About this issue: Overview
Stewart Lee has made his name in comedy by provoking his audiences, deploying vicious irony and skewering politicians. Will his current show be the last time he can get away with it, he wonders. By Stuart Holmes.
With government calls for GPs to open seven days a week, Catherine Smyth spent a day with two busy doctors at a Rossendale practice to see what pressures they face and discover their patients’ most pressing concerns.
We might believe that reason can guide us towards knowledge and wisdom – but when we use it to examine our own thoughts it actually tends to steer us down the wrong paths. So what is it really for, asks Hugo Mercier.
From Barcelona to Brighton, art has played a key role in regenerating coastal communities. Duncan Hodgson considers Blackpool’s potential to do the same.
Mountains are one of the last places you’d expect to find an Alzheimer’s sufferer. But when Sion Jair, a retired engineer from Ulverston, was diagnosed with the condition he vowed he would not be cowed. He walks up the Old Man of Coniston every day, saying it helps stave off the effects of dementia, and has now set up a non-for-profit company to raise funds for Alzheimer’s research by leading guided walks on the fells.
Why we encourage you to take the magazine
When you give someone selling Big Issue North £2.50, you aren’t just giving money to someone who needs it – you’re buying a top-quality read.
Please make sure you take the magazine. This doesn’t only mean that you get 32 pages of news, features, culture and opinions, but reinforces the fact that our vendors are working, not begging. Selling the magazine doesn’t just provide the people who sell it with an income but also increases their self-esteem as they make an honest living selling a great product.
So if you buy it, please take it!