Table of contents for 12/9/2024 in The Big Issue

Christmas threw up something interesting that we had realised only after we launched The Big Issue. It was the idea that homeless people didn’t just need a home. That, as we called it, “homelessness was the tip of the social iceberg”. It was the presenting problem. It’s what you saw, but it hid a myriad of problems that often started when people who later fell homeless were born. That they inherited poverty and were coming from behind before they even began the human race. It was interesting finding ourselves in competition against other homeless bodies that kept going on about more hostels, more beds and more rooms for the people caught in homelessness. And us saying that if you don’t sort out the ridiculous situation of housing people but not…

“This animal changes its colour to blend in with the snow and frost, but is pictured here in total vibrancy,” writes longtime regular Big Issue Street Art contributor Sheehy about his latest artwork, inspired by the mountain hare. “They are tactile, brave and intelligent, stopping dead to hide themselves when faced with predators. This hare has gotten away, exploring new scopes of its environment and navigating escaped territory. He is fearless, he is alone.” Sheehy first discovered his natural ability and enjoyment of painting in 1999, aged 50, as encouraged by Big Issue. He has gone on to be exhibited at prestigious galleries in the UK and abroad including Somerset House, The British Museum and The Royal Academy. ← BUY ME You can buy a print of this and other…

Don’t be fooled by all the tweeness: pumping out thrifty Christmas romance films is big business. Watching something cheap but cheerful has become a snowballing festive tradition, and for the production companies exporting them around the world it doesn’t really matter if audiences are enjoying the movies ironically or not. In this cheesy but competitive subgenre, it looks like Netflix has achieved the breakout hit of 2024 and all it took was a sexy snowman. Hot Frosty is a small-town love story centred around Cathy (Lacey Chabert from Mean Girls), a young widow who unintentionally brings a chiselled ice sculpture to life via an enchanted scarf. Compared to the roly-poly Raymond Briggs version, this snowman (played by Dustin Milligan from Schitt’s Creek) is a hunk. But despite his gym bunny…

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, ’tis the season to be falling for a streaming giant’s devious scheme to manipulate users into splashing all the data they’ve harvested off them in the past year across social media. Fa la la la la, etc etc. Sorry to be a downer, but there’s something I find really dispiriting about Spotify Wrapped, and the way it reduces our private listening habits to a game of performative fandom, while turning us all into a giant free advertising opportunity. Christmas should be a time for cosy jumpers, sleigh bells, Slade, and all agreeing how accidentally racist Band Aid was. Not blindly doing the bidding of pittance-per-stream paying Scrooge-y corporate misers. Did you ever see Tiny Tim Cratchit bragging about being in the top 0.05%…

MUSIC Schools are working overtime to bring joy to children living in poverty this Christmas Newly published data shows that 5.2 million children in the UK – 36% of the children in the country – are living in poverty. The government has announced a Child Poverty Taskforce to evaluate the scale of the problem, but no extra help is expected during December, leaving parents at a loss for how they will make Christmas holidays magical. Schools are at the forefront of the cost of living crisis, witnessing firsthand the impact of poverty on families. They might not be able to directly influence national policy, but they can alleviate hardship and give support to children and carers. “The impacts of child poverty can seem even more devastating during the holiday season,”…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue A big year Yesterday I was happy to unexpectedly encounter a vendor in Lancaster. It’s really nice to sometimes read a physical magazine instead of scrolling down the phone! Here are some memories I have of Big Issue in 2024: A big change in my life happened this year: I moved to the UK in October for my postgraduate research. Soon after moving, I had the chance to join The Big Debate, which happened in Newcastle. I remember my body shaking with positive energy from the panels and the audience, who were passionate about improving their local community. Another thing I remember is a conversation with a local gentleman who kindly…

The news has been so dispiriting in 2024 that at times it felt like we all needed to adopt the brace position before reading the headlines. It’s no surprise that, according to Reuters, 46% of people in the UK actively avoid the news, which can feel a bit like a factory for the mass production of gloominess. While we’re certainly living through disconcerting times, widespread news-avoidance is also the fault of the media ecosystem itself. It would be difficult to design a more psychologically jarring system than constantly bombarding people with fast-moving reports about upsetting topics over which they have no control, and in which they are always told the beginning of stories but almost never how they end. Not just that, but online news distribution, particularly through social media,…

For kids: 0-5 A Beginner’s Guide to Choosing the Perfect Pet by Ali Rutstein, illustrated by Tommy Doyle (Allen & Unwin, £7.99) This humourous book for little ones picks up on a popular issue among young families – can we get a pet? It has great fun turning logic on its head by writing off common pets like puppies, budgies and rabbits (whose quiet moments in their hutch are used for planning world domination) and suggesting instead hilarious jellyfish, hospitable anacondas and sweet-smelling rhinos and tigers, who love a good game of hide and seek in the trees. The illustrations are delightful and should help make this a favourite read for any animal-loving kid. How to Move a Zoo by Kate Simpson and Owen Swan (Allen & Unwin, £12.99) The…

FROM THOSE WHO’VE HAD A SIGNIFICANT 2024 Are you more or less hopeful than at the start of 2024? At the start of 2024 I didn’t know who I would come across on The Traitors or how people would perceive me. I didn’t know what was going to happen when I left the army, I thought I would be alone. It was a scary moment at the start of the year so I am definitely more hopeful. What’s your Big Issue for 2025? Ending homelessness, especially through the military. Being in the military for six years, seeing squaddies out on the street after serving their country, doesn’t make sense to me. Hopefully in the near future, I will be able to create a business to help the people who are…

PAMELA MILAC, 22 At the moment I like selling Big Issue because I have my son and I can go to my pitch later if my son needs me. It is not like I have to be there for a specific time. I get to be in charge of my own hours. I’ve been in Aberdeen around three or four years. It’s a very nice, welcoming city. I came to Big Issue when I lost my job and I was really struggling. I hadn’t found any other work. I used to work as a waitress. I did that for about a year. I enjoyed the job and it is something that I would like to do again in the future. Now, with the baby and breastfeeding, it’s very difficult because…

Nigel Farage is angry at left-wing milk. I know this reads like a discarded line from an old episode of The Thick of It, but the Farage fury is real. He made a social media video. He was in what he called a “smart hotel” in London. He wanted milk for coffee. He didn’t want semi-skimmed, or oat milk or almond milk – none of that for Nigel. What he wanted, he raged, was “proper bloody milk, not left-wing options”. Quite why he didn’t just ask, as he was in a hotel and they would have been in more of a position to help than people watching on video, only Angry Nigel can tell. Of course, he could just take his coffee black, as nature intended. Maybe that is pro-Europe…

FROM THOSE WHO’VE HAD A SIGNIFICANT 2024 What’s your biggest failure this year? In stressful times I focus very inwardly and bury myself in my job/sport. I spread myself too thin sometimes and end up not dealing with anything well! Sometimes you’ve just got to eat the frog! Are you more or less hopeful than at the start of 2024? From a personal point of view, more – I have got some exciting plans for next year so I am very positive. From a global point of view, I’m less sure. What is the oddest family Christmas tradition you keep? I wouldn’t call it odd but some might think so! My brother and I used to ride [bikes from Lewisham] to Battle, Sussex, on Christmas morning to see my grandparents.…

When I was 16 my main preoccupations were boys and music. Hands down. I think I had quite a big shift when I turned 16, because I’d been a late starter with discovering the world of boys. And then by 16, I was like, Oh, hello! I’m sure my parents were horrified. But I didn’t have time to think about them any more. I was listening to a lot of indie music in 1995, so it was all Britpop. I started going clubbing, and that’s also when I started singing. It was the time when all the lines started to join up. And I was like, I think I’ve found the thing I want to do. I used to go clubbing on a Friday night to an indie club called…

Children’s books aren’t just for children. And childhood reading isn’t, as our culture sometimes seems to suppose, something to be put away with mild embarrassment as we graduate onto the ‘grown-up’ sort. What we read as children not only underpins our whole subsequent reading lives; it also lives with us and within us. There are all sorts of statistics and numbers available in support of the proposition that childhood reading is good for you. Children who read in their spare time have improved mental health, are tested at above-average reading proficiency (34.2%), are more able to relax, learn more about the world (50.9 %) and report wider empathy and increased curiosity towards other people (32.8%) and cultures (32.4 %). But I want to talk about something a little less Gradgrindian.…

I was in my car with the engine switched off, waiting at a level crossing. Three trains had gone past and still, the gates would not rise. Bored and frustrated, I passed the time scrolling through some emails on my phone. Then, I felt a presence. I looked up and saw a man on my right-hand side, peering through the window. I flinched in surprise. He was tall, slim, in his thirties, dressed in a dandyish style (felt collared overcoat, tweedy slacks, silver shoes) and stood on one of those rental scooters you see zipping about the city. He was staring right at me, nose almost pressed to the window. I made a face at him. Eyebrows raised, chin out, nose wrinkled. It was a face that tried to say:…