£2.50
EVERY MONDAY NO. 1324 SEPTEM MBER 10-16 2018 OT A HANDOUT A HAND UP NO
NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN PHOTOS! BRITAIN’S MOST PRIVATE BAND OPEN UP ONLY TO THE BIG ISSUE
PLUS TRUMP’S RUMP AND ME | LIFE AFTER WONGA | COLEEN NOLAN INTERVIEW
27-30 September 2018 Novotel London West, Hammersmith, London SDFNHG ZLWK OLYH PXVLF SRUWDEOH DXGLR DQG WKH EHVW LQ KL À Performing Live Thursday 27 September
Saturday 29 September
Friday 28 September
Kokomo & James Lavelle & Jeczalik/Langan Special Guests (Art of Noise) Philip Sheppard present
REDUX
Sunday 30 September
Antonio Forcione
Beth Nielsen Chapman
Peaky Margin Kings .LQJ .RÀ Dre
Unsung Singers
Chris Difford
in sem
ars
Bohemian Rhapsody
Clutching at Straws
Adele ‘25’
with Gary Langan Behind the scenes during the recording
with Chris Kimsey Recording Marillion’s fourth album
with Liam Nolan The Grammy winning recording
Music for Film
Namedropper
with Philip Sheppard Composer and producer
with Chris Phipps Producer of Channel 4’s ‘The Tube’
Let The Good TImes Roll
plus LED
with Kenney Jones Small Faces, The Who
ZEPPELIN, KEF, PMC, GIK
DQG WKH EHVW RI KL À IURP WKHVH ZHOO NQRZQ EUDQGV DQG RYHU PRUH QDPHV
Denon PMC Bowers & Wilkins Bryston KEF
Naim Wharfedale Parasound Pioneer Arcam
Marantz Yamaha Harman Sennheiser Focal
www.festivalofsound.co.uk
WIN! ARCTICS BACK
CONTENTS
CATALOGUE ON VINYL
SEPTEMBER 10-16 2018 / NO. 1324
TURN TO PAGE 44
Hello, my name is Darren. This week’s Big Issue has a special Arctic Monkeys supplement taking a behind-the-scenes look at the recording of their latest album. I’ve been a fan from the beginning – they’re a proper indie-rock band, which is what I’m into. On page 23 a professor asks if the UK’s post-Brexit role could be as a promoter of world peace. Whatever works, really – after all, everything’s up in the air at the moment, things like trade and borders. I think it’s going to end up being an emergency Brexit. And there’s more from me on page 46.
INSIDE...
15 ANAESTHESIA The gain which helps us manage pain and its woozy discovery
26 CHLOË
GR ACE MORETZ
THE BIG ISSUE MANIFESTO
Vendor photo: Mike Lister
How she’s kicking ass for the LGBT community
34 SIMON REEVE The fascinatingly wayward path from depression to world traveller
WE BELIEVE in a hand up, not a handout... Which is why our sellers BUY every copy of the magazine for £1.25 and sell it for £2.50. WE BELIEVE in trade, not aid… Which is why we ask you to ALWAYS take your copy of the magazine. Our sellers are working and need your custom.
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THE BIG ISSUE / p3 / September 10-16 2018
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CORRESPONDENCE Write to: The Big Issue, Second Floor, 43 Bath St, Glasgow, G2 1HW Email: letters@bigissue.com facebook.com/bigissueUK
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COMMENT OF THE WEEK
Risk assessment As a retired property manager with over 40 years of experience in the leasehold sector I take issue with the comment made by Keith Billinghurst regarding terrorism insurance [Correspondence, August 27-September 2]. Whilst terrorism is a risk, the chance of a leasehold residential property being subject to damage is infinitesimally low, especially those dwellings in non-urban areas or remote from city centres. The vast majority of incidents have involved offices and shops – the Baltic Exchange, Canary Wharf and Manchester bombings for instance. The problem I find is that the premium is excessive compared to the risk. Why is this? It is because agents and
landlords of leasehold residential property take huge commissions on these types of insurance, sometimes 100 per cent of the annual premium. If you then add the broker’s commission, most of the premium is not there to cover risk, but to line the pockets of the so-called professionals. It is therefore in their interests to talk up the risks and pass these costs on to the poor old leaseholders. I would add that in running my own property management company I never charged a penny in commission and I gave leaseholders the option of whether to have terrorism insurance based on competitive quotations. Steve Cieslik, Chepstow
Unhealthy decision
No disgrace like home
The National Health Service began to go downhill when the cleaners and tea ladies work, instead of being employed directly but the hospitals, went out to tender. What the then newly formed trusts didn’t realise was that the domestic staf, far from being menial workers, were an essential component to any ward team. Regretfully, management saw money as, if not more, important than people – that was their great undoing. Richard Pett, Compton
All these people who have second homes in the countryside that are empty most ofthe year… how do they sleep at night knowing there are so many homeless young people? In England, where “there is no such thing as society”, we all exist in a selfish bubble. If there was any real concern by government, we would have a more equal society like Scandinavia where everyone pays high tax for the benefit of all! Theodore, Oxford
Tot men
Grammar schooled
I’ve been buying the Issue for the last 10 years in Totnes. As I get ready to move to pastures new, I want to thank all the wonderful vendors who have not only sold us a great magazine, but added life and colour to Fore Street and kept the community aware of homelessness. Chris and Martin, our current vendors, do a great job; I urge townsfolk to keep supporting them! Jon Stein, Totnes
Dear Peter [Millett, Correspondence, August 27-September 2], Regarding your letter, I do hope that you were writing it ironically. If not, I really think that you should increase the number of genres you read so that you understand a little more about the diferent writing styles that exist, and their efects. Language, spelling, and writing are all fluid things
that evolve (don’t get me started on how ‘literally’ no longer has to mean ‘literally’!) Breaking up sentences and, indeed, starting them with ‘And’, is no longer an issue, and if you read them in your head, as if you were reading them out loud, such punctuation can contribute to understanding the mental state of the character, or even actual illnesses. Suggested reading to understand written emotion/ conditions: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay, The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. Of course, breaking up sentences can also reveal thought processes or lack of, manic behaviour, fatigue, and of course everyone can shout USING UPPER CASE! I hope you devour the books above and would love to know if they touched you the way they touched me – through total understanding of their emotions (only possible through brilliant writing). Heather Marriott, Feltham
THE BIG ISSUE / p4 / September 10-16 2018
@bigissue
@NeilGrayMP Brilliant piece by @johnbirdswords in this week’s @BigIssue on thinking outside the box and the creeping roots of poverty being responsible for much of government time and money. Tackle poverty and you not only sort social, but economic issues. @thinkabitmore2 #millennials have such a poor knowledge of DIY it’s actually contributing to the train why shops like @Homebase_uk are shutting! Crazy! Now that @BigIssue is pointing this out why don’t young people do something to make themselves more well rounded! @squirrelclutch I’ve been reading the @BigIssue weekly ever since I moved into London and stopped picking up the daily free papers. No fake news, content I actually care about and quality of the writing is faultless. Crossword is the best and always makes me smile thanks! @MarkEFaulkner Fully agree about the crossword. Genuinely funny clues. However the sudoku is too hard.
THE EDITOR
Ignore key issues and they’ll bite us on the Brexit
I
have some sympathy with Karen Bradley, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. She admitted last week that she knew pretty much nothing about the place before she took the job. The tribal nature of voting was just one of the things that was news to her. While surprising, at least she was honest. The admission brought the standard level of opprobrium. How dare she take such a position! Why hadn’t she studied the mass of material that is out there, developing a key and learned understanding of this most complex puzzle?! I am from Northern Ireland. I grew up in it, steeped in it, informed by the dark mood music of the Troubles and the everpresent tinnitus of hatred. And I struggle with some of the layers. There is a new film drama coming soon about the potato famine. The famine started in 1845. To the Irish, it’s still a fresh, weeping sore. The English refusal to help still grates. For others, the arrival of the Normans in 1169 still annoys. Memories are centuries long. There is no easy way to learn this stuf. That’s not to say Bradley should be totally let of the hook. But her appointment says more about the thin bench of available senior government ministers than anything else. It also says something of the way Northern Ireland is viewed. It’s a mess. And the portfolio looking after that mess (elected Stormont ministers have refused to self-govern for 20 months, no capital projects can get the go-ahead, the wheels are at a halt) cannot be one that anybody really wants. I write this knowing that most people reading aren’t from Northern Ireland and that the shabby, ongoing squabbles are, for the majority, best dealt with out of sight, out of mind. But, you know, Brexit. BREXIT. The 310-mile long border between Northern Ireland the Republic of Ireland is the magic thread, the shadowline, the place of no and all resistance. Of course it’s a bit of a bore, but there has to be some understanding of what is going on in Ireland, north and south, in order to understand the real problem that NOT dealing with it presents. Political bluster and a couple of phrases in Latin will not sort it. Trying to understand why free movement of people across that invisible line is hardwired into the consciousness must be understood. The future of the UK and EU is, incredibly, interlaced into that borderline. This goes beyond Karen Bradley and it goes beyond Brexit too. Only by understanding, by reading, by asking questions, by listening and learning, can we hope to understand. Following bluster that echoes our own point of view gets us nowhere. The harder thing is to dig deep. But it’s the only way to go. Isn’t that right Karen?
Paul McNamee is editor of The Big Issue @pauldmcnamee paul.mcnamee@bigissue.com
The Big Issue festival squad brings the summer season to a rockin’ close at The Downs
T
his year’s Downs Festival in Bristol was a huge success, with all the greats up there on the Main Stage – Nadine Shah, Weller, Noel… and of course The Big Issue. We were partners for the festival, hosting the Information Stage, which had a packed audience throughout the day for provocative talks and rallying calls to activism, while editor Paul McNamee stormed the Main Stage to let people know why The Big Issue is needed now more than ever. Our Bristol Big Issue vendors Adrian (whose usual pitch is Tesco on Wine Street), Jef (Stokes Cro and Michael mingled in the crowd doi
LATE BARNSTAPLE VENDOR DIANNE WILL BE ‘DEARLY MISSED’ We are sad to report that popular Barnstaple Big Issue seller Dianne Cumper has died aged 45. Known to her friends as Di, the former NHS nurse had fallen into diiculty after returning to the UK following a period working Africa. She started selling The Big Issue and was rapidly building up sales on her pitch at Green Lanes Shopping Centre. Kizzy Angell, who runs the Big Issue franchise in North Devon, had known Di since she arrived in Barnstaple. “Many people had commented on how much better she was looking. She came to me to buy her magazines with her make up on, her hair lovely and a smile of hope on her face,” said Kizzy. “She even encouraged another resident in the place she lived to start selling. Each week she was selling more and more magazines. Di was popular with the townsfolk, the homeless and shopkeepers alike. We will miss her dearly.” Di’s funeral was at North Devon Crematorium on August 28, with many members of the Barnstaple street community in attendance. The circumstances around her death are being investigated.
THE BIG ISSUE / p6 / September 10-16 2018
COME ON
Fruit pickers plan Around 2,500 non-EU workers a year will have “little effect” on fight to stop fruit dying in fields
ON BIGISSUE.COM THIS WEEK
Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller struggle with having to follow The Big Issue on the Main Stage
a roaring trade selling the unique event programme produced by us. Michael, whose pitch is at Temple Meads, sold magazines and programmes at the bash and said: “I absolutely loved it and we certainly sold enough magazines and programmes to make everyone happy. “I did VegFest earlier in the year and I enjoyed it so much that I asked specifically to be a festival vendor. But I enjoyed Downs more for the music, particularly Orbital.”
• John Sutherland explores how Grange Hill and other school series have had a telling effect on society • Photographer Paul Conroy recalls covering the world’s most dangerous theatre of war with reporter Marie Colvin – only one of them would make it out • Kidulthood star Aml Ameen reveals just how far he had to go to prepare for Idris Elba’s directorial debut Yardie
ARCTIC MONKEYS AND THE BIG ISSUE Inside this edition we carry an exclusive eight-page supplement featuring never-before-seen photos of Arctic Monkeys. The band frontman and centre of gravity Alex Turner talks us through this incredible, exclusive collection. A special edition of this magazine will be on sale at Arctic Monkeys live shows in the UK throughout September. If you’re going along, look out for our vendors. If you can’t make it and you want to add the special edition to your Arctic Monkeys’ collection, see bigissueshop.com this week for details. THE BIG ISSUE / p7 / September 10-16 2018
I
n last week’s Big Issue, we reported that robotic arms could be filling fields after the number of seasonal EU workers heading to the UK took a Brexit-fuelled hit. The government has tried to circumvent the problem with the announcement of a nationwide pilot to allow 2,500 workers from outside the EU to head to the UK for six months in the two-year trial. Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s announcement opens the door for workers from India, Ukraine and north Africa, for example, to step in – but in nowhere near the numbers required to fill the void left by EU workers. Meeting the increased demand for strawberries and co means that an estimated 31,000 seasonal workers will be needed by 2020 to avoid unpicked fruit dying in the fields. The axing of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme in 2013 – which enabled Romanian and Bulgarian workers to secure visas to come over to the UK to pick fruit – and Brexit uncertainty has seen EU job applications plummet by 63 per cent for positions this year. British Summer Fruits chairman Nick Marston has cast doubt on the plans, claiming that they will have “little efect” on the situation. He said: “Our farms are reporting staf shortages of 10-20 per cent already, and to have any efect in terms of supporting our successful industry, around 10,000 are needed now – not 2,500. This number will have little efect on the current shortages UK farms are facing as we speak.” Looks like a helping (robot) hand might be needed after all.
ANALYSIS
So longa Wonga The payday lender’s gone bust and while few will miss its gimmicky brand of exorbitant loans, people will always need credit. Liam Geraghty looks at the future of borrowing for those on the margins
E
ven a payday loan couldn’t save Wonga as it collapsed into administration on August 30. It had been on song just six yearspreviouslywhenitteeteredonthebrink ofa£1bnNewYorkStockExchangeflotation. But its final note was the sound of tiny violins, according to social media jokes at its expense, after a final £10m cash influx from the board could not stop the firm collapsing. In the wake of the news, actor Michael Sheen, who has stood against lenders who prey on the most vulnerable with his End High Cost Credit Alliance, called for ethical lenders to fill the gap left by Wonga. The Frost/Nixon star wrote in both Metro and The Observer of people “struggling with debt; the mental and physical toll it can take; the damage it can do to relationships; to families; the indiscriminate havoc it can wreak on people’s lives”. For those unable to obtain credit with mainstream banks, firms like Wonga ofered ashort-termcashfixfor3.1millionUKadults in the past year. But it is the long-term pain that can soon see them drowning in debt with Wonga ofering an annual interest rate of 5,853 per cent APR until it was capped by the Financial Conduct Authority in 2014 at 1,509 per cent. That was part of some of the regulations that cracked down on high-cost lenders that year, resulting in Wonga being crippled by a ruling to pay £2.6m in compensation to 45,000customersandforcedtowriteof debts of £220m for 330,000 customers. It’s a diferent story with ethical lenders and it is an area that The Big Issue knows well, thanks to our social investment arm, Big Issue Invest. In the past, BII has backed not-for-profit lenders like Fair For You, which received a £1m loan last year, to help stop people falling into the hands of unscrupulous lenders. Their latest ethical investment is in Five Lamps, a responsible lender based in the North East of England – the same region where Wonga was founded. BigIssueInvestwasamongnineinvestors who made a £5m investment in Five Lamps tohelpthemprovide100,000afordableloans over six years to support the most vulnerable break out of the cycle of high-cost credit debt.
Change the record: The Advertising Standards Authority were unimpressed with Wonga’s cuddly geriatrics
It is the largest-ever single investment in a UK community lender. But Five Lamps’ Nicola Garrett stresses that the marketing power of firms like Wonga, which still has 220,000 customers owing more than £400m in its loan book, is the challenge that responsible lenders need to tackle to fill the void. “There are lots of people cheering the demise of Wonga but fundamentally people will always have to borrow credit,” she says. “It’sanemotivesubjectbecauseitoftencomes down to when someone needs money the most – if their car breaks down, or they have a problem with the washing machine or even just Christmas. That should not be an opportunity for people to be preyed upon. “WelargelyagreewithMichaelSheen.But one of the issues that we have is that we don’t have the marketing budget so we can’t compete with firms like Wonga. We wouldn’t be able to aford to buy Wonga’s loan book from the administrators. I was disappointed in the wake of some of the press coverage this week because it mentioned responsible THE BIG ISSUE / p8 / September 10-16 2018
lenders and I thought that would be a good chance for us to get some publicity. But they didn’t mention us by name. It’s about visibility – if people don’t know who to turn to when Wonga have gone, who are they going to turn to? “In a way Wonga changed the face of the marketanditscustomers’expectations.They really hit the nail on the head when it came to what consumers want. All of a sudden you couldgetcreditstraightawaywithnowaiting and we have had to respond to that.” You’re unlikely to see Five Lamps’ name on a Premier League shirt any time soon but at the start of the decade the Wonga logo was a familiar sight on Newcastle United’s jersey as well as Blackpool and Hearts. Their TV ads featured instantly recognisable puppets signing re-worded versionsof1950ssongMrSandmanandother creations on heavy rotation throughout the day. And that saw Wonga regularly butt heads with the Advertising Standards Authority who banned the ads in 2013 and 2014,
WONGA’S ANNUAL REPORTED PROFITS
£85m
£62.4m £40m £16.7m 2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
–£37m
–£80m
–£65m
NUMBER OF FINANCIAL OMBUSDSMAN COMPLAINTS WONGA RECEIVED (under trading name WDFC UK Ltd) 2013-2017
2,347 1,151 68
claimingtheyfailedtodemonstratethefirm’s sky-high interest rates and underplayed the magnitude of taking out a loan. They were by no means the only ofender in the industry with Peachy.co.uk and Loan Monarch also falling foul of the rules. ThemovepromptedCitizensAdvicechief executive Gillian Guy to blast the use of “cartoon characters” for sending the “wrong messagetoborrowers”.“Yearsofdebtarenot cuddly or jovial, but instead are tough and distressing,” she warned. The Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice launched a consultation in late 2015 to determine whether scheduling regulations should be brought in to crack down on the ads. Despite finding that 31 per cent of parents backedabanonadsbeforethe9pmwatershed and 27 per cent did not support them after it, BCAPdeterminedthat no regulations needed to be brought in. However, Garrett does support beefed-up financial education at school – a subject The Big Issue tackled last week – but insists that
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WHAT NOW FOR WONGA CUSTOMERS? Wonga’s collapse does not mean that debts do not need to be repaid. The firm has stopped accepting new customers, but administrators Grant Thornton have taken on the firm’s loan book. They will now look to sell that to a new creditor with the remit of attracting the highest bidder. However, the buyer will have to follow same rules as outlined by Wonga, meaning that borrowers should notice no difference if they keep their repayments on track. But anyone who does find themselves missing payments and struggling to repay could see their debts passed on to debt recovery firms and while they can’t increase interest rates or add charges that were not originally outlined in the credit agreement, they may bring bailiffs to your door.
THE BIG ISSUE / p9 / September 10-16 2018
it is not a solution to those facing mounting debts now. “Oneoftheresponsesthatwehavegotthis week is about teaching more budgeting and financial skills at schools,” she says. “That’s fine and we are all for preventative measures likethat.Butitdoesnotdealwiththeproblem that we have now where people are going to turn to other, less responsible lenders. How arepeoplegoingtoknowanydiferentifthere isn’t that marketing there? Our message is that we are here and a lot of people can come to us in times of crisis. “The diference between us and a less responsible lender is that we do not have any hidden charges or fees. We take more of an inclusive approach and engage and talk with customers to discuss repayment and our interest rates are cheaper. We do not lend to people who cannot pay because it makes no business sense and it does nothing to help them.” @Lazergun_Nun bigissueinvest.com @BigIssueInvest
STREET ART
You can buy prints of some artworks featured in Street Art through
GO YOUR OWN WAY BY PAULA DE SOUSA Paula is a visual artist working with mixed media on paper who draws a lot of inspiration from so-called “outsider art”. “I am particularly interested in expressing vulnerable states of mind,” she says. “My own, other people’s and the vulnerability I see in nature. My work is often layered, revealing and concealing. I’m also interested in invisibility and what is perceived beauty, as well as what are perceived imperfections.”
bigissueshop.com At least half of the profit from each sale goes to the artist.
Street Art is created by people who are marginalised by issues like homelessness, disability and mental health conditions. Contact streetlights@bigissue.com to see your art here. THE BIG ISSUE / p10 / September 10-16 2018
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Start your story today Writing is a present participle: the only way to do it is to do it. Faber Academy creative writing courses give you the time, space and support you need. Call us today on 0207 927 3827 or search ‘Faber Academy’ to find your perfect course.
he out now in paperback.
JOHN BIRD
Great ideas come when you’re away with the fairies
I
was wrestling with fairies in the But it was not all roughing it. Cove Park most incredible scenery I had stayed has a great centre with books to read, tables in for many years. It was on a Scottish to sit at and places to eat, study and create. peninsula that stuck out between two I found the washing machine most useful, as lochs of the Firth of Clyde in Argyll and Bute. I had left suddenly and had not brought I had been given the chance to stay in a hut enough shirts and smalls. I did however, at the Cove Park art centre, a kind of retreat forget to leave a pound for the machine use and will have to make arrangements to where artists can go and work. My wrestling was with my latest book, obviate this oversight. (In the old days I could which in spite of its silly title – The have sent a £1 postal order for a cost of three Fairy that Came in From the Cold – is a very pence. But enough of the trivial). serious book about how we understand history. How ingredients make up events, and it’s not worth sticking with one cause to explain an event. Brexit did not happen simply because some people voted against staying. It was and is a multi-layered phenomenon – scores of ingredients had to come together for it to happen; some honest and open, some hidden. Or Trump; you cannot simply put him down to a decision by millions of people to throw their lot in with a Deep and meaningful: Cove Park is just the spot for quiet creativity multi-millionaire. So, my book is about the ingredients that make up the First World War. You’ll be surprisedwhatIhave come up with as some of the ingredients. Not all military or political, but also creative and literary ingredients which at first seem unrelated to any great event. Cove Park was created to aid artists of all kinds – writers, painters, dancers and more – to get some space to work, and succeed, or even fail. The important thing is that it is creative time and you are to a large extent on your own. There are other writers and artists occupying the other hut Possiblythemostwonderfulthingtocome and pod dwellings, but everyone seemed to out of my time there was the idea of having want to get on with their work; so sociability some Big Issue artists or writers come up and was not high on the list. stay, as a kind of Cove Park-Big Issue I was at first thrown, and depressed. I Fellowship. What a brill thing that would be. missed the usual loud chorus that surrounds Cove Park is a charity and the idea of working me – with me a large part of the noise. It was with The Big Issue is right up their street. One day I was pleased to see the centre just me and a mirror, and a bedroom and facilities. And the great surrounding beauty packed, as various galleries, artists and the of hills, water, sailing boats and low clouds, Scottish Arts Council came to have a conference about Scotland’s entry to the woods and streams.
Photo: Cove Park
“It was just me, a mirror and the great beauty of hills, water and low clouds”
THE BIG ISSUE / p13 / September 10-16 2018
Venice Biennale, one of the most prestigious festivals in the art world. After their whirligig visit they were of – back to Glasgow and other parts of Scotland. Cove Park is only 25 minutes from Helensburgh and a train into Glasgow takes under an hour. Yet you would think you were in the Highlands, miles from the urban. One day I stood at the bottom of the peninsula at a beautiful little town called Kilcreggan and looked a mile or two across the water at Greenock. I had never been to Greenock but knew its reputation for being a tough town of shipbuilding near Glasgow. But I also knew it as the birthplace of one of Scotland’s greatest poets, WS Graham. As I stood there, I composed a poem to Graham, a Faber poet, describing the time I met him in Cornwall in 1970. Graham and I shared a friend. I was lying and boasting with this friend in Graham’s local pub – the William IV – about a three-book deal with Faber for my poetry. And my recent receipt of an Arts Council award for my poetic works. Poor Graham, who had to eke out a living and whose wife had to clean holiday cottages to survive – poetry pays jack shit – was livid. When it came time to go back to his house for a further drink he barred my way. And when I tried to push past him he punched me hard and knocked me down. Being a bragging scumbag at the time I got up and asked him if that was all he could do? We bonded over the punch and I got to know his poetry later and it is of the highest order. The Fairies all fell into place eventually and I reluctantly rejoined the urban world – though I look forward to our Cove Park-Big Issue fellowship flowering; replenished and fairiefied. John Bird is the founder and Editor in Chief of The Big Issue. @johnbirdswords john.bird@bigissue.com
Illustration: Mitch Blunt
PAUSE
AMBROSE PARRY
How to be comfortably numb
A
naesthesia – the term coi ned by Ol iver Wendell Holmes in 1846 following the discovery of ether – means lack of sensation. General anaesthesia is a drug-induced, controlled, reversible loss of consciousness that permits the p er f or m a n c e o f p a i n f u l operations which could not be underta ken in the conscious state. Anaethesia was undeniably a wonderful discovery, but the real wonder is that this medical treasure was ever uncovered at all, dependent as it was upon empirical knowledge gleaned via the highly risky means of self-experimentation. The search for anaesthesia became something of a holy grail in medicine, seeking an answer to the vexing question of how a powerful narcotic poison might be administered to produce complete insensibility without significant risk to life. Poppy, henbane, mandragora, hemp and alcohol had all been used, but their effects found to be incomplete, inconsistent and frequently dangerous.
This is why we all owe a debt of gratitude to the brave pioneers who were not averse to performing experiments upon themselves, risking life and limb in their quest for a means of facilitating painless surgery. William Morton breathed ether h imsel f on severa l occasions before the first successful demonstration of et her a naest hesia at t he Massachusetts General Hospital in October 1846. The following year James Young Simpson was determined to find a better ‘drowsy syrup’ thanetherandspentmanyalong evening after dinner sniffing tumblers of volatile substances, often achieving nothing more than a blinding headache and incapacitating dizziness for his trouble.Yethepersevered.Ether, revolutionary as its efects might be, proved less than perfect. It had an unpleasant smell, caused airway irritation and had to be administered in a relatively large dose, which was problematic when heavy glass bottles needed to be carried up three or four flights of tenement stairs. It was also flammable, which was
potentia l ly ha za rdous at a time when artificial light was provided by gas or candle. On November 4 1847, Simpsonfoundwhathehadbeen looking for. He woke up under his dining room table, having lost consciousness after inhaling a substance called chloroform. Surgeons took to ether and chloroform with a remarkable degree of rapidity, considering anaesthesia to be a great boon conferred on all of mankind. Midwifery was another matter. Concerns were raised about the wisdom of relieving what was considered to be a perfectly normal pain. Medical men as well as clergymen quoted Genesis: ‘In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children’, promoting the notion that anaesthesia in childbirth was anti-scriptural. There was also concern regarding the disinhibiting effects of anaesthesia. It was reported that under its influence women had used obscene language that they ought never have had the opportunity to hear, far less speak. This fact alone was deemed sufficient to
THE BIG ISSUE / p15 / September 10-16 2018
prevent the use of chloroform in English women. However, women in general had their own ideas on the subject. Chloroform was used in many a confinement, Simpson havinguseditin150caseswithin a year of its discovery. When it became known that Queen Victoria had inhaled chloroform during the birth of her eighth child in 1853 — news that was initially suppressed by her medical attendants — any residual hostility faded. Nonetheless, there remained those who held on to the view that there was impropriety in pain relief, implying an impious distrust of divine providence. In response to such concerns about lessening the pa ngs of child-bearing by anaesthesia, one l ady w a s overhe a r d to remark: “You need never be afraid that there will not be enough of suffering in the world.” Ambrose Parry is the pseudonym for Chris Brookmyre and Dr Marisa Haetzman. Their novel The Way of All Flesh is out now (Canongate, £14.99)
Coleen Nolan Pop star, Loose Woman
IN 1981 THE YEAR COLEEN NOLAN TURNS 16… US president Ronald Reagan is shot and wounded / The Social Democratic Party (SDP) is founded in the UK / Postman Pat is first aired on BBC1
THE BIG ISSUE / p16 / September 10-16 2018
LETTER TO MY YOUNGER SELF
I
was touring with my sisters when I was 16. It was done so many amazing things since they passed. I’d like to go back probably the height of our career. Touring the world; Japan, and tell them, you know, I’m going to be alright. I think as a parent, and I hate to be sexist, but definitely Russia, Australia, everywhere. It was a very full-on time. But I’d been performing with my family since I was two so as a mother, I don’t think there’s a moment after they’re it wasn’t an unusual way of life for me. And I was with my family born when you don’t feel guilty about something. Even now so it felt very safe. I was – I am – a real homebody and I spent a – Shane Jnr is 30 this year and I still worry and I still feel guilty. lot of time just wishing I was back home. I probably appreciate I do ask them, “Do you think when you’re older you’ll look back that time now more than I did when I was going through it. I look and think, I wish my mum hadn’t done that?” Bless them, they’ve back now and think wow, that was actually an amazing time in always said no. But I’m sure there will be some things. I tried to my life. protect my boys during the divorce. I made sure they never heard The hits started drying up in my mid-20s. We were still me and their dad rowing. I never ever used them as weapons, working but we weren’t really touring any more. We were doing though that would have been the easiest way to hurt Shane. But summer seasons and clubs. And then I met Shane [Richie] and I knew it would only hurt the boys. I’m very lucky, they’ve turned had my two boys and suddenly I thought, I’m not enjoying this out really lovely boys. But they’ll always be from a broken home. any more. We were going on stage at I don’t ever try to make my kids feel guilty for growing up, but I tell you half-one in the morning to people who were what, I do sometimes have this urge to pissed. And I thought, I’ve left my kids at lock all the doors so they can’t leave. home to do this? People see the glamour Obviously at certain ages there are times of that kind of life, but they don’t see that you want them to just grow up and sod of. it’s really, really hard work. You struggle But that passes. I’m lucky we’ve got such a to have any kind of normality. I didn’t want to drag my own kids around, I wanted them close relationship and we’re such a big part to have the childhood I’d never had. of each other’s lives. And they’re very When I found out Shane had been afectionate, they’re good at giving me hugs. unfaithful, I thought it was a blip and But I can’t control them any more, I can’t we’d have counselling and everything ground them or tell them what do to. You would be fine. If I could go back I’d leave do have a moment when you suddenly straight after the second afair. I stayed two think, right that’s it, my job is done. That’s years too long. But I was massively in love all I was here for. So what do I do now? And with him. To me, there was nothing missing that’s quite shocking. For the last three years of my in our relationship. He’s said that too, he marriage with Ray [Fensome] we did said he doesn’t really understand what happened. Well, he does... he wanted to everything we could to save it. And yeah, have his cake and eat it. I loved him but in we could have said, I’m in my 50s, you’re the end I thought, I’m not one of those in your 60s, we’re too old to start again. women who keeps turning a blind eye. I Let’s just stay together and carry on. don’t deserve to be treated like this. And I Because we weren’t rowing or anything. don’t think this is a great way to bring up We were just leading separate lives. I just decided, I don’t want to just settle and I my children, thinking that this stuf is OK. don’t want a lodger. So I’d rather you just In the end, I think we’ve done OK. We stayed really good friends and we still are. leave and we can be great friends. And that’s My sisters still find it hilarious that worked out really well. I don’t look back at the last 17 years as a failure. I look at them I do a chat show every day when I as being really great and giving us Ciara, wouldn’t say boo to a goose when we our fantastic daughter. I’m much happier, were younger. It wasn’t a planned career now that the decision has been made. move. I went on to a talk show to talk about But do I sometimes feel absolutely my break up with Shane, and it eventually became a regular job. And I loved it. I overwhelmed with sadness... yes. Because realised I did have a voice and things to say, when I married him he was the love of my life and we were going to be I’d just never had a chance in that massive From top: With then-husband Shane Richie at an awards show together forever. family. It was the first time in my life I felt in London in 1995; performing (far left) with her sisters in The Nolans aged just 16 in 1981; with son Shane in 2017, If I could go back to any moment in truly independent, my own person. the oldest of her three children my life it would be when I was in my I grew up just worshipping The mid-30s. I’d broken up with Shane and I Osmonds. If you’d told the 16-year-old me I’d end up meeting them so many times they became friends... had thought I’d never be in love again, I’d never have any more wow. We chat away about how similar our lives were, touring with children. Then there I was, in love and pregnant. It was such a our families. But every now and again in the middle of the happy ‘world is my oyster’ time. I loved my 30s, and my 40s. I’m conversation I suddenly think, my God, this is The Osmonds, I not really loving my 50s. I think partly because I lost my sister used to cry over them! I’m always starstruck by famous people. – that really makes you question your own mortality. And my If I’m on a red carpet I’m always looking around saying, “Oh my kids are growing up, and now there’s my second marriage gone. And I’m thinking, oh Christ, here I go again. God, look who it is!” If I could have one more conversation with anyone, it would be my mum and dad. Because when they both passed I After this interview took place, Coleen Nolan announced an immediate hadn’t been doing Loose Women for long. I probably went through hiatus from all commitments, including Loose Women and her a phase when Shane and I broke up when I was struggling a bit. Never Too Late tour. Visit coleennolantour.com for updates. I was a single, full-time mum. That must have worried them. I’ve Interview: Jane Graham @janeannie THE BIG ISSUE / p17 / September 10-16 2018
THE BIG ISSUE / p18 / September 10-16 2018
‘I didn’t set out to make him look foolish. I was just there’ AFP and former Big Issue photographer Andy Buchanan caught a side of Trump that went around the world. He explains how he got the shot that inspired an iconic New Yorker cover and then blasted on to the poster for Michael Moore’s new movie Fahrenheit 11/9
I
took the photo about five years ago, Trump was playing on the Menie golf club in the north of Scotland, the controversial one with the sand dunes. He cut the ribbon and played the first round. I just followed him and took pictures, and tried to get as close as I could without getting in his way. It was much easier to get close to him then, before the secret service and stuff. It’s shot with quite a wide-angle lens, I was quite close behind him, five or six feet. Since he’s become president that photo’s taken on a new life. It was used as the basis for a cover of The New Yorker magazine. I happened to be in New York at the time when it came out and saw it on a news stand and thought, ‘My God, that looks like my picture’. And I looked at it closely and it was. It’s been used in the poster for Michael Moore’s new movie Fahrenheit 11/9. It’s been used on American chat shows a lot, Seth Meyers, The Daily Show. News stations. It gets used constantly, it’s very strange. I’ve thought about it a lot over the last few years, about its success as a picture. One of the things is there’s just not that access to him playing golf since he’s become president. No one can shoot that picture any more. And it’s also incredibly unflattering. Which is what a lot of people like. That’s what drew me to it. I just thought he was such an odd-looking guy. I was struck by what a massive presence he is, in both senses of the word. He’s tall, big shoulders. He can’t help but be the focus of everything wherever he is. You don’t even see his face and you know who he is. The red cap probably plays a huge part because it makes it more current. It wasn’t even a Make America Great Again cap, it was just a Trump Resorts cap. It said Trump on the front with that stupid fake coat of arms thing he has. I remember saying at the time to one of my colleagues,
‘He’s really weird’. He would walk around the greens and stuf and he’d be looking at the ball. But as soon as he saw me with my cameras, he would automatically get this look – his jaw would jut out and his shoulders would go back and he’d try and look strong and big. I would see him doing it. It wasn’t how he is, it’s just how he wanted to appear to be seen. But when he wasn’t being photographed he was just this old guy wandering about playing golf, like anybody else. The image he wants to project seems to be at the forefront of his mind before anything else. I don’t know what makes a picture strike a chord with people but this one seems to have done it. It’ll certainly be the most viewed picture of my career, I’ve no doubt about that. I couldn’t even possibly know where it’s been used or in what context. I’m certainly not going to buy a house or retire of the back of it. But the pay-of from these things is, if I wasn’t shooting for AFP or another big picture agency, I would never have been in the position to take that picture in the first place. And that’s kind of a value of its own in a way. You have to be there to shoot it. Being able to be in the position to do these things is what’s important for me as a photographer, and I’m sure most photojournalists would say the same thing. I’ve done a lot of interesting things. I was in Afghanistan a few weeks ago. I went away on a nuclear submarine with David Cameron, which was unbelievably odd, but brilliant. These things all lead on. I’ve toured the world with bands and stuf and shot album covers. I shoot news and sport features and lots of politics. I’m not disappointed that a photo of Donald Trump’s behind is my most famous work. I don’t strive for any sort of personal recognition. It’s just nice that it gets noticed. I’m very proud of it in that sense. If it’s become part of ‘the resistance’ or whatever I don’t care, that was never my intention. I’m resolutely objective when I’m working. I didn’t set out to make him look foolish. I was just there. Andy was talking to Malcolm Jack. @acbphoto
THE BIG ISSUE / p19 / September 10-16 2018
JOIN THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION!
Social entrepreneurs from across the globe will be descending on Edinburgh this week for the industry’s World Forum. Here’s how social enterprises like The Big Issue are changing the world for good In the wake of a world reeling from the 2008 economic crash, the social revolution has flourished. Social enterprises – businesses that put people before profit – have become a fast-growing sector in the last decade, bringing innovation, ideas and action to encourage social change. In the UK alone, the estimated 70,000 social enterprises contribute £24bn to the economy in areas as diverse as health and social care and cofee production. The best and brightest from the global industry will head to Edinburgh this week for the Social Enterprise World Forum looking to inspire and promote how social entrepreneurs are using the power of business for good. The is packed with industry heavyweights such as The Big Issue Group chair Nigel Kershaw, who was an awarded an OBE in 2010 for services to social enterprise, actor and advocate Michael Sheen and even Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. The Forum will allow social innovators, entrepreneurs and academics to work together on how to boost the social echo that is created every time someone takes their business to a socialenterprise.Theywanttotransformindustriesdominated by the corporate world to places where social enterprises can thrive – taking them from the fringes of our economy to having a central role in all of our lives. The three-day event doubles as a homecoming for the conference, which launched in Edinburgh in 2008 and has since been held internationally in places like San Francisco, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Hong Kong. Following the global recession a decade ago, there was a resurgence of interest in social enterprise as many sought to make a positive impact through business. There are now well over 5,000 social enterprises operating in Scotland alone, just a fraction of the global movement which will congregate in Edinburgh to share knowledge and debate best practice. These businesses are defined by their purpose – they are driven by their social mission first, looking to maximise their
positive impact balanced against their financial goals, with profits reinvested. This separates social enterprises from ethical businesses, who try to go about normal operation while minimising any harmful efects on society or the environment. Also among the speakers is Celia Hodson, CEO of Hey Girls – a social enterprise which addresses period poverty based on a buy-one-give-one system. She will be joined by Sheen, actor and champion of social entrepreneurship, and David Duke, CEO of Street Soccer Scotland (SSS) who previously worked for The Big Issue Foundation. Getting to the heart of communities through football, SSS is much more than a kickabout – the enterprise’s goal is to help homeless and socially disadvantaged people by providing support, guidance and fun. The programme also features Mel Young, who founded The Big Issue in Scotland and has become well known for his role in establishing the hugely successful Homeless World Cup. He will soon debut his latest venture, The New Ism, which is an inclusive discussion platform created to give social innovators from all around the world the opportunity to brainstorm a more sustainable, fairer economic system. As Angela Constance, former Scottish cabinet secretary for communities, social security and equalities, said about social enterprise’s contribution to society: “As the world we live in continues to change and bring new challenges, with increasing global interdependence, our social entrepreneurs and social enterprises are helping to find new avenues towards social innovation and improvement. “They are helping to tackle key issues of poverty and inequality and to transform local communities. They are helping to create a more peaceful, fair and inclusive world, contributing to international development, trade and knowledge.” The Social Enterprise World Forum is held from September 12-14. sewfonline.com/sewf2018. Words: Hannah Westwater @hannahjtw
THE BIG ISSUE / p20 / September 10-16 2018
Words: Liam Geraghty @Lazergun_Nun
40-70,000
57,800
55,000
44,500
SOCIAL ENTERPRISES
The Big Issue has played a pivotal role in kicking off the social revolution in the UK since the magazine launched in 1991. Just as we led the charge for the street papers movement, we have also become one of the most prominent social enterprises in the UK. And that has paved the way for events like the Social Enterprise World Forum as the number of businesses for good swelled to around 70,000 in recent years. As the British Council put it in a 2015 assessment of the sector: “Overall social enterprise has flourished in the UK in recent years, despite the country’s economic downturn.” The Big Issue chose to become social enterprise because it is the business framework that best fits our motto of a “hand up not a handout”. Social enterprises take their profits and reinvest them back into the business and their communities to improve lives and enact social change. That could be helping cocoa plant growers in Ghana get a fair deal like Divine Chocolate, or helping homeless people lift themselves out of poverty by becoming baristas like Change Please. Profits generated by The Big Issue are reinvested back into helping vendors. Like many social enterprises, we tackle social problems, improve people’s life chances and support communities across the country, whether through social investment with Big Issue Invest by selling the magazine or through the Big Issue Foundation, our charitable arm. We also provide a platform for other social enterprises to engage with their customers with The Big Issue Shop. Being a social enterprise enables The Big Issue to be more than just a magazine – it allows us to be a force for social change. As Big Issue founder John Bird says: “Making picture frames with a social echo – you get what you want while giving somebody in need support – is as I said quintessentially what my work is about. Create a trail of good behind you.” By leading the social revolution, The Big Issue has done just that, with UK social enterprises now contributing an estimated £24bn to the economy. And every day more are choosing to tread the same path.
70,000
UK
GERMANY
GREECE PORTUGAL
SPAIN
(European Commission, 2015)
OUTSIDE THE EU
20,000 SOCIAL ENTERPRISES
WHY THE BIG ISSUE IS A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
EUROPE’S TOP FIVE SOCIAL ENTERPRISE HUBS
17,000 919
AUSTRALIA CANADA
USA
(Finding Australia’s Social Enterprise Sector Analysis (FASES), Canadian National Social Enterprise Sector Survey Report, members of the Social Enterprise Alliance)
Employs nearly a million people
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE UK
Approximately 70,000 social enterprises in the UK contributing £24bn to the economy Nearly a third work in some of the UK’s most deprived communities 59% of social For 16% of social enterprises employ at enterprises, this least one person who group forms at least is disadvantaged in half of all employees the labour market
£24bn
59%
31% 40% of social enterprises are led by women THE BIG ISSUE / p21 / September 10-16 2018
31% have black, Asian or minority ethnic directors
40% have a director with a disability
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Negotiations with Europe are ongoing – but not really going anywhere – and our uncertain future is set to dominate the upcoming party conference season. But this week, talks of a different kind could determine the UK’s place in a post-Brexit world. Professor Mike Hardy, who spent 15 years as a diplomat in the Middle East before taking up the Chair of Intercultural Relations at Coventry University, believes we can remain a global superpower by promoting world peace. He founded the RISING Global Peace Forum, which brings together leaders and academics to plot a better future. Focusing on unity instead of division, RISING proves it’s good to talk.
The Big Issue: Is this one of the most conflicted times in history? Professor Mike Hardy: This appears to be the most conflicted time but it’s actually one of the most peaceful times there has ever been. The transference of conflict from battlefields to communities is a new paradigm. The conflict that we have is changing; it’s very localised, focused in particular places, prejudice and discrimination within communities or in the cyber world. At the same time, the world is more peaceful but it’s more unequal and uneven. Who actually wants world peace? In the past, Russian and US leaders being on good terms would be something to celebrate. I think what people worry about is whether this veneer of camaraderie is a meaningful thing, and if it’s papering over cracks that exist. But I have to say, my whole team are passionate advocates for dialogue, not threat and posturing. So the more talk and the more contact you have, the more understanding is created. Peace is a nice ambition, but will the idea that a more peaceful world is a more prosperous world convince more people? Last year for the first time the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals embraced peace as a precondition for fighting poverty and climate change. At RISING this year is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former president of Liberia. She delivered that message singularly for Liberia saying that her country could never make the changes needed in health, education and fighting poverty unless it removed the conflict.
HOW PEACEFUL IS THE WORLD RIGHT NOW? The Global Peace Index, produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, analyses societal safety and security, the degree of militarisation and the extent of domestic and international conflict, ranking 163 states and territories according to the level of peacefulness. Their latest report found… The global level of peace has deteriorated by 0.27% in the last year This is the fourth successive year of deterioration In the last decade the world has become 2.38% less peaceful 92 countries became less peaceful, 71 became more peaceful Iceland is the most peaceful country in the world – and has been since 2008 Syria is the least peaceful country in the world – and has been since 2013 The UK is the 57th most peaceful country in the world The economic impact of violence on the global economy was $14.76 trillion – 12.4% of gross world product or $1,988 per person
THE BIG ISSUE / p23 / September 10-16 2018
Countries that trade together are less likely to be in conflict. Is trade good for peace? The only counter to that is the arms industry. Countries make money by selling arms and you can’t sell them if they’re not used. Is it Britain’s place to influence others to be more peaceful? There is no doubt in my mind that the UK genuinely has a compelling advantage in this area. We’re good at this, we’re well connected through the Commonwealth and our commitment to aid. We can establish the role for Britain as a superpower, not because we have a nuclear deterrent but because we are being a force for good.
Is leading the way for world peace how we could remain a key player on the global stage? This is an important question currently, defining our role in a post-Brexit world. We won’t be a powerful trading force but we can be an influencer for peace. There’s analysis to be done around defence procurement and the massive aircraft carriers we’ve built without the ability to use. They are the size of four football pitches but we haven’t got planes that can use them nor frigates to defend them. But as platforms for delivering humanitarian aid they’d be second to none. Imagine putting one of these aircraft carriers alongside Haiti after the earthquake – a whole city of support. These are ideas come out from the dialogue we have at RISING. The RISING Global Peace Forum takes place in Coventry this week. rising.org Words: Steven MacKenzie @stevenmackenzie
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A slow-burning psychedelic sci-fi chanson masterpiece inspired by Serge Gainsbourg, The Beach Boys, 1970s movie soundtracks and outer space, Arctic Monkeys’ Mercury Prizenominated sixth album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is one of the finest albums of 2018, and the Sheffield band’s boldest and most ambitious artistic statement to date. As they embark on the UK leg of their world tour, they came to The Big Issue to offer an exclusive, never-before-seen set of behind-the-scenes photographs taken by their friend Zackery Michael – on the road, during video shoots and in-and-around the studio in France where the record came together. The Big Issue is the only place you can see these images, although more visual content from these sessions will feature in exhibitions staged in Sheffield and London to coincide with the tour, including a version of the sculpture from the album’s cover, conceived and created by frontman Alex Turner. Turner also spoke to us to share some funny and revealing stories and insights, providing a candid and personal sub rosa glimpse of one of Britain’s most important bands during the latest exhilarating phase of their career. “We’re always happy to work with The Big Issue,” says Turner. Thanks Alex, the feeling’s mutual. Words: Alex Turner in conversation with Malcolm Jack Images: Zackery Michael THE BIG ISSUE / p2 / Arctic Monkeys
On photographer Zackery Michael “Zackery took a lot of photographs of us over the last six years or so. He’s a friend I made when I was living in New York and he lived in the same neighbourhood. At a certain point we ended up in the same city. We were on a video shoot for The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala from Suck it and See , and Zack had just got into town so he joined us and just started taking pictures. We’ve spent a lot of time with him on tour ever since and he’s someone that everyone feels really comfortable with. I suppose that’s why he gets the photographs he gets. He’s more behind the scenes than we let a lot of people.”
L-R Matt Helders (drums), Alex Turner (lead vocals, guitar, piano), Nick O’Malley (bass guitar, backing vocals), Jamie Cook (guitar) “They are enormous trousers. A friend gave me those, they were too small for him. He’s taller. They’re miles too big for me. I suppose there’s a bit more room in the trousers of this record, shall we say, than there was in the last one. Is that the quintessential Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino trouser? No, it’s more of a good studio trouser. Very comfortable.” THE BIG ISSUE / p3 / Arctic Monkeys
On Arctic Monkeys’ instant classic BBC session at Maida Vale Studios, London, June 2018 “There’s Jamie (Cook), and Matthew (Helders) with a drumstick in his mouth, as though it were a rose. I have to say, for that Maida Vale session, I have to give credit to the BBC for letting us do it how we wanted to do it. They really were supportive of that idea. Obviously the video we did for [I Bet You Look Good On The] Dancefloor was a sort of version of that attempt at something in the spirit of The Old Grey Whistle Test . Around the time when we did the Four Out of Five video, we’d rented these old cameras and these old monitors and we were messing around with pointing the film camera at the monitor and creating these kind of loops. I think that was where that started. I think with Maida Vale you don’t need to do a lot in there, it’s just the room looks cool anyway, there’s a feel to it. All that Whistle Test was was a band set up and they play. You still watch it now and it works. So we went in there with that sort of attitude. And of course we had Ben [Chappell], he directed the BBC thing with some of their people. He deserves more credit than I do.”
“It’s rare to get asked for an autograph these days I suppose, it’s all selfies. It’s like using the old cameras for our videos – I insist upon it. I don’t, I’m just pulling your leg. But I’ve had a lot of practice with my autograph over the years, it’s absolutely formidable now.”
On touring Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino “I suppose it’s always with some uncertainty that you release something new, and this was no different. There was a greater sense of uncertainty for a number of reasons, but that seems quite a long time ago now. We’ve got Tom [Rowley] and Tyler [Parkford] playing with us now as well, and that creates a bit more scope and versatility with the show. I’m really happy with the band now and how it’s sounding. It feels like there’s something that’s there this time that wasn’t there before.” THE BIG ISSUE / p4 / Arctic Monkeys
“That’s in Reno, Nevada, when we were doing the Tranquility Base video. It’s actually a part that you don’t see that much in the video because, unfortunately, the camera got jammed and so all the footage from that set-up came back unusable. Which is a great shame because it was one of the largest, strangest rooms I’ve ever been in. I think there was something inherently Kubrick about it from that carpet. There’s a touch of The Shining , I think. It’s like a wonky Shining . I guess it was a conference room. It seemed like the carpet on the walls and the carpet on the floor were having a disagreement. Carpets on walls having disagreements with carpets on floors – I think that might be the mantra of the interior design department in the Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.”
On posing for photographs [and referencing Abbey Road -era Beatles] “I suppose when you’re looking at, when it comes to photographing four blokes together, I can’t think of that many scenarios that aren’t bands that you can draw reference from. I mean, there are a couple of things that we’ve referenced before – like groups of scientists and things like that. But invariably things like iconic shots of The Beatles kind of rear their head. I suppose you just try not to be the guys leaning over the edge all the time.”
THE BIG ISSUE / p6 / Arctic Monkeys
On La Frette Studios, La Frette-sur-Seine “La Frette is where we recorded a lot of the album, and certainly brought it home and brought it all together. I’d never been there before, but it’s somewhere we’ve wanted to go in the past, and nearly did on the last Last Shadow Puppets album. I think it was something as simple as our producer James [Ford] had come out to LA at the start of making this album, and so it was sort of our turn to come over to him [in Europe]. This was somewhere we’d been wanting to go for a bit – Laurence [Bell] from Domino had recommended it. There’s this band I really like called Timber Timbre who had just been there, and the guy from that band had written something about the studio which I remember reading, and he had very complimentary things to say. We decided to give it a go and we weren’t disappointed – it’s a fantastic studio, it’s got a great feel and the people that were taking care of us there were really wonderful. I miss it to be honest.”
“We didn’t get into Paris at all during that trip, most of our time was spent just in that little village [La Frette-sur-Seine]. It’s a long time since we’ve done that on a record, lived in the place where we’ve recorded and been together every night. It was a fantastic experience.”
“I’ve enjoyed talking to you about these things. Photos of myself. The only thing I prefer to having my picture taken is to have to dissect it afterwards. I’m only kidding, I’ve not felt remotely uncomfortable.” THE BIG ISSUE / p7 / Arctic Monkeys
On creating the sculpture for the cover of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino “I’ve never made anything like that before. It got a bit groovy back there for a minute. This is the first time that I’ve ever owned a craft knife. No cereal boxes were harmed. I don’t eat that much cereal actually, any more. Certainly not the types of quantities that it would have required to get through this process. There was a couple of art shops that I became familiar with. I went through a lot of blades. One thing that I can say is that I’ve learned my way around the craft knife aisle.”
free for friends Camden Town Jewish Museum London Raymond Burton House 129 – 131 Albert Street London NW1 7NB
jewishmuseum.org.uk/asterix #AsterixInBritain
Generously supported by: The Adlard Family Charitable Trust Jacaranda Trust Astérix in Britain is based on an original exhibition by The Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris (MAHJ)
Archive film footage courtesy of INA France
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Photo: Francois G. Durann
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THE BIG ISSUE / p26 / September 10-16 2018
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Grace Moretz is one of the biggest stars around. She’s only 21 but has y Kicked Ass, and now she’s calling test film an act of Trump rebellion seducation of Cameron Post is the finest indie film ear so far, already attracting Oscar buzz for its star race Moretz and writer-director Desiree Akhavan. The film highlights the insidious prevalence of gay conversion therapy, and it turns out that the idea of “praying the gay away” is not, as we might imagine, a historical anomaly. As if to confirm this, Pope Francis, only last week, spoke to journalists and advised parents to pray and seek psychiatric help for their children should they “appear to be gay”. Teenager Cameron Post (Moretz) is sent to the God’s Promise camp after being caught with her secret girlfriend outside the school prom. At the camp, alongside a ragtag group of gay and gender fluid misfits, she is ‘treated’ by psychologist and fundamentalist Christian Lydia Marsh (Jennifer Ehle) and her brother Rick. According to Moretz, making, starring in, or even buying a ticket to watch this film is an act of defiance. “Now more than ever, melding your activism with your art is very important, and you should have some sort of societal stance and progressive platform in filmmaking,” she says when we meet in central London. “I want to tell stories that will have some sort of impact. A movie like this is your highest form of rebellion against the [Trump] administration. And it is something they can’t silence. It is a queer story, by queer people, for queer people. But also for the masses.” The film opened in big cities across America and on the back of good opening week audiences is travelling more widely. “Now all the towns and cities that really need to see this movie to change perspectives will actually get that chance,” says Moretz. “That is why buying a ticket to see this movie is casting a ballot. It is voting for representation in film. “This film educated me in how prevalent [gay conversion therapy] still is internationally, but especially in America right now. And I am a very loud advocate of the LGBT community. So if I was unaware of it, I felt this was a story we really should tell.” If the style of the film evokes the slacker films of the early 1990s (when the film is set), the tone harks back in a way to the 1980s Brat Pack films, with the John Hughes classic The Breakfast Club seemingly an influence. There is humour alongside the heartbreak as the character of Cameron Post finds her people at the camp and realises she is not alone. One scene, a raucous singalong of 4 Non Blondes’ hit What’s Up? (the pop-culture references in the film are exquisite) proved to be a major release of tension for both the characters and the actors. “We filmed it on the day we woke up and found out that Donald Trump was our president,” explains Moretz. “So that fell on a really, really wild d day. We were all so incredibly sad. But art begets life sometimes. It was a moment of trying to find d and project all the sadness we were feeling that day through that scene.” But even more crucial than the humour is that the film doees not preach. Instead, it is all th he
more efective for the compassion it shows towards characters to whom the filmmakers are diametrically opposed politically. “What I like about the film is that it doesn’t give opinions but it does ask questions,” says Moretz. “It allows you to form your own opinion. “I learnt through the research for the role that the people trying to condition these kids to hate themselves don’t see it like that. The people running these centres are doing what they think is a good thing, lending a hand to people who are in a bad place. To show empathy on the other side of that aisle is a smart choice. “There is a weaponisation of religion to get across fear-based ideals. The people who are running these centres, it is all fear-based and sometimes self-hate.” Despite her youth, Moretz is already a veteran when it comes to speaking out and being a strong ally to LGBTQ+ communities. She has, she says, never considered being anything other than forthright and opinionated – despite pressures from the star system in the US not to rock the boat or enter the political fray. “I have always been an outspoken woman, like forever. Since I was 12 years old,” she says. “So to have the chance to formulate my opinion and promote that on a platform and give a microphone to the marginalised groups that might not be able to have their stories told? That is a chance that I take on. “When I first started speaking out, it wasn’t cool. It is cool to be political now. But when I started on that journey Above: Moretz (centre) says Cameron Post has given her a platform. Below: As Hit Girl in Kick Ass and that trajectory, there was a lot of, ‘Oh. Are you sure you want to be that girl?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know what that means, but yeah, I guess I do’.” And what does Moretz want this film to say, specifically? “I hope people take away the idea of your chosen family. Because that is the mantra of the community and any marginalised group – there will be people who will try to get you down, but you can find people who will see you as the person that you are, and will listen to who you are,” she says. “To be a gay person and to meet your first gay people and realise you are not alone, and that you are not as isolated as you thought you were, that is super important.” This message, as Moretz knows, is one that needs to be shared. “There are so many teens that are gay and come out as being gay and are pushed out of their family and their lives,” she says. “The majority of homeless teens in America are gay. The idea that they would rather be homeless and with people who they feel see them as who they are compared to being in a home where they are ostracised and told they are born imperfect speaks volumes. nd I would say that this “During filming, Desi an is like a prequel to a story of gay homeless teens. ecause that is where they are headed.” The Misedu ucation of Cameron Post is out now in n cinemas. Interview: Adrian Lobb @adey70
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The London district of Bankside is one of the oldest in the country. In the 16th century ‘Banksyde’ sat just outside the old city walls and became a natural landing place for outsiders, dissenters and free thinkers arriving in London. Five hundred years later, the legacy of this artistic, anarchic melting pot is still clear to see. Bankside is home to the world’s most popular museum – the Tate Modern – as well as Shakespeare’s Globe and Borough Market. For the London Design Festival, Bankside has challenged leading artists such as Morag Myerscough as well as a host of design studios to create flags that celebrate the area’s rebellious history and independent spirit. The full complement of 60 flags will hang at Borough Market’s Jubilee Place during London Design Festival, before being flown throughout the area. Find out more at visitbankside.com and londondesignfestival.com
THE BIG ISSUE / p29 / September 10-16 2018
BOOKS COLUMBUS IN SPACE
Star pupils Julien Harrod says remarkable experiments are taking place on the International Space Station. But some basic DIY helps too running smoothly and the results coming in from 10 years of research – focusing on the people and machines that keep the laboratory running. In space nothing can be taken for granted, and each aspect of survival needs to be considered carefully. Hot air does not rise as on Earth, so keeping things at the right temperature – including astronauts – requires active cooling. The Space Station and Columbus use water to transfer heat to externalammonia-filledradiators. Ammonia’s advantage is it has a low freezing point so continues to circulateoutsidetheSpaceStation, but it is toxic to humans so better kept outside. Even something as simple as a household annoyance like dust requires thought and planning. At home dust settles on table tops and ornaments that require weekly cleaning, but in spaceduststayssuspendedforever and can irritate astronaut’s eyes and lungs if not filtered out by the air conditioning system. The International Space Station project is a mind-boggling endeavour–thefactsandnumbers are impressive but hard to really comprehend. In the end, the human element of sending Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency seated in the Columbus laboratory module researching astronauts into space to live, work how the nervous system adapts to microgravity and bring back benefits for Earthbound humans is what fascinates facility that suspends dust particles in cold most. When Columbus was installed, a plasmatorecreatehowatomsbehave.These water valve was leaking and causing insights into the nano-world are running problemsuntilthesolutionwasoferedthat continuously, while the technology behind any computer whiz in the family will it has spawned medical equipment that suggest: have you tried turning it of and on disinfects wounds and hospitals, a again?Fromblockingaholewithyourfinger much-needed new line of defence against or applying the first step of any electronics antibiotic-resistant bacteria. issues, research in the most inhospitable The Columbus laboratory was designed place for humans is first and foremost a and launched before the era of smartphones wonderful discovery of what humans andubiquitousinternet.Relyingonover two require to live and thrive and how, despite being a large international million moving parts to work without fail project made of down-toduring its launch, the mission to bring the 12.8tonnemoduletotheInternationalSpace earth-humans,wemanage Station took just over 12 days in February to build things that almost 2008, since then it has stayed attached and defy imagination. sends down around 500 gigabytes of data to Columbus in Space by Julien scientists every month. Harrod and the European The book Columbus in Space looks at the Space Agency is out now space lab’s history and installation, how it (Century £8.99) works, the people on Earth who keep it takes exactly 42 seconds for cells from mammals to adapt to weightlessness. Benefitsforusearthlingscomebothfrom space research but also research for space. Technology developed to track astronauts’ eyes is now used in most laser surgery to correct eyesight – if something is robust enough to work in space, it is often perfect for use on Earth. Research that models how atoms behave in three dimensions was hampered by gravity, so researchers built a
THE BIG ISSUE / p30 / September 10-16 2018
Photo: Flickr/NasaJohnson-nasa2explore
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ast month a spacecraft that was dockedtotheInternationalSpace Station sprung a small leak – a reminderthatthereareonlyafew millimetres of metal and protective shielding that keep astronauts above us alive.Thankstointensivetrainingandbeing prepared for everything, the six astronauts quickly found the small hole and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst blocked it by using, yes, his finger. More permanent repairs followed using tape and epoxy glue. The incident is a reminder of how fragile life outside our planet is and a testament to all the people on Earth who build, design and maintain the spacecraft that orbit our planet quietly with very small marginsforerror.Astronautstake the limelight and quite rightly so, they are putting their lives at risk, but why do space agencies go to all the efort and expense? To find answers to questions we haven’t yet thought to ask. This year the European laboratory Columbus that is part of the International Space Station is celebrating 10 years in orbit. It has circled our planet over 55, 000 times and over 5,000 people on Earth have been involved in planningandrunningexperiments thatcannotbedoneanywhereelse. Theattractionforscientiststohavetheir experiment run in space – aside from the cocktail-partybraggingrights–isthatthere is nowhere else to investigate phenomena for long periods of time without gravity gettingintheway.Studyinghowsomething behaves in a controlled environment is the essence of a scientific experiment and laboratories on Earth can control almost every aspect of the world around us, but there is only one European laboratory that can remove gravity from the equation: Columbus. No wonder that 60 experiments are run each year on Columbus alone as its stateof-the-art research facilities can accommodate disciplines as diverse as medicine, geophysics, fundamental science andbiology.Experimentshaverevealedwhy plants grow in a corkscrew fashion – first described by Charles Darwin – and that it
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TOP 5 BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS MJ NICHOLLS
DRIVE YOUR PLOW... / CAN YOU TOLERATE THIS?
Animal magic
MULLIGAN STEW by Gilbert Sorrentino A rigorously hilarious handbook on writing and writers in the form of an acerbic, innovative comic novel. The intricately hewn novel-withinthe-novel is a parodic masterclass of bad writing. An education in itself that outclasses most ‘how to’ writing guides.
Jane Graham follows a murder trail which turns out to be as magical as it is mysterious
Illustration: Dom McKenzie
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he might not be a household name, but Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk is a crucial auditor of our shape-shifting times. Her previous novel Flights won the 2018 International Man Booker, and she is regularly compared to weights as heavy as WG Sebald and Milan Kundera. She has the wonder and expressiveness of the former,andtheyearning andplayfulness of the latter, but she also embraces a uniquekindofEasternEuropeanmagical realism and enjoys an offbeat dark humour that is quite her own. Drive your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead centres around Mrs Duszejko, an animal-loving teacher in her late 60s who lives alone in a remote Polish village. She begins the novel bereft due to the disappearance of her two beloved dogs. Then members of the local hunting club are murdered, and she is pulled into the ensuing investigation. That’s ostensibly the plot, but it’s a fraction of what’s really happening. Entering Mrs Duszejko’s rich, eccentric world is like waking up in Oz, or falling into Wonderland.Everything,fromtheunreliable mobile phone signal to the patterns of the wind, is attributed character and motivation, so that the whole universe shimmers with intent, agency and hidden meaning. A kind of cosmic Sherlock, she is surrounded by angels, devils and ghosts, all shivering under a storytelling starry black sky. The constant, almost Virgil-like company of fellow seer of transplendence William Blake, whose books she is helping a friend translate, serves to further heighten the sensation of a world burning bright. If this sounds unnervingly close to Ben Okri-style mawkishness, rest assured; Tokarczuk is far too sophisticated and intelligent a writer to wander through a novel being constantly overawed by beauty and amazingness. In fact, Mrs Duszejko’s world is imbued with menace and loss, and her response is not that of a simpering damsel. She’s as prone to surges of violent rage as she is to beatific outbursts. Anger, she says, while battering the door of a neighbour’s shed with a hammer to release an imprisoned dog, restores the gift of clarity of vision. A nondescript old woman buoyed by a murder mystery, there are nevertheless times when she sounds more like Patrick Bateman than Miss Marple.
Mrs Duszejko’s singular voice is increasingly intoxicating as the novel goes on, operating like a highly knowledgable, but unnerving and possibly mad, spirit guide, as quirkilyakintoWALL.EandBobDylanasthe romanticpoets.“Finallytransformedintotiny quivering photons,” she concludes, “each of our deeds will set of into outer space, where the planets will keep watching it like a film until the end of the world.” Amen. New Zealander Ashleigh Young’s Can You Tolerate This? is an extremely charming essay collection, comprised mainly of snapshots of Young’s life from childhood onwards; walking across gravel roads hand in hand with an imaginary Paul McCartney, startingtowrite,cheeringonherbrother’snot quitehappeningmusicalcareer,fallinginlove, discovering yoga, struggling with shyness, experiencing grief. She can be funny, self-effacing and romantic, but most impressive are her extraordinary powers of observation, as if God hotwired a microscope and a movie camera into her brain. With the most elegant, evocative prose, she invites us to move in with her and her family, and seems so wise about so many things I could hardly believe she was real. A wonderful book, an irresistible woman. Words: Jane Graham @janeannie
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, out on September 12 (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Fitzcarraldo Editions, £12.99) Can You Tolerate This? by Ashleigh Young, out now (Bloomsbury, £14.99) THE BIG ISSUE / p31 / September 10-16 2018
MY BACK PAGES by Steven Moore One of the finest American critics and a voraciously insatiable reader. In this collection of essays and reviews spanning several decades, Moore champions original and challenging literature – from William Gaddis and Alexander Theroux to neglected marginals Chandler Brossard and Brigid Brophy – with unstinting exuberance. A TEMPLE OF TEXTS by William H Gass A master of the melodic sentence, novelist and essayist Gass brings a swinging, sensuous style to illuminate the efforts of others. Gass stands up for attentive, exuberant language and playful forms, showcasing a vast range of Latin American, Scottish, and American über-brains. THE BOOK OF LOST BOOKS By Stuart Kelly An act of rabid and loving bibliophilia, Kelly tells the tales of unfinished manuscripts, most interrupted by death in a witty and pellucid manner. From Homer to Georges Perec this is an epic sweep of encyclopedic references and old-world scholarship. DOUBLE OR NOTHING by Raymond Federman Perhaps the finest novel on the composition of itself, Federman’s work is a blueprint for bold and fresh approaches to telling stories, without sacrificing humour, emotional intensity or formal ambition. This noodle-obsessed novel is one of the few universally accessible ‘avant-garde’ texts in existence. The 1002nd Book to Read BeforeYou Die by MJ Nicholls is out now (Sagging Meniscus Press, £12.99)
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EDWARD LAWRENSON VISIT BIGISSUE.COM
Back in the saddle A compelling mix of documentary and fiction sees a young rodeo rider contemplate an uncertain future
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ne of the standout scenes in The Rider, the excellent second feature from writer-director Chloé Zhao, is an extended encounter between its taciturn cowboy hero and an even more taciturn horse. Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau) is a young rodeo star living in a trailer on a South Dakota reservation. A bad head injury has forced him to take time of from the sport he loves. During this period of involuntary retirement, which looks to be more permanent than Blackburn would like to admit, he visits a ranch owned by a friend. The friend has a horse which needs taming and Blackburn takes on the job. So, stepping into a small corral, Brady sets about placating this snorting, jumpy beast. Over several mesmerising minutes we watch Brady, his manner at once gentle and assertive, calm the horse down, from galloping around the cowboy in small, angry circles to the triumphant moment when it finally consents to have Blackburn mount it. The process, observed by Zhao’s camera through a gap in the fence nearby, is untouched by any sense of fakery, and it should come as no surprise that Brady is himself a genuine rodeo star with a lifetime of experience of working with horses. The Rider is a remarkable alchemy of documentary and fiction. Zhao’s superb cast draw on their real-life experience, playing, to varying degrees, versions of themselves (including his father and young sister, a teenager with learning difficulties).
Working with a small crew, the young disabled from an accident he Chinese-born director has harnessed this sufered when he was a bull rider. The two are able to joke together, but it’s real-life material into a poetic, gorgeously realised parable of loss and recovery against desperately sad too, especially when we a backdrop of the American midwest at its compare Scott’s frail, paralysed condition most majestic. today. He communicates to Blackburn only When we first encounter Jandreau (the through hand signs, in contrast to the non-actor has a born movie star’s sharp robustly physical young cowboy we see intensity) he’s unpicking the glimpsed in phone footage of old rodeo stitches of a head wound from a recent shows. He tries not to fall at a rodeo performance. Zhao show it, but mixed in focuses on the bloodied scar in an icky with Blackburn’s close-up. It closes over longing to return to during the course of the rodeo riding is the film, but Brady is left fear that a similar fate FINAL REEL struggling with other could befall him. Steven Blackburn’s world more lasting consequences Eastwood’s is a ruggedly of this injury. documentary The accident has left masculine one. The default Island follows four him suffering from response to any expression individuals on the Isle of seizures. At certain of vulnerability is to Wight in the final stages of a moments his hand clamps “cowboy up”, and yet what terminal disease. There are strikes you about Zhao’s tight and he has to force his some necessarily harrowing film is its delicacy and fingers apart to release scenes here, but this is also a whatever he’s holding at tenderness. This is a film of profoundly humane, boldly the time – invariably the subtle, unspoken grace unblinking portrait of an notes, an intimate and reins to a horse. For Brady, inevitability that so many deeply moving portrait of the problem is one of of us would prefer not to both Blackburn and the letting go, not just of think about. An important, community of which he is physical things but of his powerful film. part. It is an understated rodeo dreams. A stark lesson in the gem of a film, and marks dangers Blackburn faces from ignoring his Zhao as a major talent. from doctor’s advice to stop riding is provided The Rider is in cinemas by his regular visits to his friend Lane. This September 14 young man is played by Lane Scott, himself Jandreu’s real-life friend. He is severely Edward Lawrenson @EdwardLawrenson THE BIG ISSUE / p33 / September 10-16 2018
journey man From depression to accidental authority on global terror, Simon Reeve has never known where he’ll land next. But he always gets there by the road less travelled. Interview: Steven MacKenzie
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sama bin Laden gave Simon Reeve his big break. In 1998, while working as an investigative reporter, Reeve published The New Jackals, a book about ‘the future of terrorism’. It went largely unnoticed until 2001, when Reeve suddenly found himself in demand as the world’s foremost Al-Qaeda expert. The BBC contacted him about working on a documentary. They wanted Reeve to infiltrate the terrorist network; instead he wrote and presented Meet the Stans, in which he travelled from Kazakhstan to Afghanistan. Over 20 series exploring lesser-trod parts of the globe followed, making unflappable Reeve, as fearlessly adventurous as he is engaging, one of the BBC’s most prolific presenters. But his career did not take a traditional path. “I didn’t go to university; I left school and went on the dole,” he says. “I was in quite a bad way in my late teens and I was very close to ending it all. It took a lot to pull me out of that and to rebuild my life. “People say things like, ‘Visualise where you want to be in five years’ time’ – screw you! I could barely visualise where I wanted to be by the evening. Taking things day by day, setting small challenges – could I get myself out of bed, could I get myself to the newsagents – simple things like that gradually pulled me out of a dark place and set me on the road to work. It started to give me purpose and meaning in life, which I think is what many of us really need and crave, and is often absent from people’s working life now.” Reeve’s father had encouraged him to apply for a post boy position at The Sunday Times, and the 19-year-old stood out in a newsroom of Oxbridge graduates. Then-editor Andrew Neil took a chance on him, and reporting on the 1993 World Trade Center bombing started a weird, completely unpredictable journey, leading to the high-flying life he lives today. Having travelled to more than 120 countries, Reeve has hunted with the Bushmen of the Kalahari and been hunted by the KGB, detained on suspicion of spying in the secretive Soviet enclave of Transnistria. “I happened to turn on the telly last night and I was confronted with Michael Portillo relaxing in a bath looking out over the Taj Mahal,” he says. “He was doing Great Indian Railway Journeys, covered in rose petals, drinking champagne. I thought, my God I’ve got the wrong gig here.”
Reeve is currently filming a new series on the Mediterranean. “I’ve told a couple of people and they say, oh that sounds pretty boring compared to what you’ve done before. But the Med is a completely mad part of the world.” It is an area of extremes, Reeve says. Beyond the beaches of the European Med, the same sea is shared by Israel, Gaza and northern African nations that have proved hesitant to allow access to a BBC film crew. Brits feel at home in countries like Spain and Italy – really only a few hundred miles from lands of great poverty and conflict. Geographical distances are small, but political and cultural ones are enormous. “It is completely incredible that you can get unbelievable extremes existing still on the planet,” Reeve says. “You get disaster and glory within quite close confines. It’s been an incredible shock to me how you can go from mayhem to normality just by crossing a border. We really take what we have for granted.” Reeve begins a UK tour this month visiting theatres to explain why, where and how people should travel, and encouraging everyone to look for adventure even if it is closer to home. “We are hardwired to go further, to want to know what’s over the hill to see what lies beyond, but the islands we live in are very beautiful, packed with human stories, eccentric characters. “One of the great things to do is get a map of your area, upend a glass centred over where you live, draw a circle around the rim and then explore that area. Make sure you know the back of your hand before you go further around the world.” And at the centre of Reeve’s map would be his greatest discovery and a reminder of how far he has come from the uncertain days of his youth. “I’m fairly happy now,” he says. “I’ve got someone who calls me dad and that’s the best thing in the world.” An Audience With Simon Reeve tours from September 17. See shootandscribble.com for dates. Step By Step by Simon Reeve is out now (Hodder & Stoughton, £20) @stevenmackenzie THE BIG ISSUE / p34 / September 10-16 2018
TV
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LUCY SWEET VISIT BIGISSUE.COM
Housing benefits Airbnb-friendly makeover show Stay Here is the ultimate symbol of irritating white privilege
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Photo: Dave Willis
n season four of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the central character is still getting to grips with modern life after being detained in a bunker by Jon Hamm since the late Nineties. So her friend, high-maintenance musical performer Titus Andromedon, has to explain Netflix to her (which is called Houseflix on the show, for legal reasons). “You know Al Gore, who invented the internet?” he breezes, confidently. “Well, there’s an ‘Al Gore rhythm.’ It’s a very powerful rhythm and it picks things it thinks you like.” However, Kimmy is perturbed to find so many murder documentaries. “It’s white lady porn,” Titus continues. “Their lives are safe and predictable, so every once in a while they need to see a guy push a woman down a staircase.” After laughing at this, I then went on to assess my own Houseflix Al Gore rhythm, and sure enough, I’m a hideous stereotype. But Titus failed to mention the other kind of white lady porn; Netflix interiors shows. They makeTheRealHousewivesfranchise look likeStraightOuttaCompton.TakeStay Here, which is a monument to insuferable white privilege – a makeover show for your Airbnbproperty.Imean,Idon’tknowabout you, but it’s so hard to furnish your Seattle houseboatwhenyou’vegotabusylife.Who has thetimetoshopfordoodadsANDmake sure yourpostissearchengine-optimised? Not me! Luckily, there are two people who THE BIG ISSUE / p35 / September 10-16 2018
do, a woman with big hair whose name escapes me, and Peter, an English real estate ‘guru’ with a suspect transatlantic accent and black framed glasses, who says things like, “We’re niche-ing out, yo.” The first episode follows the owners of the aforementioned Seattle houseboat. They’ve only ever had one guest, and aspiring Tom Hanks or Meg Ryans wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. It’s a bit poky, the fridge is too big, and the bedroom is up a terrifying ladder. But to be fair, it’s a BOAT. So big hair lady and Peter set about on a huge-scale makeover that must involve at least 80 people working under an awning that would dwarf the Space Needle. “Let’s drill down for a moment,” says Pete, meaningfully. It turns out that the owners, who wear matching jackets, have a baby and really need to make the business work. So they are told how to get Google to recognise their property, and are advised to get a really tiny oven. When it’s done, they’ll basically build a new boat. “Now we need to get the communal money shots,” Pete babbles. Big hair lady shows them one of the most important life skills of all – arranging cheese on a board for the camera. Everyone is delighted, and a bouncing, healthy new revenue stream is born. Of course, nobody mentions Airbnb for legal reasons. @lucytweet1
MUSIC
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MALCOLM JACK VISIT BIGISSUE.COM
Sleeve it out! Muse lead the way when it comes to the year’s worst album covers
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peak the instruction “Siri, show me a rock band having a midlife crisis” into your iPhone, and the cover art for Muse’s forthcoming eighth album Simulation Theory may well be the image your savvy virtual assistant selects. Inthesuper-stylisedretro-futuristicneon hues of a ZX Spectrum video game, the Teignmouth trio are depicted as sunglassessporting cyber heroes, surrounded by fast cars, werewolves and spacemen shooting lasers. It’s all so pubescent it makes one ponder if Muse aren’t the first monsters of stadium rock to somehow remain frustrated virginsthisfarintoalongcareer.Ifitalllooks suspiciously like the art for Netflix’s hit 1980s-setsci-fihorrorseriesStrangerThings, then that’ll be because it’s done by a guy who worked on the show, British artist Kyle Lambert. Because why bother coming up withyourowncoolaestheticwhenyou’rerich enough to buy someone else’s instead? Incredibly, Simulation Theory might not even be the worst album cover art I’ve seen so far in 2018. Let’s have a look through the cracks in our fingers at some of the other contenders for most hideous sleeve of the year to date. Siri, show me a sick bucket.
TRAVIS SCOTT – ASTROWORLD Nothing to see here, readers, just American rapper Travis Scott’s head rendered mouth-agape as a giant inflatable and depicted as theentrancetosomekindofsexy dystopianamusementpark,with abunchofscantilyattiredmodels scattered about the place, including one stuffed into a Perspex box for reasons unexplained. Shot by American photographerDavidLaChapelle, this thick slice of WTF caused a bit of a stir because eagle-eyed observers spotted that trans model Amanda Lepore had been edited out somewhere between the first draft and the final version. And also because it is patently awful.
NEKO CASE – HELL-ON Icanrelatetothisimageactually, because I remember when I quit smoking sometimes the only thing I could think of to do to satisfy the cravings was to fashion three packets of Benson & Hedges into a sort of Indian headdress, then set fire to my shoulder.OrmaybeI’vegotNeko Case all wrong, and Hell-On is in fact a concept record in stirring defense of the stubbornly unapologetic smoker, featuring songs such as You’d Never Catch Keith Richards Vaping and Gaspers Outside the Pub feat NigelFarage.Hardtosaybecause I haven’t listened to it and, based on this cover, neither do I wish to, to be quite honest.
THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS – AMERICA Topical textual state of the nation ruminations from Jared Leto’s alt-rock vanity project. Not content with just one stupid cover, America in fact comes in a choice of multiple stupid covers each featuring pointless lists of words ranging from most prescribed drugs to popular sex positions to highest-paid YouTubers and other such hot topics. I can think of a long list of words to describe not just this idea but Thirty Seconds to Mars in general, but they’re not really fit for print in a family magazine.
THE BIG ISSUE / p37 / September 10-16 2018
JACK WHITE – BOARDING HOUSE REACH Oh d e a r. Sof t-hued androgynous misery guts with stormy clouds for hair stares blank ly into the middle dista nce. It ’s a ll a bit portentous. It’s all a bit Enya. It looks like it could have been put together on MS Paint. What thoughts trouble our fed-up dreamer, with her head full of cumulus? “How did I let Jack put me up to posing for ages with a big bag of cotton wool on my head?” “Did I leave the hob on?” “Why is this album cover art so very, very bad?” @MBJack
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Over 4 MILLION sold worldwide! Helpful for golf, sprained wrist, grip strength, carpal tunnel, tennis, climbing, guitar, tennis elbow, cycling, RSI, piano, broken arm, gardening, shooting, martial basically...everything arts, drumming, squash, hockey, cricket, arm wrestling,
THE BIG ISSUE / p38 / September 10-16 2018
ADVERTISING CLASSIFIEDS To advertise: Jenny Bryan 020 3890 3744 / jennifer_bryan@dennis.co.uk
THE BIG ISSUE / p39 / September 10-16 2018
ADVERTISING CLASSIFIEDS To advertise: Jenny Bryan 020 3890 3744 / jennifer_bryan@dennis.co.uk
ENROL! NOW
ENROLNOW FOR 2018/19 Visit WAES Lisson Grove Centre to enrol for September courses in Westminster!
3 3 3
Get advice on choosing the right qualification course to help you get work ready State-of-the-art classrooms, creative studios and workshops Evening and weekend short courses for hobbies and leisure - book online!
Visit WAES Lisson Grove Centre to secure your September course place. 219 Lisson Grove, London NW8 8LW Find out more at www.waes.ac.uk/courses
020 7297 7297 | info@waes.ac.uk | www.waes.ac.uk |
THE BIG ISSUE / p40 / September 10-16 2018
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ADVERTISING CLASSIFIEDS To advertise: Jenny Bryan 020 3890 3744 / jennifer_bryan@dennis.co.uk
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ERRER?
% 50
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS
Can you spot misteaks? Proofreaders and editors work from home and urn up to £28ph, part- or full-thyme. Work on books, websites, brochures and moor! Fun, rewarding, flexible wok.
9 Distance-leaning courses 9 Face-to-face seminar options 9 Advice and support with your new career
Qualify and start earning money within weeks.
www.chapterhousepublishing.com
01392 432951
THE BIG ISSUE / p41 / September 10-16 2018
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ADVERTISING CLASSIFIEDS To advertise: Jenny Bryan 020 3890 3744 / jennifer_bryan@dennis.co.uk
Why Not Be A Proofreader? As a freelance proofreader and copy editor you can earn a good income making sure that copy is professional and error free. Earning your share can be fun, varied and profitable. Our Proofreading and Copy Editing Course will show you how to set yourself up as a freelancer – either full or part-time – putting you in control of your working life! You’ll receive: • A first-class, home-study course created by professionals • Expert, personal tuition from your tutor • Advice on all types of proofreading and copy editing techniques • Plus much more! If you want to be a proofreader and copy editor, this is the way to start! It’s ideal for beginners. No previous experience or special education required. You can be earning in as little as 2-3 months. 15 day trial. For free details visit our website or call us today!
www.wbproofreading.com 0800 856 2008 FREE CALL 24 HRS
Quote Ref: SZ10918P
Reasons To Enrol Specialist course on proofreading and copy editing. Caring constructive help from expert tutors. Four tutor-marked assignments. Help and advice from our experienced Student Advisory Team. Flexible study programme - you have up to two years to complete your course but you can do it in as little as three months if you wish. Specialist advice on how to find work.
Expert Opinions
“Overall, I found the information in this course very useful. It covered all the main areas that anyone interested in working as a proofreader/copy editor would need to know.� Shazia Fardous, Freelance Proofreader and Copyeditor
15 days trial.
“This is an extremely helpful course both for those starting proofreading and for those who, like me, need to be reminded of everything we have forgotten. Above all, I thoroughly enjoyed the tone of voice of the author – he writes with authority but manages to keep a light touch.� Dorothy Nicolle
Continuing Professional Development Certificate. Advice on how to set yourself up in business. All this for only ÂŁ374 (instalment terms available)
Members of ITOL and NAWE
Writers Bureau
29
Years of Success
www.facebook.com/thewritersbureau www.twitter.com/writersbureau
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“The material is very informative and interesting as well as covering pretty much everything you would need to know when starting to proofread. There are a lot of tips and ideas for freelancers in general that you can see have been tried and tested and are being passed on in good faith.
Enrol when it suits you. Instant access to course material when you enrol online.
ADDRESS .............................................................................................................. ..................................................................................................................................
Start TODAY When You Enrol ONLINE! START YOUR COURSE TODAY by visiting our website. Your course modules and the first assignment are available online so you can start studying while you wait for your course books to arrive.
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Freepost THE WRITERS BUREAU THE BIG ISSUE / p42 / September 10-16 2018
ADVERTISING CLASSIFIEDS To advertise: Jenny Bryan 020 3890 3744 / jennifer_bryan@dennis.co.uk
Mental illness and brain disorders will aīect everyone’s life at some Ɵme. One in four of us as direct suīerers. Here at The Psychiatry Research Trust our sole aim is to raise funds for mental health and brain disease research being carried out at the internaƟonally renowned InsƟtute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (KCL), Bethlem and Maudsley hospitals. We aim to support research by young scienƟsts in a wide range of mental health topics, including Alzheimer's and Motor Neurone Disease, EaƟng Disorders, PsychoƟc Illness, AddicƟons and Childhood Problems Our target is not just to Įnd bĞƩĞr treatments for suīerers but also to understand the underlying causes of mental illness and brain disease with the goal of Įnding means of prevenƟons and cures for these illnesses. For further informaƟon or to make a donaƟon contact:
The Psychiatry Research Trust PO 87, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF Tel: 0207 703 6217 Web: www.psychiatryresearchtrust.co.uk Email: psychiatry_research_trust@kcl.ac.uk Donate on line at www.justgiving.com/psychiatryresearchtrust Registered Charity Number 284286
THE BIG ISSUE / p43 / September 10-16 2018
C
PETITIO ON
FOUNDERS John Bird and Gordon Roddick Group chair Nigel Kershaw Managing director Russell Blackman EDITORIAL & PRODUCTION Editor Paul McNamee Managing editor Vicky Carroll Features editor Steven MacKenzie Digital editor Ben Sullivan Books editor Jane Graham News & entertainment Adrian Lobb Film Edward Lawrenson Radio Robin Ince Music Malcolm Jack and Claire Jackson Art director Ross Lesley-Bayne Production editor Sarah Reid Production journalist Alan Woodhouse Designer Gillian Smith Junior designer Matthew Costello Junior sub editor/writers Dionne Kennedy & Liam Geraghty ADVERTISING 020 3890 3899 Dennis Publishing, 31-32 Alfred Pl, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7DP Group advertising director Andrea Mason Group advertising manager Helen Ruane Account manager Brad Beaver Classified and recruitment: 020 3890 3744 Account director Jenny Bryan Senior sales executive Imogen Williams Vendor Comments vendor.comments@bigissue.com The Big Issue Group 020 7526 3200 113-115 Fonthill Road, Finsbury Park, London, N4 3HH Group managing director John Montague Group finance director Clive Ellis Group marketing & communications director Lara McCullagh Group HR director Elizabeth Divver Distribution director Peter Bird Big Issue Invest head of lending Daniel Wilson-Dodd Big Issue Foundation CEO Stephen Robertson editorial@bigissue.com 0141 352 7260 @bigissue 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 1HW Distribution/London 020 7526 3200 Printed at William Gibbons
WIN! ARCTIC MONKEYS’ BACK CATALOGUE ON VINYL To celebrate our Arctic Monkeys special edition magazine we’ve teamed up with Domino to bring five lucky readers the chance to bag the band’s entire back catalogue on vinyl. Arctic Monkeys are Alex Turner, Jamie Cook, Nick O’Malley and Matt Helders. Formed in High Green, Sheield in 2002, the band have released six albums to date. When Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino went to Number One in May, the Monkeys made history as the first independent label band with six consecutive chart-topping albums in the UK. The group’s debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006), released when the band were barely out of their teens, became the fastest-selling debut album in UK chart history on its release in 2006 and was instantly hailed as a modern classic, winning the Mercury Music Prize. The subsequent releases of Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007), Humbug (2009), Suck it and See (2011) and AM (2013) saw the band experiment with styles as disparate as R&B, desert rock and Sabbath-influenced heavy metal, showcasing their ever-evolving approach. To be in with a chance of winning a set of albums simply answer the question below: What is the name of Arctic Monkeys’ latest album?
BSME Cover of the Year 2017, PPA Cover of the Year 2015, PPA Scotland Cover of the Year 2015 & 2017 PPA Scotland Consumer Magazine of The Year, 2017 Paul McNamee British editor of the year 2016, BSME
Send entries with ARCTICMONKEYS as the subject to competitions@bigissue.com or post to The Big Issue, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 1HW. Include your name and address. Closing date is September 25. Include OPT IN on your entry if you want to receive updates from The Big Issue. We will not pass your details to any third party. For full T&Cs see bigissue.com THE BIG ISSUE / p44 / September 10-16 2018
GAMES & PUZZLES SPOT THE BALL
SUDOKU
A
B
C D
F
ISSUE 1323 SOLUTION
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
To win Secret Pigeon Service by Gordon Last week’s Corera, mark where you think the ball is, Spot the Ball revealed: cut out and send to: Queens Park Spot the Ball (1324), 43 Bath St, Glasgow, Rangers v G2 1HW, by September 18. Include name, Tottenham address, phone no. Enter by email: send grid Hotspur (1982) position (eg A1) to competitions@bigissue.com.
PRIZE CROSSWORD 1
2
2
3
3
3
4
5
CRYPTIC CLUES
6
7 8 9
10
8
11 10
11
12
13
12 14
15 15
14
16
17 21
17
18
19
20 24
21
Across 5. Type of music people (4) 7. Showman from Paris? Rome, I gather (10) 8. Bear right in the United States (4) 9. Game which uses two pieces of bacon (10) 12. Joint with the ďŹ rst ornament (6) 13. Want another heartless guy to have a nasal sound (6) 14. Tot I caught was a junkie (6) 16. Away from home there’s a meadow (6) 17. Showiness of hessian rugs (not posh) in a tangle (10) 20. Some utensil once found in tower (4) 21. Struggled helplessly – sank with ďŹ fty inside (10) 22. Not a serious quarrel, but it turns very noisy (4)
22
QUICK CLUES Down 1. Leg used in climbing (4) 2. Money that is taken away for a bit of gambling (4) 3. A point of view on the slope (6) 4. Ready to help an actor (6) 5. Cream located in the base of the building (10) 6. See gallons disposed of in California (3,7) 10. Our time? (4,6) 11. Exterminating, although the slaughter has been cancelled (7,3) 15. Initial the mistake out of fear (6) 16. Accept as despatched (6) 18. Be paid during learning (4) 19. Team to take part (4)
Across 5. Conceal (4) 7. Opposition (10) 8. Supporter (4) 9. Not shortened (10) 12. Unit of current (6) 13. Worthless, of poor quality (6) 14. Grab (6) 16. Discharge (3,3) 17. In a tepid fashion (10) 20. Jazz dance (4) 21. In a peculiar manner (10) 22. Burden (4) Down 1. German woman (4) 2. Continent (4) 3. Band of colour (6) 4. Chessman (6) 5. School principal (10) 6. Charming (10) 10. Proposal for election (10) 11. Gasping (10) 15. Tramping (6) 16. Legal (6) 18. Swampy ground (4) 19. Toy on a string (2-2)
To win a Chambers Dictionary, send completed crosswords (either cryptic or quick) to: The Big Issue Crossword (1324), second floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 1HW by September 18. Include your name, address and phone number. Issue 1322 winner is Miss F Hills from Hastings
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
Issue 1323 solution CRYPTIC: Across – 3 Lucrative; 7 Acute; 8 Turntable; 9 Rated; 10 Flutter; 13 Miaow; 14 Nurse; 16 Nylon; 17 Yielded; 21 Album; 22 Stationer; 23 Gated; 24 Moonshine. Down – 1 Matrimony; 2 Quittance; 3 Let-down; 4 Renal; 5 Tract; 6 Valse; 10 Fared; 11 Trilobite; 12 Runnymede; 15 Enlarge; 18 Intro; 19 Let on; 20 Enoch. QUICK: Across –3 Fledgling; 7 Rouge; 8 Armistice; 9 Bigot; 10 Cluster; 13 Litre; 14 Rebus; 16 Hosea; 17 Gryphon; 21 Turin; 22 Plainsong; 23 Usage; 24 Exemption. Down – 1 Dribbling; 2 Purgatory; 3 Feather; 4 Drill; 5 Lotus; 6 Niche; 10 Cabin; 11 Tonsorial; 12 Remainder; 15 Shotgun; 18 Relax; 19 Prism; 20 Onset.
THE BIG ISSUE / p45 / September 10-16 2018
Photos: Action Images
There is just one simple rule in sudoku: each row, column and 3 x 3 box must contain the numbers one to nine. This is a logic puzzle and you should not need to guess. The solution will be revealed next week.
E
MY PITCH
Darren ‘Daz’ Kinsella, 47 OUTSIDE SANTANDER, ARMADA WAY, PLYMOUTH
“I want to work towards getting a studio or a one-bedroom flat of my own” ABOUT ME... MY PASSIONS I love reading – I like adventure stories and crime novels. My favourite authors are Wilbur Smith, Chris Ryan, Andy McNab, Clive Cussler and Jack Higgins. It’s really broadened my knowledge and vocabulary. I also love doing crosswords and logic puzzles. I’M VERY SPORTY I’m 6ft 3in, and I’m looking around to join a volleyball club. I used to play at county level. At snooker I used to play semi-professional, I got top breaks of 80s and 90s, so I did play to quite a high standard. But it’s an expensive hobby now.
ON MY PITCH… Seven days a week, from 9am until 4pm
I
come from north London, and it was there that I had a really bad marriage breakdown and as a result hit the drink really badly. I got on a train and ended up in Weymouth. While I was there, I did a six-year stretch in prison for aggravated burglary. When I got out I started selling The Big Issue after I’d done rehab in Bournemouth for my alcohol problem. I saw a couple of vendors in the city centre and asked them what it was about, then got myself badged up in the office there to sell in Weymouth. I travelled round the south coast for a few years – Devon, Dorset and Cornwall – selling the magazine wherever I went. I ended up in Plymouth, because of all the towns I’ve been to it seems to be the easiest for the homeless, you get a lot of support. I went through one of the homeless hostels, and as a
result of selling The Big Issue I managed to save up enough for a deposit. I’m now in a shared house with my own room. It’s not quite my own place yet, but it’s a step up the ladder. I was able to put a little bit by every week, and I was then able to pay the £350 deposit. I want to work towards getting a studio or a onebedroom flat of my own, and I’d also like to get some other form of full-time job eventually. I can work on building sites, weld, a bit of carpentry, brickwork. I’ve been on and of sites all my life, but because I’ve had such an itinerant lifestyle I haven’t had the opportunity to get my CSCS (Construction Skills Certification Scheme) card, and nobody will accept you without that now. If I sit around feeling sorry for myself I’m my own worst enemy – I’ll get into trouble.
THE BIG ISSUE / p46 / September 10-16 2018
That’s one of the main reasons I work the hours I do. The job gives me a bit of self-esteem; it makes me feel good about things. Now I’m settled I have quite a lot of regulars. My pitch is on one of the first streets you come to when you come into the city centre, so people see me as soon as they arrive. I have built up quite a good client base. Obviously Monday is the best day, I can usually sell about 20 to 25 magazines to regulars on the day it comes out. One of them has basically given me all my bedding – duvet, quilt, duvet cover, a couple of carpets as well as a cofee table, as moving presents. I’ve also had a coat and trainers – it’s amazing the stuf you get given really. People seem to appreciate the fact you’re trying to help yourself rather than begging. Interview: Alan Woodhouse Photo: Mike Lister
Join us for our Arctic Monkeys party!
A.M tunes plus masses of indie hits! Sat 15th Sept O2 Academy Islington Notanotherindiedisco.com