CafeBabel: ‘I know what it's like to be prejudiced, drunk, imprisoned - by Nabeelah Shabbir,

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‘I know what it's like to be prejudiced, drunk, imprisoned - by Nabeelah Shab

‘I don’t like most journalists,’ grumbles John Bird. He has just rounded up an editorial meeting at Ponti’s café, above platform seventeen in London’s Liverpool Street station. ‘They don’t think analytically.Meet the founder of The Big Issue (TBI), an entertainment and current affairs street weekly which is also a ‘social business’. Written by professionals, it is distributed in five regional editions by the homeless. Badged vendors buy the magazine from The Big Issue Foundation (which funds programs for the homeless) for 70p (90 cents) and sell them on the streets for £1.50 (2 euros), thus making a profit of 80p (1 euro) per copy. ‘I’m not a particularly good editor,’ Bird admits over a second ‘bucket of tea’, as the city suits criss-cross and trains rumble in the station below. He left the post in 2006. ‘Writing is a good way of sharpening up your ideas and that shit. If you’re a very good conductor you might not be good on the violin. But I’d rather play it.’