Table of contents for 11/4/2024 in The Big Issue

In 1990, the UK reconnected to mainland Europe for the first time since the Ice Age. At a ceremonial meeting on 1 December, 75 metres beneath the sea, Channel Tunnel construction workers who’d started at either side and met in the middle swapped gifts that defined their homeland. The French turned up with Champagne, of course; the British handed over a Paddington soft toy. But it is only with the release of Paddington in Peru that this mascot of Britain is officially British. He even received a genuine passport from the Home Office (much more on Paddington from p20). In some ways, his journey to citizenship was a long one; Paddington was first introduced in Michael Bond’s books in 1958 after all, but in others it was a bit too…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue RE: EDITOR’S LETTER, ‘BOLD ACTION IS VITAL FOR THE NATION’S HEALTH’ [Issue 1638, 21-27 October] • I thought I was seeing things when I read the government’s latest idea to send job coaches into psychiatric wards; well it was late at night. Have they forgotten how many lives have already been lost to benefit sanctions? This is a ridiculous idea, and the last thing that anyone will need when they are recovering, from what has probably been brought on by a lack of mental health care in the community, and long waiting times. The threat of benefit sanctions, they should try living on it, and see if any of them could…

At the age of 16, I was working in a print factory in Pollokshaws in Glasgow, and I was attending the Glasgow College of Building and Printing. There were lots of record stores that stocked punk music, and I’d just got into that, buying records by bands like The Stranglers, The Clash, Sex Pistols, Ramones. Luckily, the Glasgow Apollo wasn’t that far away from the college. So I bought the music paper Sounds every week and I would see the tour dates, and then at lunchtime I’d go to the Apollo and buy the tickets to see Dr Feelgood or Richard Hell or whoever. That was my life. I never really learnt anything at school. I just think the way the educational system was set up in the ’70s wasn’t…

If you’re feeling disillusioned about democracy, you’re not alone. We are suffering from an unusual malady: democratic fatigue syndrome. But unlike many illnesses, this one isn’t so hard to explain. The past two decades have seen plummeting trust in democratic institutions and political parties on a global scale. It’s not surprising: they’ve been doing a poor job at delivering the basics, from secure employment and affordable housing to keeping food and energy prices in check. The result is millions of people turning to support anti-system leaders on the far-right, from Trump to Farage to a swathe of European populists who are now starting to win elections. Today only 34 out of 179 countries in the world can be classified as ‘liberal democracies’ – the lowest number for 30 years. When…

I’ve been trying to read Tackle, Jilly Cooper’s latest novel/bedside-table coaster for months now, and it’s proving to be arduous. Having never read any of her books, I’m confused as to why everyone loves her. It’s set in the fictional county of Rutshire, and if you haven’t figured it out by now, that’s a saucy pun. In fact, it’s packed to the gunnels with painful innuendo and elaborate exposition, breathless descriptions of horses, Labradors and desirable Cotswolds properties, and characters with appalling “foreign” accents that should never have made it past the edit. At the centre of it all is her priapic hero Rupert Campbell-Black, who has now stopped shagging around and owns a football team. (The less said about Dame Jilly’s long explanations of the transfer window, the better.)…

FUNERAL POVERTY ‘The council wouldn’t give my dad’s ashes back’: Mourners locked out of loved ones’ funerals by soaring costs and bureaucratic brick walls Sam was just 11 when his father Daniel died from brain cancer. His mother had already died of cancer years before, and Sam wanted to scatter his father’s ashes on her grave. But Daniel died in poverty, with very few assets or relations. In cases like this – when no one is planning a service, or when family can’t afford the costs – councils have a statutory duty to carry out a funeral. When Matthew, a family friend, tried to arrange a funeral for Daniel on Sam’s behalf, he encountered stiff resistance. The council told Matthew they could cremate Daniel – but they wouldn’t be able…

Outside In, the award-winning charity that provides a platform for artists encountering significant barriers to the art world, has announced a callout for submissions to its next National Open exhibition. Themed ‘Shelter’, the exhibition will run at Christie’s, London and The New Art Gallery, Walsall between June 2025 and January 2026. Artists who fit Outside In’s criteria of encountering significant barriers to the art world due to health, disability, social circumstance or isolation, and whose work reflects the chosen theme, can submit work for consideration by signing up to create a free online gallery on the Outside In website (link below). Submissions are welcomed from artists at all career stages, at any level and in any medium including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, digital art, video, audio art, printmaking, textiles and…

Almost 25 years after its release, Gladiator still casts a beefy shadow. Ridley Scott’s sweeping Roman chop-em-up was nominated for 12 Oscars and won five, including Best Picture and Best Actor. It elevated Russell Crowe to the Hollywood A-list and reframed the strapping New Zealand-born actor as an object of desire for both women and men. It also made enough of a commercial impact that it single-handedly resuscitated the sword-and-sandal epic, a genre that had been gathering dust for decades. In 2000, a time when the world was obsessed with looking ahead to a new millennium, making an unashamedly old-fashioned movie seemed out of step with the dotcom zeitgeist. Before it came out, Gladiator looked most likely to be remembered as Oliver Reed’s last film when the veteran hellraiser died…

JAMES BREWER, 59 It’s Remembrance Day this week and I will be donating all of my Big Issue sales to (the armed forces charity) SSAFA and the RAF Benevolent Fund. I’m an ex-serviceman. I served in the RAF and my brother was in a regiment alongside myself. The reason I’m raising money is my brother passed away about five years ago. Unfortunately, his mental health gave way. He got help from them and I have had lots too. It’s just a way of paying a little bit back because, at the end of the day, they helped us both. It’s a way of saying thank you because they helped us through some really hard times. The RAF Benevolent Fund has given me grants and stuff to help me through quite…

“It was an abnormal, unhealthy way of living, and I wasn’t willing to subject my children to it.” Hayley Blanks remains defiant about her decision to break the rules at her temporary accommodation, even though it led to the family’s eviction. She argues that a blanket visitor ban placed on her family – which barred any relatives and friends from visiting her children at the flat in Bexhill-on-Sea – was cruel and would harm their wellbeing. And facing the prospect of up to three years stuck in temporary housing, Hayley decided it was a risk worth taking. “If it was genuinely temporary, I could understand and reluctantly go along with it,” she told Big Issue. “But they were talking about years of living like this. That’s my 14-year-old daughter’s childhood…

Let’s take Boris Johnson. I cannot imagine Boris Johnson pulling out a knife and sticking it into someone. I can imagine him doing other bestial things but not that. But why not him, or say David Cameron, or the chairman of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden? We know that it is human beings who are sticking knives in other human beings, so why not any of these people? What stops the two former prime ministers of the UK from sticking knives in other human beings? We know from our observations that they have two legs, a head, arms and all of the features of most human beings. Yet they do not stick knives into human beings. So what prevents them from so doing? ‘Prevent’ is the key word here.…

BIG ISSUE CHRISTMAS WRAPPING PAPER 2024 Every Christmas, British people purchase hundreds of thousands of miles of wrapping paper. But why settle for snowflakes, bunches of holly and smiling Santas when you could wrap your gifts while fighting poverty too? It’s become a festive tradition for the Big Issue to team up with some of the country’s best contemporary artists to create exclusive, collectable Christmas art wrapping paper. This year’s collection goes on sale this week. There’s a stellar line-up of artists including Dave Buonaguidi, The Cameron Twins, Bunmi Agusto, Hello Marine, Graphic Rewilding, Rebecca Strickson, Harry Hill, better known for his comedy than his art (so far), and Opake, whose lived experience of addiction and rough sleeping inspired many of his surrealist pop-art graffiti-style works. The wrapping paper will…

REVIEWS Sorry state of affairs There are many iterations of the obsessive female lover, from bunny boilers to those left hanging on the telephone. Whether this reflection on a love affair becomes a trite tribute or a poetic tragedy depends entirely on the artist. It takes two to tango but one to become obsessive. Ida is on the cusp of a divorce when she meets the married Arnold, fellow academic and notorious philanderer, If Only follows this affair from beginning to end. Much like Annie Ernaux’s Simple Passion, Vigdis Hjorth’s If Only reads like a confessional, but while Ernaux contains a modicum of restraint, Hjorth’s novel is a purging of a volatile affair. Her prose leaves very little room to breathe, there are no chapter breaks or pauses, leaving every…

INTERVIEWKate McKinnon Willy, Kate McKinnon explains, is an exceptionally funny name for a pet iguana. “It’s a funny name, because iguanas do have two penises. I denied him that, he was Willy, singular,” she tells Big Issue. “We eventually sent him away to a reptile rescue organisation in Boca Raton, Florida, which is where people from New York retire to. So, it was fitting.” In an office near London Bridge, the former Saturday Night Live star is listing her childhood pets. No fluffy dog for McKinnon, who doted on insects, lizards and fish – “everything you can imagine” – including a tank of hissing Madagascar cockroaches. Unnamed, because “one roach starts to look the same as all the other roaches”. “I never had a bird though,” she adds, wistfully. I…