Bow down world, it’s Nutini time

Paolo Nutini is normally pretty evasive in interviews. As he watches his stormer of a new album dominate the charts, he opens up to Tom Doyle on family, survivalism and the vexed question of Scottish independence. Some great quotes in here. Incidentally, if you haven’t heard Iron Sky from the new album, go and do it now. That’s a song.

And more…

Our Letter To My Younger Self this week is with TV stalwart/grand panto dame, Christopher Biggins. Warm and funny about the open and bumbling nature of his career, he has some incredible things to say about bisexuality. You want to read this.

John Bird celebrates Antony Sher as Falstaff at the RSC in Stratford upon Avon and asks why when Shakespeare teaches us so much about life, and frequently with such joyful brio, he remains off-limits to the poorest who would benefit most.

Can you be a Chav if you went to Oxbridge? Cambridge old boy and self-confessed superchav Robert McLiam Wilson turns all debate on class on its head and gives it the once over. It’s a very funny, fearless and welcome return to The Big Issue after his piece on homeless in Paris last month.

In a great, sweeping column Samira Ahmed begins at her first Passover Seder meal and moves around that grand theme of forgiving and forgetting by way of the Holocaust, America and their relationship with Iran and the Stasi.

Our featured vendor telling their story in My Pitch is Bryan Whiting, working in Richmond, Yorkshire. He is the last street trader in the town and a vital part of the local community.

Elsewhere – after Moyes was given his cards, we take a tour of the statues that have been erected to the greats of football (poor Davie doesn’t feature amongst them); Mackenzie has an awkward (and therefore very readable) chat with actor Michael Cera. And go and read Sam Delaney’s TV column. Go on.