Innholdsfortegnelse for 10/16/2023 i The Big Issue

Been warm, hasn’t it. Bit mild. Sunny for October. Sure you don’t know what to wear! It’s been so unseasonal that supermarkets have seen sluggish sales for early Christmas fare. Analysts Kantar report that puddings and seasonal biscuits have not been doing the business. It was still time for burgers and dips. (That said, I can identify one keen Big Issue staffer who proudly had a chocolate Santa last week.) Although we are still in the ‘shoppers fume at Christmas stock on shelves’ headline window, the clock is ticking. It is getting to that time when everything is anchored to Christmas. And so much of livelihoods, particularly in retail, in hospitality and in sofa manufacturing is built around the Christmas boost. We’re just a month from the start of Big…

ANALYSIS Capturing their glory years on film made sense for Talking Heads I recently had the glorious and surreal pleasure of re-watching the greatest concert movie ever in an IMAX cinema, newly restored in eye-popping 4K for its 40th anniversary. I’ve seen Talking Heads’ 1984 classic Stop Making Sense umpteen times. But I couldn’t help but grin, thinking about the contrast between my first formative experiences with the film – in a scuzzy student flat where my friends and I would watch it religiously on DVD on a wonky TV set amid a mess of beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays – and watching it now. On a 354-square-metre ultra-high-resolution screen with surround sound and laser-aligned audio placement, nestled comfortably in a deluxe seat, sipping an XL coke. Beads of sweat…

OUR VENDORS Readers’ act of kindness for Bournemouth vendor who met Prince William. It’s been quite the month for Big Issue’s Karl Burns Bournemouth town square vendor Karl Burns went from his pitch to meeting Prince William alongside Paul Gascoigne last month (on 7 September), earning himself a spot on the cover of the magazine. The chance encounter saw the future king buy a magazine from Karl – and even buy him lunch, too. After the whirlwind visit, which Karl described as “a blessing”, he featured as the My Pitch interview later in September detailing his remarkable story and how The Big Issue helped him out of homelessness – and it touched the hearts of readers. Karl explained how he had been savagely attacked in 2019, leaving him with serious…

It was a bit like the very early days for me when I got off the train at Lime Street in the centre of Liverpool last week. In the old days, in the early 1970s, I would be traipsing around to shops selling posters that I had produced, trying to make a living while avoiding the police who wanted me to help them with their enquiries. That was always the euphemism for being chased by coppers for wrongdoings. But my visit to Liverpool this time was not to sell product but to give product away – my mini manifesto to Labour delegates at their party conference. I had arranged my travel so that I would arrive with at least two hours to spend at the wonderful Walker Art Gallery, a…

REVIEWS Taut detective noir with a twist What a thing of joy is a new Francis Spufford novel. Golden Hill, his debut, was a transporting piece of historical fiction that captured life in early New York in all its quirk and contingence, and deservedly won a bag of awards. His second, Light Perpetual, hit the Booker longlist and was a rich, affecting piece of alternative history that traced the lives five children might have had, had they not been killed by a Nazi V2 rocket in 1944. Spufford has a gloriously picaresque imagination, with the talent to capture its brightest effusions, but also the leavening of a deep moral core. Add to this an intellectual restlessness that ensures each book is a leap into new territory, like a teenage boy…

CULTURE NTERVIEW Sarah Lucas Sarah Lucas’s new career-spanning show at Tate Britain confirms the former YBA as one of the Great British Artists of our time. Happy Gas sees Lucas command every inch of the gallery space at Tate Britain, serving up her brand of sex, cigs and class and gender politics with wit and skill. Lucas knows how to make an impact. She always has. The artist rose to prominence alongside Goldsmiths College pals Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Gillian Wearing and Sam Taylor-Wood plus comrades Tracey Emin, Jenny Saville and Gavin Turk. Early group shows Freeze (1988) and East Country Yard Show (1990) introduced the YBAs as a new wave of youthful artists happy to embrace notoriety and commercialism and occupy non-art spaces. Lucas’s work has remained compelling,…

Developers are still buying up huge swathes of Britain cheaply with no intention of building on it anytime soon. The latest analysis of the company reports of the eight leading housebuilders has found that the land they hold has soared to 918,823 plots – the number of homes a builder expects a piece of land to yield, whether houses or flats – an increase of 43% on 2018. Taylor Wimpey has the biggest bank with 223,745 plots, a rise of 16.5% on 2018 and enough to last 16 years at the rate it builds. Barratt and Persimmon have both increased their land holdings by 71% to 172,174 and 168,461 plots respectively. And Bellway is no slouch: it now has 100,367 plots, a 161% increase on 2018. On average, the eight…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue Much missed I was in Perth today and was saddened to hear Rab (Perth High St) the Big Issue seller has passed. I am originally from Glasgow but have lived here for over 20 years and known Rab to be on Perth High Street for many of them, come rain, wind or shine. Rab was an exemplary model for the Big Issue! Rona MacPherson Conversation starter Norfolk County Education Service are to be commended on their ‘English Conversation’ sessions at local libraries (since before Covid). Free one hour drop-in sessions twice a week. J Wheatley Beyond caring Paul McNamee’s otherwise excellent article on the doctors’ strikes [Issue 1582, 25…

At 16 my main passions were music, girls, football, fashion and family – in that order. By then, I’d played my sound system outside my house on the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. So that was already on my radar. I was having 20,000 ideas a day. My imagination was running wild, I can’t emphasise this enough. I’m really impressed with my younger self ’s imagination. I was taking inspiration from all around me. My heroes were Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, James Brown was a massive idol, Dennis Brown, Bob Marley, King Jammy, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry… and my sociology teacher Mr Gordon. Even the guys in the local scrapyard, I used to think their lives looked amazing. Maybe they inspired my hoarding career. But I came up at the time…

Both my kids started new chapters in their education last month. I was, as always, more nervous than they were when they set off on the first day. But it all went well, they came back with plenty of tales to tell and big smiles on their faces. ‘What the hell was I worrying about?’ I asked myself. Six weeks have passed since then. The early novelty has resided and the adrenaline has started to run dry. Where once there was optimism and excitement, now there is anxiety, stress and tears. Starting a new school can be brutal. Especially for the parents. They say you’re only ever as happy as your unhappiest child. It’s true that no matter how well things are going, it’s hard to take pleasure from life…

So much of my life has been shaped by going to gigs in small venues. I wouldn’t be the person I am had I not been lucky enough to find a little venue in Harlow, where I went to college. I tipped up – a kid from the sticks, don’t really know anybody, don’t really know much about life. I walked into the Harlow Square to see a gig and I found this whole community of like-minded people. I learned so much in the bar of the Square about politics and literature and art. I want other people to have that chance to have their life enriched not just by the power of the live gig, but also by finding themselves in a new friendly group of people. Honestly, The…

REBECA STAN, 19 I started selling The Big Issue three months before my daughter Izabela was born. I wanted to make a bit more money to help once she arrived. It was very hard because I had to stand all day, but lots of people were kind to me. There was Greggs by my old pitch and people would buy me sandwiches and cakes from there all the time, I ate so much food from Greggs! One lady bought me clothes for Izabela before she was even born. Another lady gave me her number and sometimes we chat. I send her pictures of Izabela. She always buys the magazine and buys me a treat. Some vendors are loud and shout ‘Come buy The Big Issue!’ but I wait for my…