Tag Archives: BIG ISSUE
The poison that is destroying civility and how to fight it
‘How did you get into first class? You don’t deserve to be in first class. ‘You should be in common class. In fact, you shouldn’t be in this country at all. ‘You don’t deserve to be here. Bloody foreigners. Where … Continue reading
Posted in Crime and Justice, Culture, journalism, Media, Politics, Theatre
Tagged alexander mackinnon, BIG ISSUE, faisal islam, gina miller, jo cox, john bercow, John Major, monday club, Racism, sanaa shahid, this house
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How to win the coming culture war in 2017
A version of this article first appeared in The Big Issue magazine in January 2017. Journalism worth paying for. Available weekly from street vendors or subscriptions here. History rarely falls into neat numerical decades. I would assert the 1980s (yuppies, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Comics/graphic novels, Culture, Film, Media, Music, Politics, Radio, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Theatre, TV, Uncategorized
Tagged ali smith, BIG ISSUE, books, cinema, culture, culture war, Disney, dr quinn medicine woman, dreamgirls, everbody's talking about jamie, feminism, film, FTW, henry krieger, Hollywood, jane seymour, jon musker, media, moana, pauline boty, politics, rogue one, ron clements, susan faludi, tv, tyrus wong, unforgotten, Wonder Woman
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How should broadcast news journalists interview and talk about extremists?
Over the weekend I spoke to veteran ex BBC journalist Robin Lustig, Berlin correspondent Damien McGuinness for an insight into Germany’s media and Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s 2012 senior strategist for 2 articles I wrote for The Guardian and The … Continue reading
Posted in Germany, journalism, Media, Politics, Radio, Religion, TV
Tagged AfD, alt right, BBC, Berlin, BIG ISSUE, Damien McGuinness, Donald Trump, journalism, Luegenpresse, media, Mitt Romney, Nazism, Newswatch, Nigel Farage, Pegida, politics, Robin Lustig, Stuart Stevens, terrorism, tv
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Lessons for Trump and us all from the Ronald Reagan Memorial Library
“I wonder what it’s all about, and why We suffer so, when little things go wrong? We make our life a struggle When life should be a song…” We should perhaps we grateful that the teenage Ronald Reagan never grew … Continue reading
Posted in History, journalism, Media, Politics
Tagged 80s, BIG ISSUE, Donald Trump, politics, Ronald Reagan
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When Cathy met Ken: Revisiting Cathy Come Home in Brexit Britain
The other night I watched Ken Loach meet Cathy – or rather the young actress Elle Payne, playing Cathy in a Cardboard Citizens’ staging of his 1966 landmark TV play Cathy Come Home. The production featured many actors with experience of homelessness. … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, History, journalism, Media, Politics, TV, Uncategorized
Tagged 60s, BIG ISSUE, cardboard citizens, Cathy Come Home, culture, Ken Loach, kitchen sink drama, London, media, politics, tv
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The economics of burkas, bikinis & The Nice Guys
According to a recent BBC World Service programme about Malawi, the nation’s population hit 17.6 million this year and is expected to double by 2040, which the country’s finance minister described as “scary”. “A ticking timebomb of poverty and … Continue reading
Posted in Business/Economics, Comedy, Culture, Film, Media, Religion, TV, Uncategorized
Tagged 70s, BIG ISSUE, charlie perfume, Charlies Angels, cinema, culture, feminism, film, Hollywood, Islamic fashion, laurence rossignol, lynda carter, media, The Bionic Woman, the nice guys, virginia slims, Wonder Woman
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The trouble with superheroes taking on terrorism..
I love superhero comics and they’ve never been handled with more love than by writers and filmmakers who grew up on them too. And yet.. And yet.. In the latest Captain America Civil War film, when a terrorist bomb goes … Continue reading
The man who knew infinity: Difficult history & dreaming spires on film
How do we re-visit history? Watching the continuation of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign at Oxford I went to see The Man Who Saw Infinity with a greater consciousness of how our institutions choose to tell their own versions of … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Film, History
Tagged BIG ISSUE, Cambridge, dev patel, front row, janaki ramanujan, jeremy irons, oxbridge, ramanujan, the man who knew infinity
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The Teen Within…
This week’s Something Understood gives voice to people who I reckon are rarely heard on radio. Teenagers. The readings are all done by young actors and much of the music and poetry you’ll hear was written by them, or about … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Children, Culture, France, Germany, History, Media, Music, Radio, Religion
Tagged adolescence, alom shaha, BIG ISSUE, cat stevens, claude tardat, Hairspray, harlem renaissance, janis ian, john steinbeck, John Waters, letter to my younger self, maxim leo, peter capaldi, plum bun, red love, teenagers, the young atheists handbook
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Marriage, Margaret Thatcher & the closet of female expectations
This article first appeared in The Big Issue. Journalism worth paying for (subscriptions available) For years my mother kept an entire cupboard where she used to save up things for my trousseau; the old fashioned concept of a bride’s personal … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Children, Culture, Design, Food/Drink, History, Politics
Tagged BIG ISSUE, feminism, hostess trolley, Margaret Thatcher, trousseau, V&A, Vivienne Durham
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