Innholdsfortegnelse for 2/27/2023 i The Big Issue

It’s not OK. It’s not understandable. It’s not excusable. There is no reason to stand outside a place housing desperate refugees and migrants and scare them to death. Except to feel power through intimidation. It doesn’t make any sense, rational or decent. Take the argument at face value. It is based in the concept that the UK has enough problems of its own, that as a nation it is full and it simply doesn’t have the resources to meet the needs of the needy. This idea is stoked by senior politicians, including the current Home Secretary, who uses the word “invasion” to describe migrants trying to reach UK shores. Want evidence that words have consequences? A banner at a ‘protest’ outside a hotel housing migrants in Rotherham just over a…

At 16, I was completely taken by the natural world. I was deeply in love with tropical rainforests, coral reefs, orchids, insects, reptiles to an extent. I think I had a strong sense of belonging to, and was fascinated by, the natural world. Ever since I can remember, I’ve had that fascination. My first memory was the sensory elation that comes from discovery. I was only two or three years old, walking in a field on quite a steep hillside with tall grass that almost buried me. I stopped and realised I was looking at something incredibly beautiful at the centre of the daisy. Or was it a wild pansy? I was completely in love with music and at 16, I was in love with Led Zeppelin and David Bowie,…

THE STRAYS ‘There’s just something really honest about horror’ A young Black woman is on the phone to her friend, tears running down her face. The housing office won’t help with the rent and she’s at the end of her tether. “They look at you like you’re worthless,” Cheryl says. “I shouldn’t be where I am now. I want more.” On the TV, an ad plays – a perfect family, living a perfect suburban life. “We’re dealt the hand we’re dealt,” her friend replies. But how far would Cheryl go to change that? That’s the dilemma at the heart of writer-director Nathaniel Martello-White’s debut feature film The Strays. An unnerving suburban horror, with shades of Jordan Peele and Ari Aster, The Strays picks away at issues around race and class…

Being an early morning bird, most of my best and worst ideas come before 5am. Earlier patterning around industrial jobs and working as a self-employed printer through the hours of darkness have created that timetable for me. I am a slave to it. To recap: last year I was working on ‘It’s Expensive Keeping People Poor’. And would have produced a manifesto-type pamphlet around that subject if it were not for the onset of the Ukrainian war and the hike in costs because of inflation. That flattened my ambitions to broach the deep, deep problems of poverty and how much of a drain it was on the government purse and the public mind. Poverty has expanded into the lives of people who formerly were clinging on to some semblance of…

HOUSING OMBUDSMAN Has there ever been more awareness of the systemic problems with Britain’s social housing than there is today? What was once the reserve of residents’ associations and local journalists is now leading the evening news, going viral on social media and is front and centre in the minds of the political elite. From the Grenfell Tower tragedy and the fallout from it, to high-profile exposures of squalid living conditions and most recently the death of toddler Awaab Ishak, this is a crisis that can no longer be ignored. One person welcoming the increased scrutiny is Richard Blakeway who, as the Housing Ombudsman, pores over thousands of complaints each year from tenants at the end of their tether. It could be damp or mould, a pest infestation or a…

A regular contributor to Street Art for many years, Chris has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and uses art to cope with his symptoms. He has experienced homelessness and is recovering from heroin use. “My art stands on the side of the oppressed and poor against those in power,” he says. One of Chris’s artworks was recently selected as part of Humanity, the sixth national exhibition by outsider art charity Outside In, which is touring venues across the UK in 2023. It was on view at Sotheby’s in London in January, and is next heading to Project Ability in Glasgow in the summer, then Brighton and Hove Museums in winter. outsidein.org.uk…

In BBC One’s Better, Leila Farzad stars as DI Lou Slack. She’s a police officer so compromised by a deal made two decades ago with a young ambitious newcomer in the Leeds underworld that her whole career has been built on a lie. We have seen morally compromised police on television before. But never quite like this. Both Slack and Col McHugh (played by Andrew Buchan) have risen through the ranks. Slack is now a successful detective. McHugh is the biggest organised crime kingpin in Leeds. They lean on each other in tough times. When McHugh calls, Slack responds. A crime scene needs cleaning up before officers arrive? Slack’s there before the on-duty police have their boots on. But as the latest brilliant BBC police drama to come out of…

The results are in on the world’s biggest ever trial of the four-day working week – and they’re overwhelmingly positive. More than 2,900 people in the UK participated in the six-month trial, in which companies agreed to give staff an extra day off, with no cut to pay. They worked an average of 34 hours across four days. Almost every company that took part, ranging from a local chippy to large corporations, an animation studio and digital banking, have decided to continue with the arrangement after the trial ended. At least 56 of the 61 companies that took part are extending the four-day week, including 18 that have made it permanent. The four-day week movement has seen a boom in popularity after the pandemic profoundly altered people’s ideas of work-life…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue Prize possession What a surprise! Two large parcels from you containing the goodies from the Nick Cave Christmas giveaway. I entered because my son is a fan. I’m 82. I saw him at Glastonbury in 2013, and he’s not really my style. But what a generous man he must be to give all this stuff to Big Issue. My son is delighted, of course, but he’s not having the Bunny Bowl, that’s mine. I get my Big Issue from the lady who sells outside Cheddar Sainsbury’s at the weekends. She does quite well, I think, and people look out for her. During the really cold snap a neighbour was taking her…

The days are growing longer, and bookshelves are in bloom Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry, out on March 2(Faber & Faber, £18.99) Every new novel by Sebastian Barry creates a ripple of happy excitement, in this house at least. The County Wicklow resident and twice-Booker-nominated writer (but don’t let that put you off ) is beloved by his many devotees (including Ali Smith and Tessa Hadley) for his lyrical style, generous spirit and a knack for imaginative storytelling many of his peers would give their eye teeth for. Tom is a grieving retired policeman rudely interrupted from his old-age hermitage on the Irish coast by an upturned cold case. The revelations are enthralling, the sentences divine, the south coast dialogue entirely convincing. But best of all are the passages…

I might be a washed-up, 47-year-old recovering addict and self-professed weirdo, but I still know how to party. It’s nice to get out of the house once in a while. But these days I am careful about the way I approach social get-togethers. Whereas my younger self would have just rocked up, smashed into the drinks and just waited to see what happened next, the middle-aged me has a well-crafted strategy to maximise the pleasures and minimise the pain of parties. I call it ‘The Sam Method’, and it works every time. Let’s take my brother-in-law’s 60th birthday party last Sunday as an example. It was an afternoon do, staged at my mother-in-law’s house. I scoped out the guestlist in advance: just close relatives and plenty of kids. Good. I…

There are more than 92,000 children in care in the UK, according to the latest figures. They cannot be with their birth families, either because it is unsafe for them to be there, or because their parents are unable to look after them. “I’d like people to know it can happen to anyone and you’re not alone when it happens,” says 13-year-old Henry, who’s currently being looked after by a foster carer in Kent. “It’s like, it’s not just you who’s going through it. It can be anyone, all over the country.” Henry and his 16-year-old brother Billy have been in care for five years. For the last three years, they’ve been drawing on their personal experiences to become co-creators in an innovative new play that aims to help young…

MELISSA, 30 I’m very happy that I get to tell my story through My Pitch. I was born in a small, beautiful town called Medgidia, located near the Romanian seaside. My heritage is Turkish, as my great grandparents originated from Turkey. My religion is Islam and I speak both Turkish and Romanian. A few years ago, a man who lived in the same city as me told me about a secure job opportunity in England, in a coffee shop. However, a day after I arrived in the UK I was informed that this role was no longer available. I found myself in a very desperate situation. I was worried and feeling hopeless because the reason I moved here was to find work. I didn’t know what to do any more.…