Table of contents for 12/1/2025 in The Big Issue

→ I overheard women talking about it in the park. I wasn’t intentionally listening in, they were moving at a trot, but fragments caught my attention. They were talking about the mini-industry that has sprouted around items available for people to keep warm while working from home, without having to put the heating on. Reading that back it does seem less than riveting. It’s basically blankets, heated blankets, heated garments, shawls and hand warmers. These are hardly new. Neither is the idea of labelling what exists as something else, or tweaking what was there, to exploit the market. Still, there is no sign of things slowing down. The global heated jacket market, currently worth around £288 million, according to Future Market Insights, is expected to grow to just over £935m…

→ Team Taylor or Charli XCX? Oh, I love this question. I’m a huge Charli XCX fan. I was a huge fan even before Brat. I’ve seen her a couple of times and I love her. Everything she does is invigorating, she’s just so forward thinking. But on the flip side, Taylor is very intelligent, a great storyteller, and people don’t give her enough credit. It’s too easy to jump on the ‘I don’t like Taylor Swift’ bandwagon, so I’m more Team Charli, but happy for the Swifties to do their thing. → Where were you when you found out Taylor Swift was engaged? I remember seeing the photo and thinking it was AI. I don’t know why – Taylor Swift is so good at telling heartbreak stories and writing…

“Are we really in the devil’s golden age as they say we are?” someone asks in the midst of Olga Ravn’s third novel The Wax Child. It is a question just as welcome today, with Donald Trump in the White House and alt-right rallies fuelled by fear, as it was at the time of the Aalborg witch trials. The novel, adapted from Olga Ravn’s play based on the same period of Danish history, is narrated by a wax child, a small inanimate object created by Christenze Kruckow, the noblewoman who stands accused of witchcraft. Omniscient and yet helpless, the wax child has no choice but to watch as her mistress and fellow weird women are placed on trial for their differences. Ravn never portrays these women as innocent, but what…

It’s that time of year again, when the world’s largest digital music platform sends out its annual free gifts to subscribers in the form of Spotify Wrapped. A festive viral marketing gimmick that allows users to view a compilation of data about their activity on the platform over the preceding year, all prettily packaged up with colourful graphics that are perfect for sharing on social media. Were you in the top 1% of Chappell Roan fans in 2025? Did you listen to Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-a-Lot a concerningly large number of times? Let the world know! But something you probably don’t ponder every time that aesthetically pleasing stats package flashes up on your Spotify app each December is that it represents just a tiny fraction of all the…

My dog Rolo is mint. He’s perfect with everything and everyone. I got out of jail in 2023 and came to Big Issue. I started working straight away, because I’ve got a missus and three children – two stepsons and a daughter. They’re 10, five and 18 months. In the spring, I got approached by someone from a TikTok account called My Best Friend. They came over and did a nice story, just a video of me with my dog, Rolo, and it went viral. The next thing I knew, I got really recognised. I got loads of help and attention, so I decided to start my own TikTok, @natesrolo, and now it’s blowing off. I’ve got 25,000 followers; I’m getting paid off it. I’m doing live videos every day,…

→ Senior MPs including Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick and Darren Jones are claiming tens of thousands of pounds a year in taxpayer-funded rent expenses while either calling for or implementing benefit cuts on the poorest. Official figures show millionaire MPs billing the public for well above-average rents, and others claiming more in rent expenses than their constituents earn in a year. The figures also show that Reform MP Lee Anderson, who has relentlessly attacked people on benefits, claims more in taxpayer-funded hotel bills than any other MP in England. There is no suggestion any of the MPs have broken the rules. The parliamentary expenses system lets MPs who represent seats outside London claim the costs of renting a second home or booking hotel rooms, either in their constituency or London,…

→ Last Sunday I did a talk at the Anteros Arts Foundation, an art gallery and charity in Norwich. It was a fundraiser for Anteros, as I have had a studio there and love what they do. The story I offered was of someone who got all the art chances while banged up. And who got so deeply into art it completely changed their life, as the regime that ran the juvenile punishment system realised that having young people incarcerated also presented the chance of reforming them. The oil painting accompanying my talk is large, about five foot by four. Oil paint is greatly on the decline because it’s a slow process. You put oil paint on and it takes days, if not weeks, to dry. I put it on…

When snow is falling, all around us, a cacophony of Christmas tunes is likely to start jingling around our head. In Japan, it’s different. Shin shin is the onomatopoeic phrase describing the soft silence that comes with snowfall. The meditative serenity has been captured by Michael Kenna in pictures on display at a new exhibition. Kenna was born in the UK, is based in the US but has spent decades travelling to and photographing Japan. The minimalist, clean images were often captured at night or in early morning light, sometimes with long exposures lasting up to 10 hours that he describes as “an oasis, a calm place of rest, a catalyst for imagination”. Michael Kenna: Shin Shin runs at the Print Sales Gallery until 25 January tpg.org.uk…

Gary has just walked into The Muggleton Inn. The chefs in the kitchen of the Maidstone town centre Wetherspoons might feel pressure rising, for Gary is one of the most influential foodies in the land. His YouTube channel, Gary Eats, has almost half a million subscribers and videos get millions of views (with any popularity, online trolls emerge, so Gary keeps his full name and that of his son, who does the filming, to himself). The recipe seems simple. Gary goes to a food outlet, eats, and reviews the taste, value and level of hospitality. Recent reviews include “The UK’S BIGGEST SUNDAY ROAST!? INCREDIBLE!” and “WETHERSPOONS CHRISTMAS DINNER – Has Christmas Been Ruined Again?!” Despite the capital letters, Gary’s critiques are reasoned and largely positive. He always pays his own…

↓ GET IN TOUCH The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissueuk @bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK thebigissue ISSUE 1694 I miss Freddie and I love Christmas Stefania Stefania Vercelli, Facebook MY WORLD AS I FIND IT We’re cooked I was alarmed to read the shocking statistic that half of children’s patient visits to Alder Hey in Liverpool are attributable to dental-related illnesses [John Bird, Issue 1692, 10-16 November]. Wholesome nourishment is so key to strong physical and mental health, and access to good food should not be cost-prohibitive – it’s down to education and time. I visited India in the early noughties. It certainly wasn’t a classless society but I was struck by a certain latent solidarity among Indians to the extent that they consume pretty…

When I was 16, I was right in the middle of my tidying research. Every day after school, I would go around tidying the entire house. I was constantly thinking about things like “How can I maintain a tidy state?”, “What should I keep and what should I let go of?”, and “Which room or drawer should I tidy today?” I would tell my younger self, it’s a wonderful thing to be able to dive deeply into what you love – keep following that passion. I still believe that to this day. I first became interested in tidying when I was five years old. I used to read my mother’s homemaking magazines and was captivated by the beauty of the well-organised rooms and the clever storage ideas featured in them.…

Daisy Lindlar knows she’s very lucky. The 32-year-old and her partner are looking forward to spending their first Christmas in their private rented home with labradoodle Gizmo, who is eight months old. A Christmas Day dog walk, a few presents and maybe even some festive drinks in the pub are on the cards for Gizmo and family. Lindlar will not spend Christmas worrying whether her landlord will let her have a pet or if the property owner will spot the dog bowl or any moulted fur on an inspection. She was able to pick her Wiltshire home because it was pet friendly and when the couple asked the landlord if they could get a dog, they were relieved they said yes. “Me and my partner had always really wanted to…

I’d known Alan and Twist for years. Twist had a sharp bend at the end of his long, graceful tail, caused by trauma from his time as a racing greyhound in Ireland. Alan had rehomed Twist from someone else in the hostel. There followed 10 years of what, to me, as a vet of over 30 years’ experience, seemed the ideal existence for a dog – living with a homeless person for whom the dog is the single most important being in that person’s life. In summer, they often camped out in one of the many green spaces in the city. In winter, they were usually back in the hostel, one of the few dog-friendly ones at that time. The pair were never apart. Over a period of months it…

→ “People say eyes are the window to the soul,” says Sheehy, who has been a regular contributor to Big Issue Street Art for many years now. “Having been homeless once I wanted to capture something about what is housed inside us. The sadness of the eyes is reflected in the windows of the house.” 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. His work was recently featured as part of an annual exhibition in London by the 240Project, an established arts and health activity centre for people affected by homelessness and exclusion, supported…

“Everybody seems to die at Christmas, or there’s an explosion. You can’t just have a Christmas where you sit around and something wonderful happens. Unless it’s a baby.” Cheryl Fergison played lovably naive Heather Trott, the “big girl with the big heart” on EastEnders between 2007 and 2012, but her own life story has more twists and close encounters with tragedy than any Christmas episode. Recently, a jeering tabloid headline read ‘EastEnders star Cheryl Fergison sells her old clothes and shoes for as little as 33p an item at a car boot sale’. “We have a terrible media here that puts us on a pedestal and has great pleasure in pulling us down,” Fergison says from her flat on the coast near Blackpool. She and her son Alex were having…

It’s only taken me 25 years, but like an ancient dowager who has just learned how to use the telephone, I have finally got round to watching Gilmore Girls. Let me explain my reticence. Back in the day it just seemed impossibly twee. It was on after Popworld and I thought I was too cool and adult to be concerned with the doings of Lorelai Gilmore and her daughter Rory (pictured below), as they navigated the trials of life in the fictional small town of Stars Hollow. Why would I care about those stiffs when I could be watching The Strokes being interviewed by a horse, or listening to Mutya from the Sugababes answering questions about her favourite type of sausage? Now I can safely acknowledge I was an idiot…

→ What was your standout moment of 2025? The Oasis reunion. It made us feel how we used to feel as a country: positive, optimistic, shitfaced. I’m so happy they’re back together, I hope they keep touring forever. We need them. A pint should not be an expensive luxury → What do you know about yourself now that you didn’t this time last year? I now have a button in my ballbag. I recently had surgery to solve incontinence caused by spinal surgery I had a couple of years ago [Forde had the base of his spine removed in 2023 after being diagnosed with chordoma, a type of bone cancer that affects about one in a million]. Thanks to a button in my balls, I now no longer pee my…