. I have visited that harrowing place. I know some people have the empathy and respect to engage in conversation with your vendors. I don’t wish to intrude into how your sellers have found themselves where they are, but I do say hello and smile at the vendor at Tesco in North Berwick, and buy the…

I was always quite extroverted, I wanted to be the centre of attention. At 16 I was probably fairly obnoxious and loud. I think all of that extrovert stuff is a veneer though, isn’t it, to hide insecurity. I wouldn’t say I was over-confident with girls. I had a lot of friendships with girls, but I was very self-conscious about my looks. At 16 I was already at the Italia Conti stage school. I was very fortunate in that I knew I wanted to perform from a very young age. I’m one of four boys – I have two older brothers and one younger – so I had that classic middle child syndrome thing. All my brothers were brilliant sportsmen. I played a lot of sport, but I was never…

Imagine if the UK Workplace Health and Safety Awards were televised. Hosted by Sue Crispbread, BBC Hereford and Worcester’s third most popular presenter, it begins with the Most Days Without a Reportable Accident category. The nominees are Heattech International (Grimsby), Knaresborough Fasteners and Elastics, Stevenage Stone Cladding Solutions and WTF Joinery of East Grinstead. And the award goes to… KNARES-BOROUGH FASTENERS AND ELASTICS! [Repeat for two and a half interminable hours.] Sounds boring, doesn’t it? But I would argue that it’s really not that much of a leap from there to the Brits, the Grammys, the Baftas or the Oscars. Yes, the red carpet might feature Sam Smith in an alarming bin bag full of polyps, Dame Judi Dench might be sitting in the audience trying to find a tissue…

HOUSING Homelessness: Evictions double while the government twiddles its thumbs In what should surely be adopted as the motto on the parliamentary coat of arms, the government has been accused of not doing enough to address the housing crisis. New figures show evictions doubled in the last months of 2022. Repossessions surged to 5,409 between October and December compared to 2,729 in the same period in 2021, according to Ministry of Justice statistics. Mortgage repossessions surged too, up 134 per cent. The government has yet to introduce the Renters Reform Bill it has been promising since 2019, but a spokesperson told The Big Issue it “is investing a significant amount of funding to improve waiting times in the civil courts, opening extra courtrooms and recruiting more judges”. Matt Downie, Crisis…

Bernie Sanders believes the capitalist game is up. In his new and rather furious book, It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism, he argues that until working-class people get organised in the face of corporate tyranny, they’ll exist for the sole purpose of exploitation by the rich and powerful. The Vermont senator believes capitalism is eating itself and consuming democracy in the process. It’s a conviction Sanders holds deeply and couldn’t conceal beneath comforting centrist-dad platitudes, even if he wanted to. “People remember the gilded ages where the rich were very rich and children were working in factories,” booms Sanders down the line, in that unmistakable Brooklynite baritone. “The fact is,” he assures me, “we have more income and wealth inequality than we did then.” According to the World Economic…

The postcard-sized art sale raising money to support The Hepatitis C Trust’s work with women affected by the criminal justice system returns with a new format in 2023. For the first time, seven leading female curators in the British art world – including Beth Greenacre (whose clients have included David Bowie) – will each curate a show comprising work by female artists, each with its own auction. The artwork pictured, titled China Girl, is by Hannah Wooll. It features as part of an exhibition curated by Jealous Galleries manager Louise Fitzjohn. Bidding starts at just £50 and will open online via The Auction Collective on February 23. artonapostcard.com The work on this page is created by people who are marginalised. Contact street.lights@bigissue.com to see your art here. To see more…

CRITICS In loving memory of the hatchet jobs of yore “Absolutely terrible at every conceivable level”; “worse the louder you play it”; “Cirque du Soleil: Buckcherry” – just some of the many memorable lines in music website Pitchfork’s recent two-out-of-10 review of Eurovision-winning campy Italian sex-rockers Måneskin and their new album Rush!. And I am absolutely here for it. Not only because I agree with Pitchfork that the nipple-brandishing Romans’ music possesses not a single redeeming quality (and I say that as someone who loves Eurovision). But because I’m so pleased – relieved, even – to see a proper rip-roaring, knives-out, colours-nailed-to-the-mast negative review by a major publication in a day and age when such a thing seemed to be consigned to history. It felt positively retro to cackle my…

Three years ago I was in a hot tub in Kyiv. Such is the time distortion of Covid that it feels like last month. Such is the surrealness of seeing war in Europe that it feels like a different dimension. It was February 2020. Cheap flights and an even cheaper hotel; just off Independence Square and only a few hryvnia more to upgrade to a room with a spa bath. Who could resist? So for less than £25 a night I settled into bubbly opulence. Kyiv is a great city. I visited the Microminiature Museum containing astounding works of art you view through a microscope: a chessboard sitting on a pin head, a caravan of camels in the eye of a needle. I rode escalators down to the deepest underground…

REVIEWS A literary whodunnit for the sleuth in us all Rebecca Makkai’s latest novel, I Have Some Questions For You, is a literary mystery set against the backdrop of a New Hampshire boarding school. Our protagonist, Bodie Kane, is a successful podcaster who is invited back to her alma mater to help some current students create podcasts of their own. One student, however, is determined to make a podcast about the 1995 murder of Thalia Keith, a case that has had a second life on the internet and which numerous online sleuths are determined was a botched case, leading to the wrong person being imprisoned. The thing is, Bodie knew Thalia, and the murder took place in the very school that the students are now working on their podcasts. As…

INTERVIEW Travis Alabanza It’s 10 in the morning and Travis Alabanza is already a little distracted. The virtual queue they’re waiting in, alongside 400,000 other Beyoncé fans perspiring for Renaissance tickets, doesn’t seem to be moving. “She doesn’t give us any warning, does she?” the writer, performer and theatre maker jokes as they leave the room for somewhere less frantic. Should I call later? Oh no, comes the reply – their boyfriend is in pole position next door. “I said to him, ‘Look, identity politics has gone so far that the only way you can be a good ally is by getting me these tickets.’” This off-the-cuff exchange goes some way to illustrate Alabanza’s inimitable appeal – both onstage and off it. Alongside the humour and quick wit, there…

RODNEY LYALL, 53 I don’t sell The Big Issue for the money, I do it to socialise with people. I’m a good salesman. Everybody’s a potential customer. The secret is to listen to people if they’ve got troubles and wish them a nice day. Some will come back and give us a couple of quid. That’s not why I wish them a nice day. Because I mean it when I say it, have a nice day. They talk to me about the cost-of-living crisis, their mum or dad or brother’s died. Quite gloomy but most of it is quite interesting. I give them money if they need money. It should be the other way around but it says in the Bible, give to paupers. I’m quite religious. About 11 years…