The lovers, the dreamers and me by Kermit the Frog
Issue 1095
A surreal conversation with a world icon. Kermit the Frog declares his love of magic and wonders (as he would, you may rightly point out). Then, in a David Bowie fashion, he gets into the Scottish independence debate. He declares for one side. This could have MASSIVE reverberations, of course. Also, Kermit now calls Mickey boss – the Muppets are owned by the House of Mouse. We look at who else lives under that roof.
And more…
Our Letter To My Younger Self is with the much maligned James Blunt. He’s a fascinating character who, when a serving cavalry officer, helped stop World War III kicking off from a Kosovan airfield, then made a fortune on the back of THAT song, and now sends funny, self-deprecating tweets that make much of the rhyming slang his surname affords. He could fly a plane before he could drive a car. A good read.
In the week his book, The Necessity Of Poverty, was pipped for the Paddy Powers Political Polemic prize, John Bird celebrates politics. It’s messy, can be closed and frequently feels self-serving, but the only way to make it work is to jump in an MAKE it work, he says.
Brendan O’Neill stands up for the grammar nazis. What’s wrong with knowing the correct place to use ‘fewer’ and ‘less’, he rages. Correctly. A righteous piece.
As George Osborne sets about building ‘Oborneville’ in Ebbsfleet, Dr Sarah Rutherford, who knows a thing or two about the creation of garden cities, pens him an open letter. Learn from the past and do it the right way, she says, urging notice is taken of Ebenezer Howard. It’s not often I can write that sentence.
It’s estimated that one in four people in homelessness have come out of care. We look at a call to raise the age that people remain in care from 18 to 21. It could address a lot of problems that develop later.
Richard Madden, the King of the North who met a nasty end in Game of Thrones talks about getting ready to watch the new series without wondering who’s out to kill him…
Our featured vendor telling their story in My Pitch is Vivienne Ough, working in Bath. She has only recently started working The Big Issue and is enjoying the new life.
Elsewhere – take a look at our spread on the 100 objects that tell the story of WW1, go to the TV review and see a celebration of the great Jonathan Meades and have a look at Soapbox in which our reader Dafydd Taylor comes up with a new plan for taxation. There is also a photo of baby polar bears inside.
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