Table of contents for 9/1/2025 in The Big Issue

Over the last five years, more than 600 attacks by orcas against boats in the Strait of Gibraltar – resulting in six sinking – has seen the area dubbed Orca Alley. This summer, reports of attacks, focusing on rudders, have been spreading. Last week, two boats were targeted off the Galician coast and forced to return to shore. Other sailors in the area were advised to stay in port and a local regatta had to be cancelled. This follows another too close for comfort encounter earlier this summer when two French sailors were rammed by a pod near Bilbao in July and had to be rescued from their yacht by the coastguard. Orcas from the same pod were later spotted off the Cornish coast, and local sailors urged to be…

The judges weren’t happy with the faces on the TV. “We reported we had difficulties with legal aid,” a lawyer on the very large screen said. “It is impossible to comply with that date because funding did not come through.” The judge, a woman with an auburn bob and glasses with tortoiseshell arms, shot back: “It is really quite a concern no-one has mentioned legal aid being a problem at any point.” Still addressing the flat screen, which was on a stand in the middle of the room, she added: “It really is a concern that is not being taken seriously.” Apart from the two judges, I was the only other person in hearing room four, all blue chairs and carpets, artificial light and wood veneer tables. I had just…

Rania, a mother of three from Ramallah in the West Bank, farms in the shadow of the separation wall. Her small plot of courgettes, cucumbers, mint and parsley is the family’s only source of income – when she can reach it. Soldiers patrolling the wall, a vast concrete barrier dividing the Occupied Palestinian Territory from Israel, often block farmers from accessing their land. “They don’t let us pick the crops,” Rania says. “And by the time we return, everything is ruined.” Before the war, she recalls, life was difficult but manageable. Now, it’s “just survival”, she explains. “But I keep going because my children depend on me.” Rania’s husband used to work inside Israel. But in October 2023, Israeli authorities withdrew work permits from all Palestinians – leaving Rania as…

DOCUMENTARY Life is golden Constantine Costi is the director of The Golden Spurtle , a stirring film about the fiercely competitive porridge-making world championships in the Scottish Highlands. The ingredients required are oats, water, a pinch of salt and a bowlful of curious characters I first arrived in the village of Carrbridge in the Scottish Highlands armed with a vague plan to find the Chieftain of the Golden Spurtle, Charlie Miller. On a rainy Sunday morning, with no idea how else to begin, I wandered into morning mass in the local chapel. I sat at the back and copped a few inquisitive glances from various churchgoers. After the service, I was invited for tea and a biscuit in the church’s back room by some parishioners who decided they would lead…

A recent Ofcom survey highlighted the rapidly changing viewing habits of young people. Generation Alpha – kids born from 2010 onwards – are switching on YouTube before watching the BBC on television. They have lived their entire life with multiple streaming, Video on Demand and social media services vying for their viewing. “Scheduled TV is increasingly alien to younger viewers, with YouTube the first port of call for many when they pick up the TV remote,” Ed Leighton, Ofcom’s interim group director for strategy and research, said at the launch of the new report, Tuning into YouTube. Bringing in Hacker T Dog as co-host of Blue Peter shows that the BBC is aware of the need to compete. He is set to be a smash hit on YouTube, where Blue…

Oscar Wyndham Lewis is a painter and BAFTA-nominated film-maker who is in recovery from substance use. His profoundly personal short animation film Small Hours: A Portrait of Alcoholism was eight years in the making because of his struggles. Starring Cold Feet actor Robert Bathurst as voice of the lead character, it receives its premiere screening in Manchester as part of Recoverist Month – the UK’s only arts-based awareness event placing people in recovery from substance use centre stage. The hand-painted animation, a still from which is featured here, explores the grip of addiction and the fragile hope of human connection. Bathurst calls the film “deeply moving and very touching”. Wyndham Lewis says: “I hope Small Hours strikes a chord with people who have either experienced problematic alcohol use themselves or…

Most people know someone who has distanced from a relative, whether for a breather or for good. Estrangement even impacts our royal family. Yet there’s so much we don’t know – and don’t say – about this increasingly common phenomenon. In a survey from over a decade ago, the now closed British charity Stand Alone found that estrangement affects at least one in five families, impacting over 12 million people across the UK. The research didn’t include more transient settings like hospitals, hostels, and homeless shelters. The real number is probably far higher. I am one of those 12 million or more. I was estranged from my beloved dad for the last two and a half years of his life. In 2019, I bought a one-way ticket to Melbourne and…

Crossword CRYPTIC CLUES Across Cut garrulous talk by quarter of an hour (4) Liqueur gets chairman so drunk (10) Man to turn to (4) Honest, you can get it over the counter (5,5) Pity Len somehow loses one, but it is more than enough (6) Taking part, but only temporarily (6) Prophet is first-class, a hard leader (6) Ran away from bewildered ballerina but is still legally bound (6) Note that is not intended (10) Tempt one going in to bat (4) Saving claim one prepared about small company (10) Plant or uproot (4) Down Turn up me and ma’ girl (4) Two cannot sing it (4) Old Bob, taxi driver, has some blotches (6) Bounder in American intelligence unit finds an insect (6) Adequate stock on the railway (5,5)…

Senior NHS consultant in reproductive medicine and director of the Create Health Foundation Fertility rates are falling faster in the UK than in any other G7 nation and have declined by 25% since 2010. The national birth rate fell to an all-time low of 1.44 in 2023, which will make it increasingly difficult to support our ageing population in the decades ahead. New research by Ipsos provides an insight into the reasons behind our fertility crisis. Nearly half of adults aged between 18 and 50 say they are putting off or deciding against having children; financial worries are the main factor, principally the cost of raising children, including food, clothing and education. Nearly one in three cite the cost of childcare, nearly one in five are concerned about the cost…

With an autumn budget on the horizon, now is the time for a clear-eyed assessment of what works in welfare policy and what doesn’t. The government has made welcome, pragmatic reforms to universal credit, from reducing debt deductions to promises on the standard rate. These moves demonstrate an understanding that financial stability is key to helping people thrive. Which is why the persistence of the five-week wait for a first payment is so baffling. It is a structural flaw that actively creates the very problems – debt, instability and dependency – that good policy aims to solve. As one of Christians Against Poverty’s (CAP) clients who applied for universal credit explains, the impacts of the wait for support can leave people desperate and having to turn to charities for support.…

For six-year-old Tilly, the answer to ending homelessness is simple. “If I was prime minister, I would tell some builders to make lil cottages or houses and I’ll get some homeless people to stay in my house for a bit while the builders are building the houses. And once they’ve finished building the lil houses, they could just go and live there. That’s what I would do if I was prime minister for a day.” Tilly says this assertively, with a hint of ‘duh’ in her voice (isn’t it obvious?). She is one of six children from St Mary’s Primary School in Walthamstow, East London, who spoke to Big Issue about their big ideas to tackle homelessness. The school is on a mission to raise £18,000 for homelessness charities, an…

BLACK POWER DESK ‘We’ve created a love letter to the community’ As a second-generation Black British African immigrant woman growing up in Harlesden, north-west London, I was surrounded by people who looked like me. Yet in school I was never taught about Black British history, particularly the role Black women played. I trained at drama school, but felt the stories I was being asked to perform were not culturally mine, which forced a form of assimilation that angered me, playing spinsters, nurses and maids. At home, all I had to do was look around me to understand that many of the archetypes that exist in mainstream work were not reflective of the Black women I knew. In 2017 I watched Guerrilla, a TV drama about a pair of activists in…