Pulling A Fast One On Its
Own Big Issue Vendors.
By Uncle Monty.
...
Without giving a damn or without any ex-planation or without any warning or apology
to its street vendors, The Big Issue has now
saddled them with being forced to sell last
week's Festive Special (shown below) for yet
another week or until the issue itself is com-
pletely sold out. The specially-commissioned
No. 827 Big Issue comic that was set to
appear today – December 22nd, 2oo8 –
has not appeared for sale to the vendors.
They had expected to see the comic issue
ready to sell at the last three critical days
of selling before Christmas Day. Instead,
they’re now struck against their will with
trying to get rid of the old Festive
Special until further notice.
...
What this means is it has not only compound-
ed the difficulty of vendors already chafeing
under poor street sales and the Christmas
economic turndown, but it also means they
now have nothing new to sell to the Christmas
public other than what they've already had
for the past week that hasn't been selling well
at all. It's like trying to flog a dead horse. But
The Big Issue "Big Whigs" don't give a damn
as long as they can force their hapless ven-
dors to sell what appears to be a huge stock
of leftover and unsold copies of last week's
Festive Special with Leona Lewis on the
front cover. She's not a good sell or an en-
ticing cover, anyway ... in my opinion.
That's why it hasn't been a good seller un-
like the previous week with the Christmas
Big Issue No. 825 with Paul McCartney
gracing the colourful cover.
...
Below: The No. 826 Issue In Question.
...
While the local media reports of a late shopping
spree at the West End by millions of Xmasshoppers spending estimates of between £250and £450 million, The Big Issue vendor is rele-gated again to play second fiddle not only bythe economy and late shoppers, but also by theself-centred attitude and arbitrary decisions of The Big Issue itself against its own vendors
at this Christmastide.
...
If The Big Issue really wanted to help its
vendors during the Christmas crunch, surely
it could have given say 5 to 10 copies of the
Festive Special to each vendor for free or at
least at cost? Especially, if it's a situation of
where they have thousands of unsold copies
to dispose of. But the botton line is always
profits over the welfare of the vendors.
Thus, no Christmas gift for those trying
to sell on the streets for the corporate
profits of The Big Issue itself. That's why
the vendors are now stuck without a new
issue to sell this week or whenever.
...
Within an hour at my own pitch this
morning, I lost four sales to my first four
customers because I was forced to try to
sell the old Festive Special that they had
already bought from me last week.
...
First word that The Big Issue was going to pull
a fast one on its own vendors came Saturday
when its Covent Garden distributor Steve Farrell
made mention to me that vendors would be stuck
with still flogging the Festive Special beyond its
original print date. Quizzing Steve to find out why
was like hitting a brick wall and getting only a
very vague reply about an “overrun” or “reprint”
of the Festive Special. I thought perhaps by today
– Monday morning – the previously announced
and then upcoming Big Issue comic coupled with
its “One Man’s Journey: How The Big Issue
saves lives,” would somehow miraculously appear
despite what Steve Farrell had told me. When
Steve appeared on Monday morning by 9:00am at
Covent Garden to start the new week’s distribution,
all he had were bundles more of those old copies of the
Festive Special to sell to vendors like me. Vendors
came fuming to me later when they asked me if I
knew what was going on. I didn't, I told them,
because The Big Issue never tells its vendors
anything it doesn't want them to know
no matter what.
...
Steve Farrell was also coy about when the next new
issue – whatever or whenever it may be – would be
available for sale to both the public and street vendors.
He seemed to be so coy about the whole situation.
Thus, I and other vendors were left in limbo not
knowing precisely how many to buy of the old
copies until the new issue appeared … I didn’t want
to be forced to buy old copies and then get stuck
with them if a new issue was to suddenly appear
over the old one. When I asked Steve if more
could be bought of the Christmas Big Issue with
McCartney, he said that he had none with him. I
would have gladly bought more of the Christmas
Issue than the Festive Special with Leona Lewis,
despite the extra cost of buying the Christmas
edition over the Festive one. Though its certainly
confusing, the Christmas and Festive issues are
separate editions and not the same. It’s all
part of the smoke and mirrors that The Big
Issue tends to play with us all for whatever
reasons it wants to play its big head games …
The difference between the terms "Christmas"
and "Festive" is a misnormer in Britain
thesedays. Both terms mean the same.
There's no difference other than the
semantic use by the editorial gang at
Vauxhall to sell us their street magazine.
...
Like most other charities in UK and USA,
The Big Issue has been hit no doubt by
this year's declining corporate donations
and individual giving that was headlined
on the frontpage of Saturday's London
edition of The Times entitled "Charities cut
services as donations start to dry up" by
staff writers Jill Sherman and Parminder
Bahra. I suspect that may also be a reason
why we're struck with those old copies of the
Festive Special because buying the magazine
on the street has also dried up this Christmas-
tide for all too many Big Issue street vendors
and thus bringing about declining revenues
and profits at The Big Issue and its own poor
gathering of its usual charity donations. It's
so easy, therefore, to stick the vendors first
and not those cushy HQ staffers and their
buddies. The ripple effect of the global
economic downturn always hurts the
poorest segments of society first
and the most.
...
There are simply too many charities in Britain,
anyway. They’re all after the same charity
dollar, so to speak, and their bad investments
have come home to roost for many of them, too.
Some British charities have ploughed millions of
dollars into Icelandic bank investments. Such
have since collapsed with disasterous impact
on such charities and their inabilitiy to now
fund their own services and puffed-up staff.
Many charities, too, are over staffed
and overpaid for what they do.
…
House property left to them in wills and
bequests have sunk and srunk in value
or cannot be converted fast enough into
liquidity if they wish to sell such property
to now raise needed money to pay their
own weekly operational expenses,
so indicated The Times report.
…
Many of the charity operations, I suspect,
are economically inflated and/or are internally
mismanaged very badly. They also seem to
have forgotten that because they get free money,
they can freely waste and spend it without any
thought of a rainy day ever occurring to them.
The Rainy Day is now here and thus they cry
like babies not for others but only for them-
selves because of their innate greed and
wicked waste of the huge amounts of money
they’ve had in the past like hands over fists.
So many British charities are little more than
a bunch of overgrown college kidz and little
amatuers and stupid "experts" running
"big" charity things ...
...
In the meantime, The Big Issue vendors are
clobbered one way or another by circumstances
beyond their control and the actions of those
who don't really give a damn about them even
if they work for the so-called "betterment" of
the homeless and marginalized of our times.
To understand the kinds of money The Big
Issue has gotten until recently, read its
compulsory annual reports to The UK
course, the reality of "Pulling A Fast One On
Its Own Big Issue Vendors." What The Big
Issue has done is just NOT right nor fair to
its own vendors at this time of Christmas,
especially - period.
...
Your's, Uncle Monty.
+Three Days Before
Christmas, 2oo8.
...
:: BIG UPDATE ::
Finally on Xmas Eve, the deliberately
embargoed new Big Issue No. 827 appeared
for sale to vendors and the public. Thus, after
two days of lost and needed Christmas sales
with the new "Comic" issue - thanks to The
Big Issue itself forcing its own vendors to get
rid of last week's glut of leftover Festive
Special No. 826 - we were then allowed to buy
the latest issue. Ironically, the so-called "comic
issue" wasn't so comical after all due to The Big
Issue having pulled such a fast on its own vendors.
...
And with even more irony was the fact that the
same "comic issue" was also dubbed on the front
cover "THE VENDOR ISSUE." Yet the vendors
couldn't even get their hands on it until the last
day before the end of the Christmas sales per-
iod for them on the streets. Many vendors lost
out, yet nobody at Vauxhall gave them a damn
- be it Christmas or no Christmas. They're so
bloody smug at Big Issue H.Q. They need to
spend alittle time themselves selling on the
streets to experience a good dose of street
reality for a change. A reality check would
also then do them some good ... Maybe?
Again Uncle Monty. Xmas Eve, 2oo8.
...
On This Christmas Day, 2oo8.
+
+
+
