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

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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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

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

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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

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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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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

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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 , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

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 , , , , , , | 3 Comments