Homeless Big Issue vendor Ralph Millward was beaten to death in Bournemouth last year, this opinion piece appeared in the magazine a year later as the trial of his three teenage attackers began. All three were later found guilty of manslaughter.
“Ah, the competition is here,” says the editor of the Evening Standard ushering me into his office, all smiles, warm handshake, sit-on-my-sofa. I hadn't thought of London’s thrice-daily paper and The Big Issue in quite that light.
Every day we appear on hundreds of surveillance cameras. Our everyday activities – a credit card purchase, bank transaction, tube journey, phone call, clocking on, clocking off – are recorded somewhere, a transcript of our lives.
The membership of political parties in Britain has collapsed to just 1.3 per cent of the electorate, while voter turnout in general elections has dropped from 84 per cent in 1950 to 59 per cent in 2001. British citizens have voted with their feet and stayed away in droves.
Manchester has always been known for its contribution to music, from the raw edge of the Buzzcocks and Joy Division, to the lyrical finesse of Morrissey and the Smiths, to the barely restrained lunacy that is the Happy Mondays. Mouthy frontman Shaun Ryder then found further success in the 90s with Black Grape, and The Big Issue caught up with Shaun as Black Grape prepare to play Get Loaded in the Dark in London.
Doctors have long known the research that shows the connection between regular exercise and boosted energy and mood, but it’s only recently they have begun actually proscribing exercise. Former world champion boxer Duke Mackenzie has taken up that role with relish, working with mental health charity Mind to help people fight their way out of depression.
It’s been a rapid rise for the former baker from Glasgow who, at 30, has starred opposite luminous screen beauties like Angelina Jolie, Keira Knightley and Anne Hathaway – no starter roles at The Bill or Casualty for him.
What happens when companies become more powerful than their regulators and inspectors? When people no longer know what is in their food? When children believe advertising over science? The documentary Food, Inc is a critical look at the food industry and how industrialisation has transformed the food we eat into something that is doing us harm.
Contrary to popular opinion, Hot Chip will not break your legs, nor will they snap off your head. They are as unlikely to put you down, under the ground.
Once expensive luxuries, now discarded PCs or monitors on the street or a skip-full of electronic parts are common sights. But the environmental damage caused by electronic waste disposal has reached catastrophic levels in the developing world.