The Big Issue 6/13/2022

For the last few decades sun loungers in Famagusta have been in less demand than they are in other parts of Cyprus. After Turkey invaded the island in 1974, the eastern tourist town of Famagusta was deserted when tens of thousands of its residents fled the violence. They left all their belongings, thinking they’d be able to return, but almost half a century on large parts remain a ghost town, the beachfront lined with deserted hotels. The area of Varosha is protected by a United Nations Security Council resolution stating that it can only be resettled by its original residents. That didn’t stop Turkey reopening some of the resort in 2020 – and another stretch of beaches last month. Since then, 500,000 tourists have visited a place those who want to…

RIP-OFF RENTS These pensioners are taking on their landlord over surging service charges In recent weeks we have detailed how tenants in social housing have been telling their landlords they’ve had enough by refusing to pay rip-off service charges or going on rent strike. Now one group in Oxford is showing that it’s not just a young person’s game. Elderly residents from Harris Court and Drew House in the Summer-town area of the city have become the country’s oldest rent rebels. They are one month into a protest over rising charges, claiming some have increased up to eight times since April. Oxford graduate and former sailor Michael Ryan, 79, is among the group who have joined forces with rent union Acorn to stand up to landlord Green-SquareAccord by paying the old rent and service…

People are going back out on the streets and discovering the value of social enterprises, of which The Big Issue is one If there’s one TV special that should serve as a testament to the curious period of history that was lockdown – and please, there’s no need for more than one – it’s Bo Burn-ham’s Inside. A homemade, tragicomic collection of songs and self-shot videos, Inside captures a painfully accurate sense of the malaise, despair, laugh-or-you’ll-weep mood that was much of 2020 and 2021. The most streamed song from the show is about “CEO, entrepreneur, born in 1964, Jeffrey, Jeffrey Bezos.” Burnham must find Bezos – or the sound of his name – fascinating. Outtakes from Inside were recently released, taking the tally of ditties inspired by the billionaire businessman to four,…

Last week, on the 78th anniversary of the D-Day Landings that drove the Germans out of France and began their defeat in the west, I read Pegasus Bridge by Stephen E Ambrose. I read the book in a day, a rare feat for me. It was gripping, describing how the first action of the D-Day Landings took place just after midnight, in the early hours of June 6. It was a formidable achievement carried out by British paratroopers to protect two bridges over the Orne in Normandy that, if blown up, would have exposed the landings’ eastern flank. I had bought the book a few years back when one summer I visited Pegasus Bridge and the café, the first liberated building in France. I had breakfasted there with my youngest son and…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue Gone bust Regarding Martin Lewis’s sorrow about our huge energy bills [Cover Feature, Issue 1514, May 16]. The great rise in our standing charges are due to the demise of so many providers going bust that Mr Lewis, among others, kept telling us to switch to. Sylvia, Kent Power to the people How can it be right that France sees an increase of four per cent on energy prices, and it will be over 100 per cent here by October? Systemic change is needed so handouts are not required, but it won’t happen with this government. The paltry handout is a fraction of the increase anyway. And to add insult to injury, wholesale gas prices have dropped 90 per cent. We need an…

John Simmons is no stranger to a fortnight in the saddle. On his 50th birthday, he cycled the length of the country. A decade on, he was back in the Lycra, braving the journey from Dungeness to Durness. Think of it as a diagonal Land’s End to John O’Groats, ending at Cape Wrath – the ominously named northwest tip of the mainland. His journey wasn’t just for the sake of it. Braving over 900 miles, 39,000ft of climbing and 14 days on a bike, Simmons raised £2,800 for Big Issue vendors. Along the way, he kept a diary. Here’s how it went. Day 1: The journey began on a cool, grey but dry day at the old lighthouse in Dungeness. It was, essentially, a 50-mile warm-up. Day 2: A passenger ferry from Gravesend to Tilbury…