Latest news with #TheBigIssue
Perth Now
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Kim Wilde locked out of hotel room naked
Kim Wilde got locked out of her hotel room naked following a boozy "knees-up". The veteran pop star, 64, has been sober for a decade but she used to enjoy alcohol-soaked nights out following her shows at the height of her career in the 1980s and she's revealed one night ended in humiliation after she found herself trapped in a hotel corridor without any clothes on and she had to walk down to reception in the nude to ask for help. She told The Times newspaper: "I haven't drunk alcohol for a decade, so post-show hedonism levels won't be at Eighties or Nineties levels. I once ended up naked in a hotel corridor after a big knees-up: I snuck out of my room in the night and the door shut behind me. "I had to slink down to the lobby to ask for a spare key, which was mortifying." The confession comes after Kim revealed late Motorhead frontman Lemmy once tried to get her drunk on vodka in his dressing room. Kim met the late heavy metal legend - who died from prostate cancer along with cardiac arrhythmia and congestive heart failure at the age of 70 in 2015 - at the start of her career and notorious boozer kept topping up her cup in a bid to get her tipsy before Kim's chaperone dragged her away. Kim - who launched her pop career in 1981 at the age of 20 following the release of 'Kids in America' - explained to The Big Issue magazine: "I was very lucky. "Both of the record companies that I worked for at the time got me travelling. "When I was travelling, that's when I needed looking after. And they were always there. So, I was, sort of, chaperoned, I would say, very wisely and with a lot of fun. "There was one time where I was in a dressing room with Lemmy from Motörhead, oh God. And he was trying to get me drunk on vodka. He poured it into a plastic cup so you couldn't see how much was in there. "My chaperone, or the lady that works at the record company, Moira, she dragged me out. She wouldn't let me. But he was an absolute sweetheart really." Kim insists the support of the team that was around her throughout her career put her in a "really good" place in terms of finances. The ''Never Trust a Stranger' hitmaker explained: "I'd tell my younger self you need to surround yourself as much as possible with people who you can trust. "I would say, always trust your instincts about people who you're working with, and ask lots of questions. "I was very fortunate in that I've always worked with people who I trust implicitly, and that has made a huge difference to the quality of my life, not just personally, but, you know, financially. It's given me a lot of security. "I would say that on the whole, I've had a really positive experience, and it's put me in a really good place."
Perth Now
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Motorhead's Lemmy tried to get Kim Wilde drunk on vodka
Motorhead frontman Lemmy once tried to get Kim Wilde drunk on vodka in his dressing room. Kim, 64, met the late heavy metal legend - who died from prostate cancer along with cardiac arrhythmia and congestive heart failure at the age of 70 in 2015 - at the start of her career and notorious boozer kept topping up her cup in a bid to get her tipsy. However, Kim's chaperone dragged her away, although the pop icon considers Lemmy to have been an "absolute sweetheart". Kim - who launched her pop career in 1981 at the age of 20 following the release of 'Kids in America' - explained to The Big Issue magazine: "I was very lucky. Both of the record companies that I worked for at the time got me travelling. "When I was travelling, that's when I needed looking after. And they were always there. So, I was, sort of, chaperoned, I would say, very wisely and with a lot of fun. "There was one time where I was in a dressing room with Lemmy from Motörhead, oh God. And he was trying to get me drunk on vodka. He poured it into a plastic cup so you couldn't see how much was in there. "My chaperone, or the lady that works at the record company, Moira, she dragged me out. "She wouldn't let me. But he was an absolute sweetheart really." Kim insists the support of the team that was around her throughout her career has put her in a "really good" place in terms of finances. The ''Never Trust a Stranger' hitmaker explained: "I'd tell my younger self you need to surround yourself as much as possible with people who you can trust. "I would say, always trust your instincts about people who you're working with, and ask lots of questions. "I was very fortunate in that I've always worked with people who I trust implicitly, and that has made a huge difference to the quality of my life, not just personally, but, you know, financially. It's given me a lot of security. "I would say that on the whole, I've had a really positive experience, and it's put me in a really good place." However, Kim - whose dad is the 50s and 60s pop legend Marty Wilde, 86 - had to deal with the "roller coaster effect" of her career, with the ups and downs causing her mental health to take a "battering" and her confidence to be "absolutely crushed". The 1983 BRIT Award-winner for British Female Solo Artist admitted: "It's been a roller coaster of a career. When things are going really well, it's really great fun, and everyone's vibing and, yeah, you get to share that. "And then, of course, as soon as that dips down, you can have some really tough times. "I really had to get used to the roller coaster effect of my career. "My mental health took a bit of a battering. Sometimes my confidence got absolutely crushed on many occasions. I really had to dig deep to rise above that and get on with life and figure out what was important for me." And Kim believes the "negative aspects" of her music career were a "great gift". She continued: "So all the chat about the negative aspects of my career now I realise was a great gift that I learned valuable lessons from."
Edinburgh Live
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Live
Strictly star talks 'real challenge' after Claudia Winkleman 'forced' daunting big move
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info Strictly Come Dancing winner Rose Ayling-Ellis says her new role in Doctor Who is all down to Claudia Winkleman. Joining Ncuti Gatwa (the doctor) and Varada Sethu (who plays Belinda Chandra), the 30-year-old plays the base's cook Aliss Fenly. Addressing how she got the role, Rose said Claudia, 53, persuaded her to talk to Russell T Davies, the show's screenwriter, at an awards ceremony. She explained: "Doctor Who was on my bucket list. I really wanted to be on it. "I saw Russell T Davies at an awards ceremony and Claudia Winkleman forced me to speak to him. So it's thanks to Claudia that I got the job!". Rose went on to say the character had to be rewritten to make her character deaf, though added to The Big Issue: "I don't want every character to be defined by their deafness." The actress, who has also starred in EastEnders, said joining the show had been "a real acting challenge". Explaining why, she added: "I had to work my imagination because a lot was CGI, but I'm comfortable with being uncomfortable now." Rose showed fans that it's not just acting she's good at when she joined the cast of Strictly in 2021. With her professional dance partner Giovanni Pernice, she triumphed to the top and won the Glitterball trophy. At the time, she said of her journey: 'There are a lot of ups and downs and some dances are harder than others. "But Giovanni is such a good teacher, and he's really adapted to the way I learn, rather than making me learn it in his way.' Gushing over their friendship, she went on to describe the 34-year-old as "incredible". "He really supports every single step – and I mean every single step, even when I'm doing stuff on my own he, off-camera, is giving me timing," she added to The Guardian. The professional dancer has since left the show following a fall out with his 2023 dance partner Amanda Abbington, which led to an internal investigation into allegations about him. The BBC "upheld some, but not all" complaints about his alleged behaviour. He has always denied any wrongdoing and has since joined the Italian version of the show. As for Rose, she is thriving in her acting career, also starring in ITV's new drama Code of Silence. In the series, she takes on the role of Alison Woods, a deaf caterer, who works to support her mother, as well as herself. With extraordinary lip-reading skills, she is asked to join the police to help uncover conversations involving dangerous criminals. However as she starts to fall for one of the suspect, she risks everything. Code of Silence is available to watch on ITV and ITVX. Doctor Who is also available on BBC iPlayer.
Scotsman
14-05-2025
- Business
- Scotsman
From sandwich shop to social movement: how Josh Littlejohn turned a small Edinburgh café into a national force against homelessness
Watch more of our videos on and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565 Visit Shots! now Josh Littlejohn MBE is a social entrepreneur whose efforts to combat homelessness have reshaped support systems not only across Scotland but around the world. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... As the founder of Social Bite—a movement that began with a small sandwich shop in Edinburgh and grew into a nationally recognised charity—Josh has become one of the country's most influential voices on social enterprise. As one of the UK's most respected leadership speakers, Josh has addressed global leaders and worked alongside high-profile advocates such as George Clooney and Prince William. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In this exclusive interview with Champions Speakers Agency, he reflects on how a single act of kindness led to the creation of a village for homeless individuals, why Edinburgh remains at the heart of his mission, and what more needs to be done to fix the UK's broken system. Josh Littlejohn MBE - Champions Speakers Agency Q: How did a small Edinburgh café become the starting point for Social Bite's mission to tackle homelessness? Josh Littlejohn: 'Well, it kind of happened by accident really. Social Bite's become quite well known now for our work with homeless people, but when we first set up, it didn't really have much to do with homelessness at all, to be honest. 'What happened was we opened up a little café – it's kind of a sandwich coffee shop in the city centre of Edinburgh – and we were in there making coffees and serving customers. There was a young man who was 19 years old, he was homeless, and he was selling The Big Issue magazine on the street corner just outside the front door of the café. 'After a couple of weeks of us being open, this young man – his name was Pete – he came in one day and he sort of plucked up the courage and he asked us if he could have a job. We kind of thought, why not? It seemed like quite a nice thing to do. So, we gave him a job in our kitchen. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'We just saw that he was working really hard, and we saw that employment was quite transformative for him. We thought we might try it again and we asked him, 'Pete, do you know anybody else that's homeless that might want a job?' He said, 'Well, my brother Joel is also homeless – he also sells The Big Issue.' So, we said, okay, we're going to give Joel a job. 'Then Joel was working hard, and we said, 'Do you know anybody else, guys?' They said, 'Well, there's a guy down the street called John, maybe you could give him a try.' And we said, alright, we'll give him a job. I think at this point they kind of realised we were basically soft touches as employers, and they could maybe recommend some of their other friends. They recommended this guy called Colm. 'So, that's kind of how it all got started – we got involved in this homeless issue by offering jobs in this café to people. As we got a bit more engaged in it, we introduced this pay-it-forward system. We started to encourage customers to buy something extra for someone that was homeless to get something for free later. 'So, customers started to buy extra sandwiches and extra coffees, and before we realised it, we were feeding maybe 40 or 50 people every day in this little café. That's kind of how it all got started.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Q: What difference has the Social Bite Village made for rough sleepers here in Edinburgh and beyond? Josh Littlejohn: 'Well, it's kind of grown exponentially. We started with that one little café and decided to try and open a bit of a chain of cafés. We thought we'd try and maybe give Starbucks a bit of a run for their money here in Scotland. 'We ended up opening five cafés across three cities, and we made a policy that around a quarter of our workforce would be people that had been homeless. By this point, we were giving out quite a significant quantity of free food across this chain of cafés. But out with the kind of immediate locality of the shops, pretty much no one would have ever heard of us or known much about what we did. 'We got a bit of a profile boost, which really helped to propel the scope of our work. In 2015, as crazy as it sounds, I decided to write a letter to George Clooney and invited him to come to Edinburgh and visit our little café. Amazingly, in November 2015, he did come and popped into the café. He brought Edinburgh to a bit of a screeching halt – there were hundreds of women camping outside the cafés from six in the morning just to catch a glimpse of him. 'I went into the newsagents the next day and suddenly Social Bite was on the front page of every single national newspaper in the whole of the United Kingdom. It was on the News at Six. Suddenly, our tiny little charity had quite a big profile. We thought we could maybe use that profile to develop some much more ambitious projects and programmes to tackle the issue. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'That led us to embark on a whole range of things. One of the projects we developed was a project called the Social Bite Village, where we took on some vacant land that was owned by Edinburgh Council and we built a small village. 'We put into production eleven two-bedroom prefabricated houses and a big community hub for 20 homeless people at any one time to come in, live, and find their feet. That's a project we're really proud of, and that's so far helped around 45 people into housing through that project.' Q: From your experience, what practical steps must the UK take to meaningfully address homelessness? Josh Littlejohn: 'Well, the big thing that we've sort of advocated for is a policy that's known as Housing First. Basically, what that means is that the way the UK currently responds to homelessness – kind of the status quo – is if someone finds themselves becoming homeless and they're sleeping on the streets (and obviously all of us walk past people every day in most cities in that situation), we ask these people to prove that they're what's known as 'tenancy ready' before they end up being able to get their own place, their own flat, or their own house. 'We're asking them to say, 'Well, you need to show us that you're on top of any mental health issues, on top of any addiction issues, maybe you need to show us that you're able to get a job.' If you're able to clear all these hurdles, then you can have a house. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'So, we kind of make people try and show themselves to be up here, but common sense would tell you, if you're sleeping on the street, in a doorway, freezing cold, or living in fear, then your mental health is obviously going to deteriorate pretty rapidly. You're probably going to turn to drugs or alcohol to try and escape that. Certainly, you're going to be 100 miles away from trying to get a job. 'It's a very broken system at the moment – we're asking people to show themselves to be up here, but in reality, they're living in a situation that sends them down here. 'What Housing First proposes is that the first thing that we need to do to help someone that's homeless is to find them a home. That shouldn't be the last thing – that should be the first thing. Only from that stable place of a home can they possibly start to solve mental health challenges and addiction challenges and reintegrate into society. 'One of the things that we developed in Scotland was a big Housing First programme, where we've helped around – it's almost 600 rough sleepers, people that were on the street for a long time – into their own permanent flat. We've helped to fund a wraparound support to give them the support they need to sustain that. That's very much a pilot that we think should be rolled out in a significant way throughout the UK. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'I think that's the keyway we can really address the rough sleeping problem and help get people off the streets, because the current system is definitely very broken.' This exclusive interview with Josh Littlejohn was conducted by Chris Tompkins.
Time of India
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Here's how Margot Robbie inspired Ncuti Gatwa
Picture Credit: Facebook Actor Ncuti Gatwa , known for his performances in " Sex Education " and "The Last Letter from Your Lover" worked with Hollywood star Margot Robbie on 'Barbie', and he thought he would do something the actress did on the comedy fantasy film set while shooting ' Doctor Who '. Gatwa, who plays the show's fifteenth incarnation of the Time Lord, told The Big Issue magazine: "I came on to 'Doctor Who' after working on 'Barbie' and getting to see just how incredible Margot Robbie is, and how she takes the huge responsibility in her stride." "So something I took from Margot on 'Doctor Who' was to get the crew good food vans. Once a month, bring in a pizza van or an ice cream van. Feed everyone! That's the lesson I learned from Margot." The 32-year-old star has just wrapped his big supporting role in 'The Roses' opposite Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch, and he loved the 51-year-old actress' "lack of ego and self-importance," reports by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trending in in 2025: Local network access control [Click Here] Esseps Learn More Undo He added: "And Olivia Colman was absolutely incredible. Such a lack of ego and self-importance." The 'Masters of the Air' actor felt "revived" after he returned to London's National Theatre in ' The Importance of Being Earnest ' at the end of last year and into January in what was his first theatre role since 2018. He said: "It was so invigorating. I was really craving doing theatre. I had been for a couple of years. It was so nice to have to work in that process again - five weeks of rehearsal, spending time with the script and the director and crafting the play. "By the time we got to tech, my script looked like dog food. You couldn't see a single line - it had all been scribbled over! It was just so much fun to do, pure silliness, every single night. "Oh my God, I miss it a lot." Gatwa's career has been transformed through his role in 'Doctor Who' but he revealed that he had to move house because of the attention that comes with playing the famous character. The star, who was "not prepared" for the "level of surveillance" that came with the iconic role, said: "I moved house for more privacy. I had to. My God, I was like, everyone knows where I live. Hell - the level of surveillance was something I was not prepared for. It got a bit crazy. I live on a very quiet street now, which is lovely. "So I guess the change is being from an extrovert to an introvert. I like a cup of tea and sitting in my house now."
