Bishu
Ok, can you work out what that's supposed to say? Anyone? Big Issue. The particular spelling above is made famous by the Big Issue seller in Shipley, Leeds, where a friend of mine from uni lives, who swears the seller pronounces it like that, and only says that (at first I questioned whether the seller was in fact a Pokemon, but realised that is doubtful, mainly due to few Pokemon having opposable thumbs, and partly due to their non-existence).
Yeah, so this is all about the famous Charity Magazine, The Big Issue. Ok, so to start with, I'm quite the fan of the Big Issue. It's worth a flick through, has some ok interviews, and nine times out of ten the sellers are real nice guys and gals. But it only dawned on me today (/thought long and hard as I had nothing else to write about) how I've had some odd experiences with sellers. I mean, a seller in Cambridge once took me all the way to a McDonald's after I bought a magazine off of him. Which on paper seems lovely, but then he guilt tripped me into buying him a burger, which I couldn't really pass up, but also meant I could only afford a Happy Meal, which I was not happy about.
Last month, when a tad tipsy, I gave the Embankment seller a fiver, and told him to keep the change. Apparently he wasn't a fan of this, so duly gave me two copies of the magazine to subsidise the £2 price point. I don't know what he expected me to do with two, apart from maybe me a crude, pop-up version of the magazine, but I had not the time, nor skill to perform such a task.
I can also remember a time when I saw a guy body-popping using the magazines as props. It gets even more amazing when I tell you he was white, so the guy obviously had talent. In short though, it's a top magazine, with a top cause. The sellers are exactly that, sellers. It is their job, and not all of them are homeless. It's often used as a way to get hard-up people back on their feet. If you're out and about and you have a spare couple of Queens in your pocket, grab one, as you're doing both the seller, and yourself, a favour (yeah, I know that turned into a bit of a 'force you to buy' thing, but hey, it's a great thing to do!)
Over and out.