BS: Big Issue vendors

Subject: BS: Big Issue vendors scum?
From: GUEST,attackedpaperseller
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 07:51 AM

Yesterday i was in Beverley Town centre selling my newspaper, when this Big Issue vendor came upto me shouting abuse. he said i needed a license. I didn't. i checked it out with council and i didnt. i told him this and he said that he would crack my skull open if i stopped being cheeky.

dont get fucking cheeky he said, ill fucking floor yer.

I hate big issue vendors. a couple of years ago i was walking in hull centre and walked on by not heeding the sellers call of 'big issue' and he shouted at me 'greedy bastard'.

why are all big issue sellers utter tossers?

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: Splott Man
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 11:00 AM

Don't be so hard on them, they've got more problems than the rest of us.
The Big Issue is a great organisation trying very hard to give these people a step up and a bit of dignity.
Try sleeping on the streets for a while, you'll want to floor someone too.

Splott Man

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 11:05 AM

They aren't. There used to be a very nice polite one in Lincoln who always smiled, called you sir or madam and thanked you very politely. He looked like a right cut-throat but he was a real gentleman. I always used to buy one from him when I was in Lincoln.
He seems to have gone now.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 11:31 AM

Well so far, of the Big Issue sellers I have known, 100% have not offered to crack my skull. So I shall continue to treat them civilly (and buy their rather boring magazines) until their behaviour deteriorates alarmingly.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: Pied Piper
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 11:31 AM

I'm afraid that over the years when Busking I've been on the end of verbal abuse and threats from Big Issue sellers.
I think they are a relatively small percentage of the hole and I generally think the organisation is a good idea.
The thing to do when this happens is to clock the Guy's Identity number go to the local Big Issue office and report the incident. In my experience they take this sort of thing very seriously and will take action against the individual concerned.

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 11:42 AM

The big issue sellers in my part of Hull operate roughly to the following timetable:-

2-10pm, quite civil, selling their magazine to all and and sundry.
10-11pm disapear with the days proceeds, buy heroin and shoot up, or buy lots of special brew and drink it the graveyard.
11pm -2am Accost us all trying to walk down the street,and be total arseholes until they fall asleep at dawn.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: Paul Burke
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 11:53 AM

I've always found Big Issue sellers friendly and polite, though by the nature of things, there's bound to be above the normal incidence of mental problems. There's a thousand and one ways of finding yourself homeless, from drugs to depression taking in alcohol, divorce, and simple inability to cope on the way.

Here's a song I wrote a few years ago, based on two Big Issue sellers I talked to in Derby and Nottingham. the tune's "The Road and the Miles to Dundee":

One dark stormy evening, a week before Christmas
The shoppers were thronging the streets of the town.
A girl in a doorway was selling Big Issue,
Sheltering there from the rain pourting down.

I gave her the price, and a little bit over,
But the beer in my belly was making me bold,
So I asked why she stood like an out-of-work angel,
Shivering there in the rain and the cold.

She said "I was born in a pit- town near Mansfield.
My Mum's alcoholic, her boyfriend sells crack.
When I came home one night he attempted to rape me;
I left the next morning, I'll never go back.

So now I am homeless, and I sleep in a hostel,
But I don't mean to stay there for ever, you'll see,
For I'll soon get a job, and a flat, and a boyfriend,
Stay home with a takeout, watch soaps on TV."

Well I straightaway wished I was thirty years younger,
I'd have offered to help her to work out her plan,
But with me over fifty, and her only twenty,
She'd have laughed in my face for a dirty old man.

So I gave her a fiver, and felt like a miser.
If I'd given her fifty, I'd still have felt mean,
And I've not seen her since- but I'll always be looking.
I hope that she's living the life that she dreamed.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 12:02 PM

Paul Burke, I love your song and the spirit it shows.

What is the 'Big Issue'? Do we have an equivalent in the US? Is it some kind of union protecting the rights and livelihood of those on the street? What all does it encompass?

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 12:30 PM

Knock, knock!

Who's there?


Biggish!









Biggish who?

No thank you?

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: gnomad
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 12:32 PM

about Big Issue

I have never met a vendor of the kind described in the first post, though no doubt they have their share of awkward cusses, just the same as any other group of people.

I always admire the stamina of our local vendor, his pitch is one of the coldest and windiest in the town, but he sticks to it and is consistently polite and cheerful.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: mack/misophist
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 12:52 PM

The US equivalent, in my area at least, is called The Street Sheet.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: GUEST,attackedpaperseller
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 01:06 PM

The thing to do when this happens is to clock the Guy's Identity number go to the local Big Issue office and report the incident. In my experience they take this sort of thing very seriously and will take action against the individual concerned.

I took your advice and they are now invesigating the man concerned. I hope he loses his 'job'.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 01:59 PM

'job' do they get paid?

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: Morticia
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 02:41 PM

they get a percentage from each paper they sell......and I've never met one who was less than delightful although I spose they have their off days, as do we all.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: GUEST,attackedpaperseller
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 02:53 PM

well he wont be taking any more percentages.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 03:07 PM

I've never an agressive one but I did know one who got them a bad name in one town by going into pubs and getting very pissed on his takings. It didn't take long for it to blow up to "Don't give money to Big Issue Sellers. They all spend it all on drink and drugs".

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 03:10 PM

wasnt beverley was it?

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 07:25 PM

If one has the big issue delivered by post it saves one from the necessaty of entering those grimey inner city areas and mixing with the working classes

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: Firecat
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 08:23 PM

The Big Issue sellers I have bought one from are in general really polite. I remember having a good chat with one in Selby when I was at college.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 04:32 AM

no it saves the neccesity of mixing with big issue vendors.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 12:18 PM

They are all druggie basterds, piss on them as you walk by.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: GUEST,KB
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 08:30 AM

Great song Paul!

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 08:34 AM

Sir John, I like you but there are occasions where you worry me far more than any big issue seller I've met.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 10:10 AM

Having bdeen homeless for about two years of my life I can sympathize with the vendors. There is, however, no reason that one can't use a bit of creativity and inginuity rather than rudeness and threats to get around things.

Stephen Lee

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: alanabit
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 03:31 PM

Threats and abuse are pretty poor sales technique at best. I have never known them to be much use for buskers either.
There are similar organisations to the Big Issue over here. I sometimes meet them late at night in the pub, on the rare occasions, when I go out for a beer. I reckon that if they can still be at it at that hour of night, they deserve a Euro or two from me.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 04:51 PM

Ancient Mariner today

Subject: RE: BS: Big Issue vendors
From: GUEST,Fullerton
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 05:09 PM

What did the slug say to snail?


















Big Issue.......