another vendor to me when I told him of what had just transpired between Sam and I. Of course, she always talks "at you" and not "to or with you." Not once that I've seen such ...
Yep, and no free mags for the vendors to flog to help celebrate the BI's 16th year ... just like last year's 15th where vendors got no freebies, too ...
Helen Rust has called The Big Issue about other vendors in the past and she even asked me once for help in her dealing with a rather obscene vendor who bugged Caffe Nero
management at their Neal Street head office of which American Jerry Ford is its president ...
All I see now is nothing but an overkill and spiteful demeanour on the part of both Helen and Sam about the issue of feeding the pigeons ... I guess they're just good for each other, attitude-wise ...
By what authority does The Big Issue tell me, via Sam, that I must feed the pigeons either
at Holborn or Liecester Square even when I am not selling their publication outside of my pitch? Or when I go off here and there and I'm a free citizen to do what I wish without threats and
censorship from Sam or "The Hatchet Lady." Having travelled to North Korea just months ago and having seen what kind of unfree society it engenders, then I wonder if our British society
as 'Big Brother' and 'Big Issue' aren't far apart in their drunken view that they are the law of whatever they wish to stop or control ... Not once as Sam even said a kind word to me or asked
me how I am doing or if there's anything she could do to help me in over the two and half years I have known her at Covent Garden. She'll soon be off to the Hymalayas with her in-law John Duffy who is also a staff member of The Big Issue. At The Big Issue, Sam can do no wrong just like Mr. Duffy ... They both find fault of what vendors do or don't do. The Big Issue never seems to back the vendors. Vendors are invariably found to be "in the wrong," while those complaining
for whatever reason against them are almost certainly found to be "in the right."
As I have stated elsewhere before that I have received more complaints -- some five of them, I think -- against me at The Big Issue in my thirty months with them than I have in almost 35 years as a news photographer in Amerca and China!!! The complaints are so frivolous and petty it almost boggles the mind, but then I should no longer be peeved and surprised knowing like I do "The Hachet Lady" with her dyed ruby hair and her officious tone ...
So Helen, thanks alot for your Caffe Nero unkindness ... And to you Sam, I will remember
that you warned me about feeding the poor pigeons on the exact 20th Anniversary of my first born and his horrific and sudden death at age 15 on September 10th, 1987 ... May you both be forgiven!!
Talking of The Big Issue's 16th Birthday edition, the news yesterday of the death of Anita Roddick is sad news indeed for BI's co-founders Gordon Roddick, Dame Anita's husband, and John Bird. Two vendors today have told me of meeting or seeing her. They spoke impressively of her. She was undoubtedly much respected by many, many people. We live life to see the passing of those who go before us and so we must always be mindful of who may be next ... it could be you or me!
As for the birthday front cover (No. 761), the photograph of Allen is rather interesting since he is no longer a Big Issue vendor. In fact, Allen is a rather gentle chap and almost a latter-day Hyppie in his present chosen lifestyle. I have photographed him with his willing consent ... I'm not sure then why Allen appears at all on the front cover of such a birthday edition? The picture looks rather dated of him, but I may be wrong ... Also one other item on the front cover that is notably missing -- perhaps due to a mistake at paste setup or mechanicals -- is no cover price has been printed of £1.50. (I've just been told that Allen is in fact selling this week's Big Issue
at Covent Garden. How true that is, I don't know. But I still suspect he is not ... Also, one vendor has complianed that he's lost at least 5 quid because his would-be customers don't believe him with no the cover price to show them. But personally, I've had not problem about that ...)
Since I have had no one come-up with the answer to what else is missing from the weekly cover that most other magazines always have, I will now tell you -- there is no price barcode on any edition of The Big Issue since it is not sold at newsagents or retail stores anywhere in the UK. Hence, no need for a barcode ...
News Update: "THE MOTHER OF THE BIG ISSUE."
In its two full-page spread on the death of Dame Anita Roddick, The Times today included comments by John Bird concerning her: Without Dame Anita there would have been no Big
Issue, its founder said last night. John Bird told BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight -- "Anita was the mother of the Big Issue. There is absolutely no way the Big Issue would have happened if Anita and her husband Gordon hadn't started a business that created a social engine that drove people like us to get creative." The Times also presented a 1,600-word obit to Dame Anita that was most laudatory of her and almost panegyric, too.
But just two days before her, Lord Michael Pratt,
the youngest son of the 5th Marquess Camden, had also passed away. Yet, it seems Michael Pratt lived up to his own surname. If not that, then his life seemed almost like a pratfall. Or simply that of a prat*... While Dame Anita's worthy life was for the betterment of others and of society, the old Etonian Michael seemed to do little or nothing but get into huge family rows and drive like an utter lunatic on the roads ... He even got ban from Pratt's, the club to which his family name is attached due to a "spectacular altercation with a waitress," noted his obit!! As my friend Soan McArdle told me that in Ireland "you don't speak evil of the dead." True, but I cannot help remark on the lives of two people -- one so loving and caring like Anita Roddick and
the other so unloving and so uncaring like Michael Pratt ...
*For a succinct definition of the word or term "Prat" or "Pratt,"
check Swan's Anglo-American Dictionary, p. 1092, 1950.
+The 6th Anniversary of America's 9/11+
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