Welcome to the real Glasgow!

As the Commonwealth Games prepares to kick off in Glasgow next week, our gallus cover (with the city’s most famous statue – Google Glasgow Statue Cone!) is a celebration of Big Issue vendors’ Glasgow spirit – and inside we have their guide to the very best bits of the City… the pubs, coffee stops, parks and culture that you might not find in the other, more boring guides!

And there’s a free pull-out-and-keep map specially designed for this issue showing the vendor’s top picks.

Keeping in a sporty mood, we speak to sports stars including Rebecca Adlington and Dave Weir to find out if watching the Games on TV will help fight Britain’s obesity crisis. Almost a quarter of UK children are overweight or obese: today’s Commonwealth stars reveal how we can transform those youngsters into the medal winners of tomorrow.

And we have an extremely moving autobiography in pictures of former Big Issue vendor turned artist Bekki Perriman, who shares her insights into life on the street.

And here’s more fantastic stuff in this week’s magazine:

• Mary Beard on booze, boys and ambition in Letter to my Younger Self
• Jacques Cousteau’s grandson explains what it’s like to share your supper with sea monsters in an underwater laboratory
• Samira Ahmed is moved by the new First World War galleries in the Imperial War Museum
• Dawn to the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves on the biggest movie of the summer
• An obsession with Breugel and schizophrenia examined in Books
• Electro-pop diamond gal La Roux has a brilliant new hairdo and album to match
• John Bird meets up with James Bowen to talk about last week’s sensational cover star street cat Bob and the global phenomenon that he’s become
• As Edinburgh festivals approach win the essential guidebook to Edinburgh for Under Fives
• Our featured vendor is David in Hammersmith who loves action films