Innholdsfortegnelse for 8/21/2023 i The Big Issue

The fifth force is upon us. It’s one of the stories of our time, but because it’s very complicated, we’re not talking about it a lot. So bear with me. I’m about to explain science really badly. Scientists think they have discovered the mysterious fifth force of the universe, due to an unexpected wobble in a subatomic particle. The particle is called a muon and has not been behaving as expected. Naughty muon. The fifth force and muon are quite the couple of swells. While boffins had been getting to grips with the fourth force, which might be connected to dark matter, along comes evidence of the fifth, which they had long suspected but couldn’t confirm, making it, in many ways, the John Cairncross of particle physics. This fifth force…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk Earth songs Now we learn that the ocean temperature is at another record high, when was the first warning on this problem? Jacques Cousteau and the late, great Harry Belafonte said that this was becoming a problem. Listen to Belafonte’s song, Calypso, named for Cousteau’s sailing ship. Back in the 1960s I joined a number of others in a call to save mankind and our planet Earth. Bob Dylan in 1963 sang about the sound of a wave that would drown the whole world, and in 1964 he sang about pellets of poison filling our oceans. Others like Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and Mike Pinder of The Moody Blues were calling on…

“We always lint roll our clothes,” Kitto Haywood says, stroking her dog Starry, a one-year-old borzoi. “We wash everything so there’s no dog smell and never wear anything dark.” Starry is tall and strikingly ginger – a hard dog to hide. Passers-by coo and take photos of her, but her focus is firmly on her disabled handler. Haywood, who is non-binary and lives in Manchester, is facing homelessness after being issued a Section 21 eviction notice when they couldn’t afford a rent increase. But they say discrimination against their assistance dog is stopping them from finding a new home. “Our landlord raised our rent by £400 a month. We can’t afford it and need to find somewhere else, but it’s impossible. Whenever Starry has been mentioned, it’s just: ‘Sorry we’ve…

HOMELESSNESS Devon councillors U-turn on plans to cut homelessness prevention funding after community fight back Devon County Council (DCC) has put plans to cut £1.5 million in homelessness prevention funding on hold after warnings it could lead to a surge in rough sleeping in the area. The local authority announced in March it was looking to scrap the funding as part of efforts to make £45m worth of savings. Service providers warned the cut could see five hostels close across the region and lead to more people on the streets – rough sleeping has already risen by 44% across Devon between 2021 and 2022 according to the government’s official rough sleeping count. DCC council leader John Hart said councillors had a change of heart following a special scrutiny committee meeting…

Sport and grief don’t immediately sound like obvious bedfellows. One is a mostly harmless pastime that can be enjoyed or ignored as each of us chooses. The other is that hateful inevitability which confronts us all. But for me the two things are inextricably linked. And not just because I’m a Spurs fan and I’m coming to terms with life AH (After Harry). There are two bigger reasons. The first is historical. Believe it or not, the explanation for why the ancient Greeks invented competitive sport in the first place was as something to do at funerals. As if that’s not strange enough, the kinds of sports they enjoyed back then were chock-full of death. Take the ‘pankration’, an event which was basically ultimate fighting meets Mortal Kombat. Practically free…

COVER FEATURE Meet Bex Grass and Rainbow the border collie. Together they sell The Big Issue at St Martin’s Church, central Exeter. Their incredible and powerful story speaks of the support that dogs can provide at the toughest times. It also emphasises the extent to which selling The Big Issue can help turn a person’s life around. Selling the paper made them part of a community that rallied around them when help was needed the most, leading to a remarkable act of generosity. Grass, 43, who’s originally from Sidmouth in Devon, became homeless after a relationship breakdown a couple of years ago. “I split from my partner. I was living in his council property,” she explains. In the immediate aftermath, Grass had to camp outdoors. Luckily she was not alone.…

They give us unconditional love and loyalty, provide company and comfort, yet ask for very little in return. The relationship between dogs and humans is special, which is why they become such an essential part of our lives. We asked readers to tell us what their canine family members mean to them.…

Devastating scenes of flash floods and raging wildfires across Europe this summer are a shocking reminder of the fragility of our food systems, with our own shores coming under increasing threat by extreme changes in the weather. Many climate activists would have us believe that farmers, primarily those rearing livestock, are obstacles in the way of climate change mitigation, yet farmers are strongly placed to deliver a number of green solutions and are in fact one of our best hopes in helping us weather the storm that is to come. With agriculture responsible for 10% of UK greenhouse gas emissions, farmers are taking substantive steps to address their carbon footprint, as well as making space for nature restoration. They are planting hedgerows and woodlands, restoring wetlands and peatlands, sowing wildlife…

REVIEWS Tale of survival that gives voice to the silenced Ootlin: A Memoir, by the remarkable Jenni Fagan, is an unforgettable testament to survival – rendering the first 16 years of her life as a child shunted across various foster homes, adoptive placements and hostels in Scotland. Fagan wrote the initial material 20 years ago, as an adult contending with complex PTSD and suicidal thoughts, meaning to leave the story of her life behind. Then she put this manuscript away into a locked case for two decades. During this time, she became a critically acclaimed author and poet. However, in 2020, suffering with Covid and fearing she might die, Fagan had the epiphany that she needed to share her story – to reclaim her narrative in the face of bureaucratic…

INTERVIEW “I saw two people I knew well, behind me, to my left and right, get shot and die. I saw tonnes of blood running down the sidewalk in the new day’s sun. And I felt like I was going to vomit and pass out. I lay down on the grass, frozen. I think it qualified as a nervous breakdown. And everything changed after that day.” Devo founder Gerald Casale is looking back on 4 May 1970. Then a student protester, he was demonstrating against Richard Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia when national guardsmen opened fire on their peace rally. Four students were killed and nine more injured in the Kent State University shootings in Ohio. Casale knew two of the victims, Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause.…

LOST MAP AT 10 How our label is redrawing the musical map For the last decade I’ve helped to run isle of Eigg-based Scottish independent record label Lost Map, and been part of the exponentially growing creative collective and community which has sprung up around it. I was there at the label’s beginning, back in August 2013, when it was formed suddenly out of the unhappy ending of another label. We’re somehow still here now, as Lost Map celebrates 10 years spanning countless releases and events. Including our (roughly) biennial Eigg festival Howlin’ Fling, the latest instalment of which took place earlier this month in a life-affirming delirium of electronic beats, ceilidh dancing, sweat, tears, beers, sheep dung and hugs. I hope we’re still here in another 10 years. Not…

Norma B sells The Contributor street paper in Nashville, Tennessee. She’s concerned about the changing media landscape in the US, and what she has to say chimes with what’s going on in the UK – and why it’s vital to support your local vendor. NORMA B sells The Contributor in Nashville, Tennessee I recently saw a news report that stated over 70 million, or 25%, of people in the United States, now live in what is referred to as a “news desert”, meaning they no longer have a local newspaper or any credible news coverage of their community. According to a recent study conducted by Northwestern University, we are losing approximately two local newspapers a week in the US. To give some perspective on this, since 2019, 360 newspapers have…

Big Issue Employment Reporter Last week BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Helen Skelton announced on air that she’d broadcast her final show “for now” to spend more time with her children, reflecting, “I’m not all right about it but you know, needs must. The juggle is real.” The TV and radio broadcaster – who has publicly spoken about lone parenting – added, “I don’t want to, but an eight-year-old will be happy about it.” It’s a dilemma that single parents everywhere are feeling and one that is felt harder by jobhunters. Work full-time and still struggle to pay for childcare, or decline full-time work to look after your children and risk losing your benefits. Sandrine Mpongo is a London-based 38-year-old lone mother to two sons, the youngest is four. She…

He said his name was Simon. His eyes were deep green. His straw-blond hair was wild, covering his youthful but troubled face. He was tall and smiled at me after catching the attention of one passerby. And I gave him 20 Swiss francs in Bern station as I went for the train to Geneva. He wore a long, rough coat on a hot day and no shoes on his unclean feet. When I gave him the money he laughed and from his pocket took an unused bar of soap and a single cuff link. As I gifted him the francs he gifted me something in return. Now, for those few moments, he was joyous. We shook hands before he left. I turned and watched him go. What was extraordinary to…

A 2021 study by the University of Nottingham and Dog’s Trust linked pet ownership among homeless people with benefits including companionship, increased motivation and physical activity, and reduced suicidal thoughts and substance abuse. Up to 25% of the UK’s 300,000 classified as homeless have a pet. But if someone turns down social housing due to no pet clauses, they are deemed “intentionally homeless” by most local authorities and are refused housing aid. Along with the John Chadwick Pet Policy (see page 25), “Jasmine’s Law” – a bid to drop discriminatory no-pet clauses – has been tabled in the House of Commons. To underline the positive effects of dog ownership, the Centre for Homelessness Impact has released a photo series (below) of people experiencing homelessness with their dogs.…

When I was 16 I was quite a formidable character. I was a tomboy. I was into cars and engines. Anything my dad and my brothers were doing I was doing too. Everybody in my family drove so I wanted to be a driver. I was just into everything at 16, nothing fazed me. But I also always had FOMO, that fear of missing out. Growing up with four brothers I knew from a very early age that if I wanted to be heard, not only did I have to have a loud voice, I needed to make sense. Because if I didn’t, my brothers would laugh at me. I had to formulate my arguments before I made them, I had to dot the i’s and cross the t’s and…

REVIEW Dive into a clammy, cathartic scuba thriller Wet wet wet: cinema in 2023 seem to have water on the brain, from Disney’s rather soggy remake of The Little Mermaid to silly shark chomp-fest Meg 2: The Trench. The heightened hoopla of Barbie made “beach” an entire aesthetic while Pixar’s Elemental took things even further by featuring water as one of its two leads (amusingly, his name was “Wade”). It’s not even over yet: those gimmicky 4DX seats that jerk around on hydraulics and spray misted water at you will be pushed to the limit by upcoming sub-aquatic superhero sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom It all feels like some sort of trickle-down effect from Avatar: The Way of Water, that luxurious undersea adventure that made the sun-drenched, gorgeously blue…

I have not been on a bus, train or in a taxi for 14 days. Every day, I notch up six or seven miles criss-crossing Edinburgh. When I board the train at the end of August, I may have the paranoia of a Victorian gentlemen who believes he might be vaporised should the train exceed 30 miles per hour. With our infrastructure crumbling, there is a high percentage chance we may not reach that speed. I have never enjoyed my experience at the Edinburgh Fringe so much, mainly because it is the first I have done since my mind was diagnosed [with ADHD] and I have the measure of myself. I am brimful of love and excitement. I find no need to hang around performers’ bars or those who glitter,…