The Big Issue

The Big Issue is one of Britain’s leading news and cultural magazines. Every week’s edition is packed full of original takes on the biggest issues of the day as well as interviews with the most significant figures in politics and entertainment. The Big Issue was founded 1991 to give people experiencing homelessness the opportunity to earn their own income. We continue to support hundreds of vendors across the UK and all proceeds from sales go to help anyone wanting to lift themselves out of poverty.

Editor’s Letter

HAPPY ST PATRICKS DAY!!!

Dorothy Spencer

inTOXicated • London’s most prolific vandal

Pure, unhomogenised radio

Ideas that resonate

Resonance in 2025

Say it Loud

Why I like Resonance FM

BIG FARMER

Art without permission • Alan Moore’s radical voice revolutionised comics. But without Arts Lab he might not have fulfilled his potential. Northampton’s most celebrated resident pays tribute to the mind-expanding institution. He’s still a member.

FUME IS WEST • Fume DDS holds the Stonechip World Record for consistent vandalism, having painted trains since April 1992, to be precise. He has guided and inspired subsequent generations of writers and has been a key force of the infamous DDS crew and, hence, many of London’s most audacious graffiti missions (unnamed here for legal reasons, naturally). His only other interview was in 2003 by Alekz, creator of the classic UK graffiti magazine Bomb Alert. Alekz now interviews him for the second time, focusing on Fume’s relationship with West London; the area where he was born and bred, gave so much to, and then was priced out of.

Bas DDS • Bas DDS is the black opal, an extreme purist, the all-time king of the tube. By necessity he possesses the SAS combo of intellectual systems analysis, the guts to risk it all and the heart to see 10,000 dawns achieving results. He’s never earned a penny from his art and he’s never put a photo online, so here you go: the first published photos from the man I suspect might make the most important book ever seen on UK graffiti and urban trespass.

Tagging as folk practice • Author and playwright Sophia Kingshill is secretary of the Folklore Society. Long established, they are dedicated to the study of all aspects of folklore and tradition. She sees the evolution of that tradition imprinted across our streets.

10Foot on the A406 / Derek Walmsley

Street spirit • Jess Turtle is the co-founder and director of Museum of Homelessness. MOH are an excellent museum but also a politically active and practical resource. Their 2024 show ‘How To Survive The Apocalypse’ was met with wide praise. Watch this space for upcoming gold.

‘I felt myself oscillating between joy and terror’

Angelus • A short story by Jonathan Meades, journalist, novelist, filmmaker and art critic. 10Foot highly recommends getting lost on meadesshrine. blogspot.com. Start with Full Metal Carapace – a documentary about caravans.

The Great Autocomplete Are we losing our minds? • Max Leonard is a technologist who is working at the frontier of human data and our right to privacy in the age of surveillance capitalism. In his spare time he tests the boundaries and patience of the security state. Anne-Marie Litak creates multi-sensory experiences and events that aim to connect us to our humanity. She lives in San Francisco.

LOOSE FIT • Matthias Connor is a prolific author, born in London and raised in Derbyshire. After years of dead-end jobs he retrained as a nurse and works in a Double A Category prison.

In the 1990s the Fare Dodgers’ Liberation Front demanded free public transport for all

Oxtail made with dread and tenderness

Mica Levi Central Score

In ómós: Barney agus spideog • JJ Ó...