Innholdsfortegnelse for 11/20/2023 i The Big Issue

It’s never absolutely clear when it’s Black Friday because we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Which is a shame. Had we in Britain and Ireland followed the Pilgrims’ tradition and had a kick-off to the holiday season IN NOVEMBER, with loads of food and basic plotlines for knockabout American comedies, it’d be straightforward. Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November. Which means Black Friday is the following day. The US founding fathers wanted to make sure there were deals offering 20% off small electrical items. It’s part of the American constitution. Black Friday deals would be of some use to the Westminster government right now. Such is the turnover of senior ministers, and such is the thin bench they can now call on, that you suspect they’d benefit from checking to see…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue Rainbow’s end I recently experienced a moment that can only be described as a poignant juxtaposition of hope and despair. In the aftermath of a storm, I photographed a rainbow – a universal symbol of hope and serenity. Its end appeared to cradle a tent sheltering a rough sleeper, a stark reminder of the grim reality faced by many. This image symbolises my firm opposition to the proposition by the former home secretary, to restrict tent use by the homeless. It risks penalising the vulnerable for their plight, essentially criminalising the very act of seeking shelter. In a time when private rents soar, evictions increase and the cost of living crisis…

CLASSICAL The soundtrack to our inner lives that can’t be switched off Earworms are curious creatures. They arrive unannounced and bury into the soil of your brain, sometimes dormant for months – or years – only to emerge without warning, wriggling their melodies. These replays can happen at the most inconvenient times: when we’re trying to concentrate on work, to remember something, or during a serious moment of reflection. The process is beautifully depicted in Disney’s 2015 film Inside Out, where the musical snippet from a chewing gum commercial is preserved among the memory balls: “Sometimes we send that up to headquarters for no reason and it plays in Riley’s head all day,” laughs one of the engineers as he adds the memory to the chute, much to the annoyance…

ROUGH SLEEPERS Rough sleepers left ‘scared and disgusted’ after their tents were destroyed near a hospital – but there’s hope amid the rage The frontline workers behind a viral video showing rough sleepers’ tents being destroyed in London have accused officials of “dropping the ball legally, morally and publicly”. Grassroots outreach group Streets Kitchen’s video of tents being destroyed near the gates to University College London Hospital (UCLH) in Camden, went viral on 10 November. The footage, which came just days after ex-home secretary Suella Braverman’s attempt to clamp down on charities supporting rough sleepers with tents, was shared more than 8,000 times on X. Big Issue’s coverage of the incident was viewed more than 1.5 million times on TikTok, our biggest ever story on the platform. It also saw…

“I can’t eat because there is nothing to eat,” Jason says as he waits for his food parcel to be packaged up on his first visit to a food bank. It is dangerous for anyone to go hungry like he has in recent weeks, but it is especially worrying for a person with diabetes. “My daughter saw I wasn’t in the best of health and suggested this place,” he says, gesturing to the bustle of the church hall in South London where Earlsfield Foodbank is based. “This is a godsend because, worst case, we can eat. The last few weeks have been a nightmare.” As the cold weather bites and energy bills soar, increasing numbers will be forced to turn to a food bank. It is expected to be the…

REVIEWS Finding a poetic voice from a life of pain How To Say Babylon: A Jamaican Memoir by Safiya Sinclair is a truly wonderful and compelling account of growing up as the eldest daughter in a strict Rasta family. Shining a light on the history of the much-persecuted Rastafari movement, Sinclair lyrically charts the experiences of her parents, attempting to survive their own troubled childhoods and forge their own lives as adults. In a country whose promised vision of paradise was often only afforded to the plutocrats and tourists who continue to colonise its shores, Sinclair’s parents sought to create a private haven away from the horrors of Babylon. Attempting to stave off the corruption of colonial harm and Western immorality, Sinclair’s musician father instilled in his children a pride…

CULTUREINTERVIEWAnna Torv When The Newsreader first aired in 2021, it immediately connected with audiences. The Australian drama, set in a TV newsroom in the mid-’80s, centred on beautiful performances from Anna Torv as pioneering news anchor Helen Norville and Interview With The Vampire star Sam Reid as ambitious up-and-coming reporter Dale Jennings. Add in the perfect period detail – suddenly the ’80s looks ancient, how did this happen? – and you have yourself a hit show. But what really elevates The Newsreader is the way it uses the real-life big stories of the day – the Space Shuttle disaster, Aids, Chernobyl and the emerging realisation that a dingo, not her mother Lindy, was responsible for the death of Azaria Chamberlain – to explore journalistic ethics and news values in changing…

OUR MATERIAL WORLD Does Black Friday have ancient evolutionary roots? This time of year becomes a shopping paradise – and a shopping hell. The arrival of novel products with amazingly good deals amid the gift-giving holidays leads many people to ecstatic levels of consumption. End-of-year shopping also leads to packed stores, crazy car parks and sometimes even riots. Shopping is a modern phenomenon. But as an anthropologist who has studied humanity’s tangled relationship with stuff, I see the deeper impulses behind the desire to possess things having very ancient evolutionary roots. Here’s how. Humans and tools evolved together About 3.4 million years ago, our ancient ancestors belonging to the species Australopithecus afarensis invented stone tools. This began a complex feedback loop between culture and biology. Successful social behaviours drove, shaped…

A tremendous amount of energy goes into trying to get food into the mouths of the poorest. I witnessed it last week when the King launched his Coronation Food Project at a South Oxford programme called SOFEA, which has grown out of its Oxford beginnings to other parts of the Home Counties. There gathered to meet the King were dozens of volunteers, users of the services, supermarket chiefs and food providers. All wishing to stem the colossal waste which has befallen food production and distribution. To streamline and promote efficiency to ensure that what is made and what is edible is eaten; and eaten in sufficient amounts by those that are unable to afford food. So food waste will, hopefully, become a thing of the past, spurred on by the…

I have been on holiday to a cursed hotel. There was nothing particularly wrong with it – it was clean, stylish, spacious and well-appointed, and the food was good. I know I was lucky to be there at all, in fact, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. I scoured the place for ominous signs. There was a chilly, dark cloud lurking above it most of the time, even when the town on the coastline below remained sunny. The address of the hotel was number 13. At breakfast one day, a plum on the table moved on its own. A black cat with half a tail, who we christened Alan, slinked around the front door, as did a random cockerel that came into the lobby on…

LACRAMOIRA LAZAR, 50 My name is Lacramoira but those close to me call me Maria. I came to England in 2014 to work and have a better life. I worked in an ice cream factory, sausage factory and other factories on an industrial site in Darlington which meant I could look after my family and send money home to Romania. But after a while, there was no more work for me on the industrial site because it wasn’t busy any more. My husband had a heart attack and could not work anywhere and I needed to get him money for his medication, check-ups and special diet. In Romania, you have to pay for medical services if you don’t have a job. I found out about The Big Issue from a…