Adrian Lobb

Power cut in the middle of screening of The Hack (new phone hacking and much more drama coming soon to ITV). Clearly some powerful people don’t want us to watch…

This whole thread. Scary times for the arts. We take our brilliant, innovative, skilled (and lucrative) arts sector for granted at our peril. "These planned cuts mean that by 2029, the government is projected to be spending well over a third less per citizen on Culture, Media & Sport in real terms…"

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Here We Go! The Art of the Football Chant Les Back charts the history of football chants and asks if they’re modern-day folk songs.

And here is more about the documentary… www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

How football chants became the folk music of today Les Back on how football can inspire songs of celebration, defiance, protest or calls to action – which sounds like folk music to us.

Here is the full article featuring my interview with @academicdiary.bsky.social… www.bigissue.com/culture/musi...

Was great to talk with Prof Les Back about his new BBC Radio 4 documentary exploring the idea of football chants as folk music. Read all about it in @bigissue.com - on sale now. And listen tonight on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds…

A tribute to George Wendt: Norm, Cheers and the human need to connect In an era of individual aspiration, the late, great actor George Wendt as Norm in classic sitcom Cheers showed an alternative, richer path.

Norm! www.bigissue.com/culture/tv/g...

Fantastic ending to Baroness Kidron's speech in the House of Lords yesterday, which led to the government's defeat on AI & copyright.

Speaking the UK's creators: "Their property, their labour, is worthy of your protection - because apart from anything else, it is not ours to give away."

More from 100-year-old former Wren Dorothea Barron:

"As soon as the war finished, we were told to go back to the kitchen. It was so demoralising. We were ignored and disregarded, treated as non-people. The moment the war in Japan ended, they wanted mothers, typists, cooks."

#VEDay

100-year-old WW2 heroine Dorothea: 'War is an absolute waste of everything' It's 80 years since VE Day. To mark it, our special Letter to my Younger Self, features 100-year-old former Wren, Dorothea Barron.

"War is an absolute waste of everything – time, money, lives. It doesn’t improve anything. It just proves you’ve got some egotistical man trying to improve his status. Because men start wars, women don’t."

This week's @bigissue.com cover star Dorothea Barron (100)…

www.bigissue.com/life/ve-day-...

We’re proudly working with the V&A on an exciting new project that champions grassroots music venues and their cultural legacy - and you can be a part of it.

Contribute your artefacts from between 1988-2025 by contacting musicvenues@vam.ac.uk before May 31.

Tony Blair calls for radical reset of climate change policies in major intervention Former PM warns climate policy has become disconnected from ‘political, public, and economic reality’ and claims COP is struggling to ‘deliver change at the speed required’

The same Tony Blair has been paid to advise oil rich autocratic states including Azerbaijan, UAE and Kazakhstan

This should be included in *every* story about his net zero comments

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

The cover of the Big Issue magazine, and a page showing a news story about Adrian Lobb running the London Marathon…

Bless my cotton socks, I'm in the news (pages of the Big Issue magazine)… 2025tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/adrian-lobb

YouTube video by cookingvinylarchive Pere Ubu - Nonalignment Pact

I don't DJ very often. I'm rubbish at it. Way too indecisive. But when I do, I always play Non-Alignment Pact by Pere Ubu, whether anyone wants me to or not. RIP David Thomas…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Leax...

The Nanosphere?

I do! Wow, well done Jim! I've got a few toenails that have jumped ship already – expecting a few more casualties on marathon day...

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE etc

“Every sentence flows and dazzles like liquid gold, every paragraph has its own rhythm.” 📘

Big Issue books editor Jane Graham celebrates the centenary of F Scott Fitzgerald’s Great American Novel, first published in April 1925. ⬇️
buff.ly/izT9mWh

Signed...

Former Watford, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Portsmouth and England goalkeeper David James and his interviewer, former FC Merrill, Mickleover Athletic and Littleover Dazzlers inside forward, Adrian Lobb.

He was also the first person I've ever interviewed who wore goalkeeping gloves the whole time.

Football legend David James: 'I know I could have done things better' David James didn't expect trophies at Portsmouth, but when they won the FA Cup, it was the fans' reaction that floored him.

"I never had a problem with anything other than handling my own obsessions."

Really interesting to talk with David James, who I first saw playing for Watford v Derby County in 1992. 3-1 to Derby. He remembered. He remembers every game, every scoreline.

www.bigissue.com/culture/engl...

'The record is a snapshot': Inside Billy Mahonie’s unlikely comeback and the evolution of post-rock Billy Mahonie, the instrumental post-rock pioneers, return with their first album in over a decade, Field of Heads

“It’s a classic story - a band from the UK who might have reached seminal levels if only they had been from Chicago.”

I interviewed actual Billy Mahonie - whose tour starts tonight - and their old sound engineer, Paul Epworth…

www.bigissue.com/culture/musi...

Meek Raffle!

Very great. Hopefully we won't leave it so long next time…

Wet Leg’s drum kit at Moth Club (it says Uma Thurman on the bass drum)

Wet Leg on stage at the Moth Club during secret gig (playing as Uma Thurman)

Wet Leg (playing as Uma Thurman) at the Moth Club

Wet Leg secret gig at the Moth Club last night was ace, playing as ‘Uma Thurman’. Loads of new songs. First new one was great. And one that might be called Pillow Talk. And the one they played after Chaise Longue. And one near the end. Thanks for reading my gig review.

Big Issue's Kids Cover Competition is back for Earth Day – judged by Chris Packham It's the Big Issue's Kids Cover Competition, and we're calling on all young artists to create our Earth Day cover for 2025. The theme? GO WILD!

Big Issue's Kids Cover Competition is back for Earth Day – judged by the legendary Chris Packham

UK's biggest companies locking autistic people out of jobs with personality tests Just three in 10 working age autistic people are in work, and charities say the use of personality tests for roles could be discriminatory.

EXC: How UK's biggest companies lock autistic people out of jobs with personality tests

➡️Morrison's, John Lewis, McDonald's, Co-op +more using tests

➡️"I just don't stand a chance" say autistic jobseekers, as charities tell @bigissue.com tests may be discriminatory

www.bigissue.com/news/employm...

Sense was the only disability charity that supplied evidence to a Public Accounts Committee report, which said the DWP was providing 'unacceptably poor service' to disability benefits claimants. ⛔️

Its policy and public affairs advisor writes about why change is needed. ⬇️
https://bit.ly/4jwxVgV

hello 👋 looking to hear from people working on any sweet photo or art projects in the areas of: social justice and activism; housing and homelessness; nature and climate change; immigration; health; human rights; other cool stuff

is this you? hit me up on ryan dot butcher at big issue dot com

He’s reading my interview with Nicola Coughlan about the Doctor Who Christmas special…