Innholdsfortegnelse for 1/15/2024 i The Big Issue

The Tory government not only promised us an end to rough sleeping by 2024, they vowed to scrap the Vagrancy Act and to bring in protections for renters that would end no-fault evictions. So, at the end of their current term in government, what is their record on tackling homelessness? There were 4,266 people estimated to be sleeping rough on any single night in England in autumn 2019. At the end of 2023 the figure stands at an estimate of 2,893 people. While not on course to fulfil their promise to end rough sleeping, this seems like progress. Sadly, it is not. Although rough sleeping figures did go down at the beginning of this government’s term, they have been quickly rising again. And rough sleeping is only part of the…

Caroline remembers screaming. It was like an electric shock which went from her neck to her toes. It was like being tasered in her most intimate area. She could not move because she was scared. She called out to the doctor to stop. “I can’t believe what happened to me was done in an NHS hospital,” Caroline, 56, says. “I feel that if they were wearing black balaclavas it would have suited what I experienced more. I felt like I was subjected to a very violent assault. That is the trauma that I’m dealing with now.” Caroline is one of thousands of women who have faced excruciating pain when undergoing a hysteroscopy, a medical procedure used to examine inside the womb, where biopsies may be taken. It is used to…

CLIMATE CHANGE In the sweltering heat of July 2022, NHS staff scrambled to find a hose tap. Modern hospitals run on data, and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is no different. But as temperatures reached unprecedented highs, the trust’s server rooms were on the brink of buckling. Ageing, poorly positioned air conditioning units couldn’t cope with the heat. Staff planned to hose down the data centre’s cooling units, but they couldn’t find connectors and water supplies. The servers failed. Staff switched to pencils and notepads, bringing stress and chaos. With data unavailable, appointments were delayed: one patient had to defer their organ transplant. The outage cost the trust £1.4 million, and it took six weeks to fully restore access. The trust wasn’t the only one to face heat-related…

At a time when we are constantly living through unprecedented times, we have for better or worse begun to accept the unprecedented precedent. The constant churn of grind culture invites us to be distracted by our day to day, ignoring the bigger picture. This is something we have in common with the two narrators of Ali Millar’s Ava Anna Ada. The debut novel begins after a mysterious Earth-shaking event, and the fringes of its setting are littered with The Watchers, who have dedicated their lives to waiting for the next natural disaster. But Ava and Anna are more concerned with their own miserable lives. Through the neurotic stream of consciousness that flits from Ava to Anna and back again we learn of their vulnerability and a shared loss that informs…

She may only be the height of five apples, but Hello Kitty bestrides the world. As she celebrates her 50th birthday this year, Sanrio’s little white cat has gone far beyond her humble origins adorning a children’s coin purse to collaborate with the world’s coolest brands and designers, inspire cutting-edge artists and reveal the complex power of cuteness – for good and ill. You can fly in a Hello Kitty plane, drive a Louis Vuitton Hello Kitty Mini, play a Hello Kitty telecaster guitar or wear Hello Kitty Dr Martens. You can even toast Hello Kitty with her own branded wine. Kitty’s origins go back to Tokyo in the mid-’70s. Shintaro Tsuji, a former civil servant, had formed Sanrio Company Ltd with the motto ‘Small Gift, Big Smile’ and the…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue Nuclear reaction Your ‘Our energy future?’ feature [Issue 1596, 28 December] hinted at the many questions posed by this policy, and the picture itself illustrated the extent of the resources being expended. Europe’s largest building site is also a source of the vast carbon emissions associated with such a major construction site. Given that the nuclear fuel cycle also has substantial associated carbon emissions, how long will it take for the generated power to make up for these emissions? The significant drawbacks that you mention include the fact that the UK has no indigenous uranium fuel reserves, that the eventual decommissioning of a reactor is also carbon intensive and that the…

Dr Amanda C de C Williams  Professor of Clinical Health Psychology University College London If we were to take 100 doctors and nurses and ask them to assess a patient’s pain, we can be fairly sure that a man’s pain would be estimated as higher than a woman’s. Women’s pain is routinely discounted, because of the belief that women exaggerate, or imagine, or make more fuss about their pain than men do. This is the case whether the doctor or nurse is male or female – and it is seen much more widely in Western culture. Medical diagnosis and treatment likes certainty, and what the patient says is usually a starting point for examinations and tests. But pain is tricky. It is one of the commonest reasons to go to…

By the age of 16, I had performed more than 500 shows andHow Do I Live had been a huge hit. I was exhausted in a whirlwind of success. I’d started on stage when I was five, so by the time I signed my record deal at 11, it was already something I’d been working towards for years. I don’t think I realised how odd my childhood was until my stepsons came into my life when they were two and six. When the oldest turned 11, it finally hit me. My parents divorced when I was 14, and by 16 I was in a lawsuit with my dad and my record label. I was very gutsy. I wanted my freedom. So much of my life to that point had been…

It’s Sunday 27 May 1980, and I am sitting in a field in England. The field is a long way from home. It belongs to a preparatory school in Sussex. I don’t come from money: single-parent family, child benefits, no car, no phone, perpetually skint. But my mum went through teacher training and, unable to find a job in south Wales, applied for a post in a boarding school in England, the deal being that I went with her and got educated for free. The experience scarred me for life. The draconian sadism of daily existence gave me an insight into what makes the British upper classes the way they are; brought up in schools that normalise casual cruelty so they have no compunction about inflicting it on the rest…

I am something terrifying to behold. Something that creates hastened heartbeats and a fight or flight response. I am the human thing that says hello when they enter shops and smiles at strangers. I am the monster that takes a gentle hammer to contemporary solipsism. You’re probably one of those people too. After all, there is a high probability that you are someone who had a conversation with your Big Issue seller this morning. You might have curtailed the conversation because you were worried about getting in the way of more sales or you were on your way to a meeting. Or you saw the seller had a story or thought that has just been waiting for someone with a little time and an open ear. It may sound childish,…

Perhaps the secret will be Toby Jones. When there is injustice and inequity and corporate cover-up on a massive scale, or rather a need to show how vested interests circle the wagons and see the little man as collateral damage, it’ll be Toby Jones time. It is certain that Mr Bates vs The Post Office, the ITV drama starring Jones about the cruel, shameful destruction of lives and prosecution of hundreds of sub-post masters and mistresses due to a faulty IT system, has changed government policy. Rishi Sunak would not have stood in the Commons declaring a change in the law and a new compensation package for those innocent people whose lives were ruined without the show and the subsequent public fury. It is worth repeating the numbers. Between 2000…

Peter Capaldi is looking as sharp as ever. Great shirt, even better shoes. “It’s all my stylist’s work,” he deadpans. We are in Claridge’s in Central London. A very expensive hotel suite, full of very expensive camera equipment recording our every move. “This is just the team we roll with,” Capaldi adds with a grin. “I’ve usually got some dry ice as well.” We are here to talk about Criminal Record, which could just be your new TV police drama obsession. Capaldi stars alongside Cush Jumbo in a classy thriller in which two detectives go head-to-head – one in fearless pursuit of justice, the other to try to save their reputation and career. The title may be horribly generic, but this is a special show. And both actors have been…

Of the five or six movies Nicolas Cage made last year, only one role seemed to genuinely challenge him. In the spiky modern satire Dream Scenario, he played a paunchy, balding professor whose lofty estimation of his own intelligence was only matched by some equally towering emotional insecurities. It is an intriguing film, and Cage consciously tamped down his volcanic acting style to match his drab academic outfits. But I can’t have been the only one watching who was thinking: man, Paul Giamatti would have absolutely nailed this part. Ever since the merlot-mocking Sideways in 2004, Giamatti has been the go-to guy for egotistical but self-sabotaging middle-aged messes. So it is pleasing that in the new retro dramedy The Holdovers – which reunites him with Sideways director Alexander Payne –…

When times are tough and hope has faded, sometimes there’s only one thing left for a musician to do: break out the kid’s choir. “It’s the most joyous sound you can hear,” says Bill Ryder-Jones. “The sheer joy of kids shouting their heads off, not even caring about being in tune.” The Merseyside singer-songwriter, composer and producer’s new album Iechyd Da (Welsh for “cheers”) is a magical mystery tour of raw human emotion five years in the making. It was written during the pandemic, a period that was “incredibly triggering and really hard” for the former guitarist with The Coral, who struggles with mental health issues stemming from acute childhood trauma. Something that Ryder-Jones recalls noticing during lockdown, on walks to his studio from his home in the Wirral town…

JACK OSBORNERICHARDSON, 46 I’ve got some crows and pigeons that tend to follow me around when I’m on my pitch. Now the pigeons are so brave they will sit on my shoulder and peck me in the ear if they’re not getting fed fast enough. It’s really lovely because I can put some food on a customer’s hand and the pigeon will jump across and stay there. It’s something that gets the kids interested and customers engaged. There’s a peregrine that hunts near my pitch too – probably hunting my pigeons actually – they’re amazing animals. There’s a lot more wildlife in the city than you realise. I like to sit in Berkeley Square just up from my pitch in the morning before I come to work. It’s really good…