It would be very easy for me to withdraw completely from the outside world and just become a hermit. To be honest, I’m halfway there already. I work mostly from a shed in my back garden, dressed all day in elasticated leisure wear. I venture out only to walk the dog and occasionally drive my teenage daughter to and from social events. It’s a simple, unfussy lifestyle that I find helps nurture a state of mental balance. 

However, I acknowledge that it is also a bit weird and boring. It’s also a shame, because I feel as if I still have a lot to offer society: I remain a colourful and entertaining person to interact with, given the chance. 

When I do occasionally stray outside my domestic bubble, I always try to make the most of the experience. I am someone who will talk to almost anyone: in the supermarket checkout queue, on the train station platform, even at the urinal at the public loos: if you see me, watch out, because I will try to strike up a chinwag whether you like it or not.

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Take last week: I was forced to travel to an unfamiliar postcode to pick up some documents from a travel agency. It was a boring administrative obligation that I was pretty fed up about – until I got to the company’s offices and spotted an empty birdcage on one of the shelves.

“Do you keep a bird in this office?” I asked the travel agent.

“Yes, my mother lives in the flat upstairs and has a parrot,” she replied. “Would you like to see it?”

Had I not asked about the cage, I would have never known about the mother or the parrot or the flat upstairs. You see? I like to chat. It always opens up opportunities. In this case, the opportunity was to meet a parrot – and it was one I grabbed with both hands. 

I finished the admin then got shown upstairs where I met a charming elderly woman who told me her life story while I fed her parrot – Sonny – peanuts through the bars of its cage.

“You’re a pretty boy,” I said to Sonny.

“I know that!” he squawked back at me.

It was comfortably one of the top five most thrilling experiences of my year so far. What a cheeky parrot Sonny was.

Eventually, I said my goodbyes and went back downstairs. By now, there was another customer in the office filling out the same forms as I had. I was sure I recognised him. I said hello in a familiar way and asked if he knew that they had a parrot upstairs. As soon as he opened his mouth to tell me that, yes, he knew Sonny because he was a regular customer, I realised who the man was: none other than noted violinist and former ‘enfant terrible’ of the classical music scene, Nigel Kennedy!

• Sam Delaney: held hostage by an unsolicited flute recital
• Sam Delaney: At the gym with the future king

Still reeling from the excitement of meeting Sonny the parrot, I wasn’t sure if my nervous system was able to process a second shock of this magnitude. For a brief moment, I went dizzy and wondered if I was dreaming. Then I composed myself, told Mr Kennedy that I was a big fan and spent an enjoyable 15 minutes talking to him about Premier League football.

After this was all done, I went home to my family and told them, in a state of high animation, of the mind-boggling adventure I had been on. They listened to the whole story, spellbound, and I sensed that my wife and kids were starting to see me in a new light. Perhaps I wasn’t just the weird, reclusive, unshaven and friendless dope they had previously taken me for. Maybe I was, in fact, a cosmopolitan man about town who hungrily gobbled up the endlessly enriching array of experiences that life served up to him. A man who could turn a dreary trip to a travel agent into a compelling escapade featuring exotic birds and celebrity musicians. A man who drinks thirstily from life’s majestic fountain.

“Sounds like bollocks to me,” said my son, who is 12. My daughter nodded in agreement with him. My wife smiled patronisingly and just wandered off.

They didn’t think I was an inspirational liver of life. They thought I was a bullshitter.

Big Issue is demanding an end to poverty this general election. Will you sign our open letter to party leaders?

But it was true. All of it. And I don’t care if they don’t believe me (or if you do either). Because I lived through it. I had that sensational day out and no one can ever take it away from me. Don’t believe what they tell you about Londoners being unfriendly: I’m one and I’ve been talking my way into other people’s lives my whole life.

Read more from Sam Delaney here.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this topic? We want to hear from you. And we want to share your views with more people. Get in touch and tell us more.

Sort Your Head Out: Mental Health Without All the Bollocks by Sam Delaney is out now (Constable £18.99). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy! If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop or The Big Issue app, available now from the App Store or Google Play

I’ve never been a morning person. Through good times and bad, whether I’ve been getting up in the dark to attend a job I hated or sleeping in late before a day of leisure, I’ve always found the first few moments of the day really unpleasant. I wake up feeling scared. I’m never quite sure of what. If my mind is a filing cabinet, I feel as if vandals get in at night, start opening all the drawers and throwing the important papers around. I wake feeling discombobulated; unsure of my ability to confront the future. There could be a scientific explanation to do with cortisone levels. Look it up if you like, I can’t be bothered. What difference would it make? I’ve been struggling like this since childhood. I’m past caring what the cause is; I just want a cure.

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Recently, I think I might have found one. For the past few weeks, I have started waking up feeling happy. When I hear the alarm, I fling back the covers almost immediately. I scuttle downstairs merrily to feed the pets and stick the kettle on. I open the blinds and smile into the sunlight. Sometimes, I even have a little whistle. 

The cause of all this is not some fancy ‘optimisation ritual’ learnt from a weird alpha-male podcast. I’m not fasting or taking ice baths; I’m not muttering affirmations or scribbling out a gratitude journal. It’s more straightforward than all that: I’ve just got really, really into puzzles. Concise crosswords were the gateway drug. My wife has been a big fan for years; I have always teased her for being a nerd. Crosswords seemed a bit too spoddy for me. I had an idea of myself as a renegade who lives too fast and burns too bright for the gentle pleasures of word-based conundrums.

Like many washed up middle-aged men, I clung to a daft fantasy for a bit too long. The more I give in to reality – and accept that I am perhaps more Stephen Fry than Stephen Tyler – the more relaxed I seem to feel about life.

It’s a shamefully late realisation, I know, but there is huge satisfaction in making gradual progress as a result of continued practice. Who knew? I do The Times crossword each day, painstakingly stumbling through each clue in order and then repeating until the whole thing is complete, or near enough. Once I’m done, I am overwhelmed by a sense of self-satisfaction. It’s a bit like the quiet smugness I feel after a morning run, only less messy and undignified.

• Sam Delaney: ‘I thought I was too good for my local jazz club. Not any more’
• Myth of hard work needs to be busted. Luck and privilege are usually behind success

After a few weeks of crossword use, I started exploring other brainteasers: Wordle, connection puzzles, even a bit of Sudoku. I’m not exaggerating when I say they give me a thrilling little buzz. I think it must be the focus they demand; I’ve always enjoyed escaping into pastimes that block out all the troubling thoughts and chaotic feelings that swirl around inside me. There was a time when booze and drugs provided the escape, but that proved to be unsustainable. Video games sometimes do the job – but slouching in front of the telly playing a football management simulation doesn’t do much for your self respect.

Puzzles, on the other hand, are meditative yet improving; a distraction that both numbs and nourishes. I’m angry at myself for discovering their beauty so late in life. I’ve spent thousands on therapy over the years. I’m not sure puzzling necessarily helps me unpick the great conundrum of my life, but it has helped me to relax and shown me I am capable of progress.

Now, I don’t wake up thinking: ‘SHIT SHIT SHIT! WHERE AM I?! WHAT’S HAPPENING?! WHY IS LIFE SO INTIMIDATING?’ Instead, the first thing I think is: ‘Seize the day! Grasp the nettle! Call the cops! It’s time for another morning of puzzling!’ 

Read more from Sam Delaney here.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this topic? We want to hear from you. And we want to share your views with more people. Get in touch and tell us more.

Sort Your Head Out: Mental Health Without All the Bollocks by Sam Delaney is out now (Constable £18.99). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy! If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member. You can also purchase one-off issues from 

What with all the bent politicians and shit-filled rivers, it’s getting ever harder to feel proud of Britain. But there is one thing that we Brits seem to be excelling at in the post-Brexit era: idleness. Our level of productivity (the amount we actually produce per hours worked) is way behind that of workforces in other developed societies such as Germany, France and America.

I don’t know about you, but this makes my heart swell. I think it’s wonderful that we are a nation of feckless feet-draggers who refuse to conform to the demented and futile work ethic that governs more conformist societies. 

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It seems we put the hours in at work but don’t really do much with them. And why should we? Hard work offers very few assurances any more. The only thing that motivates any of us to put extra hours in for the boss is the avoidance of unemployment and starvation. Those of us who stay late don’t do so because we think it will lead to a promotion, a pay rise and a bigger house. We do it because we are desperate not to get made redundant and left at the mercy of a welfare state that, these days, looks less like a safety net and more like a gigantic shredder of the human soul. 

I saw a newspaper column recently by a smiling woman with a posh name who complained about workshy youngsters. She compared her younger self very favourably, boasting about the amount she ‘hustled’ to get where she wanted to be. Maybe she did hustle. Maybe she put in more hours than she was being paid for, neglecting her health and her relationships in the process. And maybe she thinks it was all worth it because she ended up getting to write self-regarding columns about what a success story she is.

But she is overlooking the role that luck plays in any success story.

Like her, I worked too hard in my 20s and 30s. I burnt out several times, landing myself in hospital on numerous occasions. I damaged my physical and mental health. I damaged important relationships. I eventually developed a drink and drug problem because I couldn’t cope with the lifestyle I had cultivated. 

Yes, I also found a great deal of professional success along the way: I landed exciting jobs that were great fun and paid good money. Was that all down to talent and hard work? No, much of it was a fluke. I stumbled into opportunities. I found myself in the right place at the right time. I was lucky in a ton of ways – not least the fact that I happened to be born and bred in London, which allowed me to get a foot in the door at the sort of media companies I wanted to work for while living at home rent free with my mum.

My mum worked much harder than me her whole life – as a secretary mostly – but never had the same luck. It’s an insult to people like her to suggest that ‘hard work’ is all it takes to succeed. It’s far more complex.

• Some people might find my middle-aged life boring – but it’s real. There’s beauty in the humdrum
• There’s no shame in being skint. Talking about money worries will free you

I’m sure there were a ton of people far more talented and worthy than me living in other parts of the country who just couldn’t have found a practical way of doing six months on next to no wages in a magazine office in Central London, like I did when I left university. Had they been able to do so, they might have had all the opportunities I had.

We can all work hard but, more often than not, you also need a huge amount of luck and privilege to succeed. Those who tell themselves otherwise are deluded egotists living in their own juvenile hero fantasy.

Working hard is not, in itself, anything to be particularly proud of. The protestant work ethic, that hoodwinks its followers into thinking that God himself is keeping an eye on our clocking in and out habits, is a ruse designed by the crafty bosses of yesteryear who gaslit peasants into helping them get rich. There used to be a legitimate quid pro quo at least. Now there are few guarantees of reward. You might just as well slack off as much as you can, you’ll live longer and be happier. 

Learning to like yourself is the best antidote to workaholism. It stops you from feeling bad about enjoying life. It stops you giving away your time and energy just to help others make money. Best of all, it allows you to take regular daytime naps without feeling an ounce of guilt. Try it.

Read more from Sam Delaney here.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this topic? We want to hear from you. And we want to share your views with more people. Get in touch and tell us more.

Sort Your Head Out: Mental Health Without All the Bollocks by Sam Delaney is out now (Constable £18.99). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy! If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop or The Big Issue app, available now from the App Store or Google Play.

I went to see a Smiths tribute band at the weekend. They’re called The Smyths. It was in the backroom of a local pub and it was life-affirming. It helped that I love the music of the actual Smiths. It also helped that the pretend Morrissey was not the real Morrissey and I therefore didn’t need to wrestle with any of my tedious liberal scruples over enjoying his performance. 

But most of all it was about the atmosphere in the room, as the sounds of rainy 1980s Manchester whipped an audience of clapped-out middle-aged bastards like me into an improbable state of ecstasy. The familiar bittersweet lyrics that narrated our youth, laced with those euphoric melodies: it had a narcotic-type effect on the hundred or so who had walked through the doors moments earlier, worrying about whether their aching backs would be able to survive the evening. 

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By the encore, there were men and women who looked like they might not have cracked a smile since the mid-90s dancing, singing, hugging and even crying with joy. It was lovely. Strange where you can stumble upon spiritual experiences if you keep your eyes and mind open.

A Big Issue reader recently wrote in suggesting that, while he generally enjoyed my writing, the content was “often depressing”.

I wasn’t sure what to think about this. On the one hand, the editor never explicitly mentioned that he wanted my columns to be depressing. Then again, he didn’t specifically tell me not to make them depressing either. 

On reflection, I am quite pleased that my writing has something of a melancholic undercurrent these days. Time was, I only wrote, spoke or behaved to elicit a few cheap laughs. Metaphorically (and sometimes literally) I spent the first few decades of my life pulling my pants down in the hope that passers-by would clap and cheer.

These days, I try to be a bit more honest about what is going on in my life and my head. Some people might find it all a bit depressing. Certainly, a great deal of it is mundane. But the gentle ebbs and flows of my life, as I approach the tail end of my 40s, offer me almost nothing but sweet, peaceful and unremarkable pleasures.

I could write about sex, excitement, rock ’n’ roll and all the other stuff we believe might deliver joy when we are younger. I mean, I’d have to reach pretty deep into my mental archives to accurately remember what most of those things felt like. But it wouldn’t really be honest or authentic. It would give no indication of my actual experience of being alive and therefore nothing real or meaningful for anyone else to connect with.

• Sam Delaney: ‘My cat Nelson has gone and I’m absolutely gutted’
• Sam Delaney: ‘I thought I was too good for my local jazz club. Not any more’

So instead I write and talk about my love of peanuts, my dog’s propensity to bark at foxes in the back garden, the losing battle I am fighting against my waistline or the fact that I went to see a Smiths tribute band in the local pub last weekend and really, really, really enjoyed it.

This is real life. It might not be blockbuster stuff but I love it. There is beauty, fun, absurdity and fulfilment in every last detail. There always has been, but when I was younger I just couldn’t see it. 

I was brainwashed by TV, glossy magazines and the influence of my equally naive peers to believe that life’s only pleasures lay in high-speed glamour and excitement. So I devoted a huge amount of my energy into chasing that stuff only to find, once I’d had my fill, that it did nothing to enrich my worldview, nourish my soul or put a smile on my face. In fact, it often seemed to do the opposite of all those things.

There is nothing like getting to middle age and opening your heart to the wondrous beauty of the humdrum. Revelling in domestic routine and the minutiae of bog-standard family life might once have looked to me like surrender. Now, I know it to be something far more profound: a realisation that all of the contentment and joy I need is sitting right here in front of me.

I used to think life could be so boring. Now I realise that I was just being unimaginative.

Read more from Sam Delaney here.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this topic? We want to hear from you. And we want to share your views with more people. Get in touch and tell us more.

Sort Your Head Out: Mental Health Without All the Bollocks by Sam Delaney is out now (Constable £18.99). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy! If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop or The Big Issue app, available now from the App Store or Google Play.

Big Issue readers react to articles on assisted dying, Andrew Tate, social housing and mobile phones in schools.

Assisted dying

Two weeks ago I sat and held my mother’s hand as she slowly died. She was in a care home and a low priority for overstretched district nurses. Although I had badgered her GP to prescribe the necessary medication to stop her from choking on her saliva, the local policy was only to attend to patients in pain so I repeatedly rolled her onto her side and wiped her mouth out as she looked at me with utter panic. Sixteen years previously her husband died in a hospice. He had a “good death”. While I support assisted dying, as an ex-nurse, what is overlooked is the issue of who on earth is going to administer this. There isn’t enough palliative care to go around as it is. My mother had repeatedly asked me to help her die; even with legislation, I fear assisted dying will remain a lottery as to who can access the help they should be given in a civilised society.

Jane Dolby, Reading

Sam’s the man

According to Sam Delaney’s article about Andrew Tate, Labour is looking for positive role models for young men. I would like to recommend one: Sam Delaney. His articles are often depressing, but it is clear that he fully understands his limitations and that life can be difficult. So he is, as he suggests in the article, a real human. And therefore a real man.

Rhea Donaldson 

Empty threat

Regarding empty properties and second homes – it is not acceptable that empty social housing providers are not filling these properties.

What is going to happen when the welfare system collapses? The number of people who find themselves homeless is going to skyrocket even more than the current figures. I have a flat through a housing association and they are fully aware that I cannot work currently, due to health issues, and are fully aware that the welfare system covers my rent. But I still need to go through an affordability application, so as long as I can pay for my rent and any other overcharged capitalist nonsense I am allowed a place to live.

That would explain why people live in poverty and need to feel further belittled by having to go to food banks, etc. Where does this nonsense end, because I encountered discrimination for not being able to work and unable to rent privately, and people are expected to lose all their dignity in begging for scraps.

The reason I have felt compelled to write all this and intend to email all the council boroughs and housing associations in England is to highlight the issues. People say that you can’t change the system. Well, that is what they want you to believe, but the more people unite together and are actively seeking change then anything is possible… even fixing broken Britain.

John Bull, Gosport

Different class

John Bird’s recent column addressed class as a big issue. The educational system has an awful lot to answer for. It will be hard to change things unless it becomes more integrated and less separate between those who can afford private providers and those who can’t. I appreciate scholarships exist, for a few.
Kathrin Luddecke

Wake-up call

Having worked at schools that tolerate mobile phone usage and those that don’t, I would always prefer schools that support a total ban. I do however think that if we can find a way to utilise technology in a manner that encourages learning without the negative distractions that seem to accompany it then we could see a real revolution in schools’ approach to education. 

But there is another factor that isn’t mentioned as much: my wife and I sent our two sons to a school with lax mobile phone rules. When one of my sons joined my school as a learning support assistant last year he joined me on break duty in our canteen. He turned to me and said, “It’s noisy in here, isn’t it?” to which I replied, “Wasn’t it the same in your school?”

“No Dad, it was really quiet. Everyone was on their phones. The kids here are talking to each other.”

Shane Howard  

Power corrupts

You say the online world is bad for us and hope that “…those with power to influence pay heed”. It is those in power who are the most psychotic, detached as they are from reality, living in their privilege and exhibiting a lack of empathy for ordinary people. This results in policy making detrimental to the most vulnerable, of warmongering and behind closed doors signing off of extra-judicial killings. This is a national and international problem where ambitions outstrip abilities and egos override objectivity. Hence we have wars, nuclear threats and a genocidal event taking place. Societal rot starts at the head. The masses suspect, rightfully in many cases, conspiracy theories; the politicians enact them. 

Malcolm Searle

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about assisted dying, education or any of the other topics discussed? We want to hear from you. Get in touch and tell us more.

When I woke up this morning, I got a text from the bank telling me that I was overdrawn. Then I got a notification alerting me to a couple of payments due to leave my account later that day. Next, I received an email from the credit rating agency I foolishly subscribed to, telling me that my rating has just dropped from ‘good’ to ‘fair’ for reasons they are unable (or unwilling) to explain. All this money talk before I’d finished my first cup of tea. 

A therapist once warned me: “It’s all too easy to bury your head in the sand about your financial problems.” I wish that was the case. I wouldn’t mind five minutes of respite. 

Like most of us, my financial status is subject to constant fluctuations – many of them disheartening – and my phone keeps me informed of them throughout the day. Every single day of the year. Yes, it is convenient. Yes, it can be helpful. But, my god, it’s stressful.  

Throughout my life, through good times and bad, money has been a constant source of anxiety. Being skint is miserable, of course. But even when I’ve had plenty in the bank, I’ve never been able to shake the low hum of stress that accompanies any thoughts of finance.

If I haven’t got much, I worry incessantly about where the next pay cheque will come from. If I’ve got a few quid in my pocket, I stress about how to organise it, spend it and manage it. I worry about losing it through naivety, irresponsibility or frivolity. I am just not comfortable around money.  

And I am not alone. According to recent ‘Money Talks’ research by MoneySupermarket and suicide prevention charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), one in two people in the UK report the cost of living crisis is making them feel anxious. The study also found that 52% of the UK population are more worried about money than 12 months ago. And one in four say they feel lonely or isolated because they cannot afford to socialise as much as they used to.  

I appreciate that I am luckier than many: I own my home and I can put food on the table. But money worries aren’t always rational. We live in a society that is obsessed with money and links it closely to status and self worth. We all know deep down that our bank balance is not an accurate reflection of our value as human beings, but sometimes it’s hard to remember that.

Our financial situation can shape our sense of personal success and failure. It can conjure feelings of shame and inadequacy. It can sometimes feel impossible to shake these feelings, however irrational you know them to be. 

• How can you cope with money worries in the cost of living crisis? We asked experts at leading mental health charities
• Sam Delaney talks money: ‘I’m on a crusade to help people discuss being skint’

The truth is, everyone worries about money to one degree or another. According to the Money Talks report, 34% of people don’t talk about their finances because they don’t want to feel judged, 33% feel a sense of embarrassment and 30% don’t share money worries as they don’t want to be an emotional burden to friends or family. 

When I was a kid, my mum was always skint and would talk about it constantly. I was raised in an environment where cash was always tight and it was a permanent source of worry. But at least my mum was happy to admit her problems and discuss them with her mates, many of whom were in a similar boat. 

Middle-class life is different: people can be guarded about their money worries. They want to appear relaxed, comfy and perhaps even a little smug. It’s like a conspiracy of silence, wherein nobody admits that they’re skint and so all of us end up thinking that we’re the only ones. 

These days, I try to behave more like my mum did when I was a kid: I tell my wife when I am concerned about the bank balance. We discuss it openly and work out a plan together. If a mate wants to eat out at
a fancy place I can’t afford, I will tell them honestly and without shame. Not giving a stuff about being perceived as rich is fantastically liberating. 

And it’s not just myself I have freed by being honest about money. It’s those around me too. Maybe by showing them that I struggle, they will feel slightly less isolated in their own problems. 

As with all matters relating to mental health, we can do a real service to each other just by opening up.  

Read more from Sam Delaney here.

Sort Your Head Out: Mental Health Without All the Bollocks by Sam Delaney is out now (Little, Brown £10.99). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.To support our work buy a copy!

If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop or The Big Issue app, available now from the App Store or Google Play.

Should they get elected, the Labour Party have said they will train up “positive male influencers” to go into schools and teach young lads not to be dickheads. This, they reckon, is a necessary response to the insidious influence of internet weirdos like Andrew Tate.

Tate, in case you don’t know, is a buffed-up manchild who chomps cigars and brags about his fast cars on social media. Somehow, he has become a role model to millions of young men across the globe who buy into his daft worldview (based on throwback ideas of ‘tough guy’ masculinity and a fear of women, veiled thinly behind confused, shouty, anti-feminist rhetoric). 

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He truly is the dick’s dick. The sort of bloke who almost certainly had no mates at school and struggled to ever look girls in the eye. In any just world he would still be living with his mum, binge-drinking energy pop while being catfished by Russian bots pretending to be sexy girls.

But in 2024, Andrew Tate really is rich, famous and admired by a worldwide legion of spod-acolytes.

He is, of course, the symptom and not the cause of this lonely and pitiful brand of modern masculinity. It is a culture inhabited by young men who unironically talk and think like Apprentice candidates: preoccupied with being dominant. They want to be seen as the best at everything they do: physically strong, mentally sharp, philosophically bold. Most of all, they want to be taken seriously. And that is the biggest shame of all. 

When I was a young dickhead I knew I was a young dickhead. Our role models weren’t muscle-men who ate raw meat and never smiled. They were playful idiots like Paul Gascoigne or Jacko from Brush Strokes; happy-go-lucky types who seemed to have a healthy grasp on the fact that life was absurd and none of us had much control over its outcomes, so we all might as well have a laugh. It wasn’t an ideal dogma to live by (Gazza was a drunk with a record of domestic abuse) but I feel as if it was slightly sunnier, at least. It was certainly less bitter, angry and aggressive.

• Shy review: Max Porter’s spectacular novel unpacks teen attitudes to masculinity
• ‘The gap is worrying’: Young men and women are increasingly split on gender and politics, study finds

It was also more human. By having a sense of our own irrelevance – a healthy notion of how fleeting and pointless life is – we were able to enjoy the moment. Growing up, I didn’t really feel as if I was in an earnest contest against other boys to be the best, the toughest, the richest or the smartest. And I didn’t see women as  some sort of rival tribe who needed to be conquered or cajoled either. 

But the Tate outlook is about all of those things. It is a warped interpretation of Darwinism, wherein the strongest survive and all of us are in constant conflict. Not only is this scientifically inaccurate (evolutionary winners are the ones who learn to work together, not against each other) it is so unforgivably dull and joyless. Think about the best times you had at school: I bet you were laughing with your mates in all of them. You could sit through 100 hours of Tate and his followers on TikTok or YouTube and not see any of them laugh once.

It’s such a shame that the world has become so serious. You know who I blame? People. Before the internet, we weren’t all exposed to the billions of other humans all over the world with their strange ideas, irritating habits or horrible opinions. Now, we get that stuff force-fed to us every day. No wonder young people are so angry and frustrated and confused. They are exposed constantly to a tsunami of human failing. The likes of Andrew Tate deliver a simplistic and palatable strategy for navigating their way through the shit. He’s a plain old grifter and young, male dickheads are his low-hanging fruit.

It’s nice that Labour recognise the problem, at least. But if we really want our kids to stop being groomed by online wankers, we just need to teach them to start laughing at things – starting with themselves.

Read more from Sam Delaney here.

Sort Your Head Out: Mental Health Without All the Bollocks by Sam Delaney is out now (Constable £18.99). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.To support our work buy a copy!

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Everyone has got the right hump in January, haven’t they? You’ve probably seen them, those angry, tired, miserable bastards. Beeping their horns in traffic and gesticulating violently out of their windows. And then there’s the passive aggressive ones – they’re even worse. Looking right through you when you try to offer them a smile. Pretending they don’t know you’re there as you wait patiently for them to move out of your way in the jams and spreads aisle at Tesco’s.

Perhaps you are one of these moody arseholes. I know I am. We all are, sometimes. It’s the time of year: no sunlight, no money, no fun. Many people are trying Dry January which – from my experience – will feel frustrating and dull for the first few weeks, before your mood brightens and all of your energy returns. 

Personally, I’m off the sugar, the pasta and the bread. And yes, that’s as dismal as it sounds. I spend my days shuffling between office and gym, stomach rumbling and joints aching. I don’t know what I hate most about myself: the flab around my waist or the predictability of my resolutions.

Anyway, don’t worry about me. I’ll get through it. I’ll either grind these bleak months out with a gritty determination that will see me slim, energised and gleeful come spring. Or I’ll give up, start scoffing crisps and Snickers again and my personality will, on the surface at least, return to its usual state of loveable cheekiness.

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All I’m saying is, you should be careful. Because when the whole country has got the hump, danger lurks everywhere. We are a moody nation as it is. We’re not like those Americans with their bright white perma-smiles and deranged sense of optimism. Or the Scandis with their irritatingly measured air of intelligent contentment – like a nation of modestly successful architects.

Even the French, as grumpy as they seem, have their philosophy to fall back on. When it’s cold and rainy, they’ve sworn off the foie-gras for January and had to pay a massive tax bill, the Frenchman takes solace in his smug conviction that life is all an illusion.

Brits are more straightforward. We say it as we see it. There is no grand notion guiding us through. When things look shit, we accept them as shit and respond accordingly: with anger and self-pity.

I got stuck in one of those yellow box junctions this morning while giving the kids a lift to school. I drove into the box behind a moving car which suddenly slammed its brakes on, blocking my exit. In the three seconds I was stationary in the box, I was angrily beeped at from all angles. I felt like Butch Cassidy at the end of the movie, pummelled by the bullets of the Bolivian army. 

And the faces that stared out of the car windows: contorted like gargoyles, consumed by outrage. One purple-faced man scowled at me and jerked his thumb over his shoulder as if to say “GET OUT OF THAT YELLOW BOX NOW YOU DISGUSTING PIECE OF SHIT!”  I was a victim of mob-hatred. These angry, hungry, frustrated Brits in their slow-moving cars needed an outlet. I provided it. Perhaps their shared animosity towards me helped them feel connected to each other in some small way.

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Maybe it took the edge off the sense of loneliness that haunts us all. Perhaps it helped unhappy January drivers feel part of something. Feel seen. They would have arrived at work with slightly less rage inside because they’d used it up on me. Their colleagues would have found them strangely less irritable than usual. Everyone’s day would have been slightly, imperceptibly less awful. All thanks to me. 

But, please, don’t call me a hero. I’m just a starving-hungry bloke with a car and a short attention span.

Read more from Sam Delaney here.

Sort Your Head Out: Mental Health Without All the Bollocks by Sam Delaney is out now (Constable £18.99). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.To support our work buy a copy!

If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today. Or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop

I’ve lived in London my whole life and experienced a wide array of public disturbances along the way.

I was 15 in 1990 when the poll tax riots kicked off; I didn’t really understand what the poll tax was so had no interest in turning up. But I recall a couple of teachers and pupils coming into school on the Monday morning with a few bruises and some exciting stories to tell. 

In 2003 I was working as a reporter for Channel 5 news, covering the protest against war in Iraq. I was among the one million people who marched on parliament in what turned out to be a futile attempt to convince Tony Blair not to invade. 

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I got to know the legendary protester Brian Haw, who I interviewed for a BBC documentary in 2006, spending a whole night shouting at the House of Commons through a loud hailer with him, by his encampment on Parliament Square.

I’m a fan of protest. In the case of the Iraq war, I was ostensibly neutral, covering the whole thing as a dispassionate journalist. But it doesn’t matter if I have skin in the game or not: if there’s a bunch of people passionate enough about injustice that they’re willing to go out in the cold and rain and risk the batons of the Old Bill, then I admire and encourage them.

I’ve also been caught up in uglier, less noble street aggravation. I’ve been going to football matches since I was a little boy and, over the years, have found myself among the drunken, the drugged, the boisterous, the excited, the angry, frustrated and barmy as they have caused mayhem on the streets of my city and others. Being part of an inebriated, anarchic crowd can feel exciting when you’re young. It’s a release from the stifling conventions and dreary rules of everyday life.

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I’ve been charged by the police on horseback. I’ve been shouted at and threatened by violent yobs and middle-class activists alike. Once, I got mistaken for an opposition fan by a bunch of fellow West Ham supporters and had to produce my season ticket to prevent them from kicking my head in.

Once, when covering an event at which Tony Blair was appearing, I was accosted by a bearded militant brandishing images of dead babies in my face, as if I had something to do with it. 

Anyway, the point is that I’ve seen silly bastards pissed up and causing aggro and I’ve seen politically determined radicals shout and march for stuff they believe in. I’ve got a sense of how crowds behave and react. How sometimes a collection of reasonable, fair-minded people can mutate into unreasonable, angry and aggressive arseholes as a result of mass hysteria. 

On the whole, I’ve always backed the sort of people calling for positive change. I’m less keen on those spewing hate or preaching violence. I’ve never seen or heard the sort of rampant anti-Semitism that has started to play out on the streets of London over the past month or two.

There’s a lot of people – many of them the sort of self-proclaimed progressives, liberals and intellectuals who should know better – who are happy to tolerate and sometimes even participate in Jew hate on the streets of my city in response to a war going on in a faraway land that has no direct impact on their cosey metropolitan lives whatsoever. 

It’s wild. I don’t have a side when it comes to Israel and Palestine. It’s a complicated situation that I don’t know enough about. It’s clear that there are victims and villains on both sides and that the whole situation is a mess. But who needs my point of view on that?

I do, however, have a point of view on anti-Semitism in London. Many of the Jews I know are shit scared right now. Jewish schools have been shut. Instances of anti-Semitism have spiralled. Yes, Jews are understandably hyper-alert to existential threats. But, fuck me, anyone would be feeling a bit nervy in a climate like this one.

Put it this way, if the government and the police were happy for thousands of people to walk through the centre of my hometown calling for the extermination of white, British, West Ham supporters, I’d be packing up my bags and cleaning out my current account. 

So, while I’m not taking sides on what’s going on in Gaza, I am taking sides in what’s going on in my city. And I’m on the side of any minority who are threatened with violence. That means both my Jewish and Muslim friends. Islamophobia is on the rise too and is equally as disgusting. It doesn’t feel like the tolerant London I grew up in, and it doesn’t feel British to stand by and let this racism and nastiness go unchallenged.

It’s not on. I’ve always found the story of the Cable Street riots, and the ordinary working Londoners who stood up to Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts, to be inspiring. It runs contrary to the snobbish perception of the working classes as ignorant bigots. Those heroes on Cable Street knew how to fight and were willing to do so in defence of their Jewish brothers and sisters against small minded, hate-filled arseholes.

We should all be willing to do the same. 

Read more from Sam Delaney here.

Sort Your Head Out: Mental Health Without All the Bollocks by Sam Delaney is out now (Constable £18.99). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.To support our work buy a copy!

If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today. Or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop

In August 2013 I was flying home from a holiday in Marrakech with my family when an incident broke out. My son, who was 18 months old, began to cry loudly and persistently shortly after take off, as babies often do. It was stressful and annoying but I had faith that a bit of Peppa Pig on the iPad plus a bottle of milk would eventually appease him. There was, after all, a four-hour flight ahead of us.

Then a guy in the seat in front of us turned around and said “What exactly is the plan here?” He was a large guy with a beard in his early sixties. He reminded me of the film director Francis Ford Coppola. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what he was on about.

“What do you mean?” I smiled, while jiggling my son on my lap.

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“What I mean is, do you have a plan to stop your kid from crying or are we just gonna have to put up with this the whole way?” he asked.

Anyone who has ever been a parent of young kids, on a crowded night flight after an expensive holiday that was supposed to relax you but turned out to be just as exhausting as life at home only much, much hotter, will be unsurprised by my reaction. 

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Can’t you get up and walk him up and down the aisle a bit?” he said.

“Why don’t you fucking do it?” I said, holding my infant son out.

“What?!” he replied.

“You heard me, you fucking do it if you know so much about babies.”

“Wait, you want ME to walk your baby up and down the plane?” 

“Yes, that’s right,” I said. And I tried to hand my kid over the back of his seat to him. He recoiled in horror, as if I was trying to hand him a sack full of shit. 

He shut up after that. This was a rare case of me responding to conflict in a way that defuses rather than escalates the situation. There are only a few moments in life that unfold as if they would in a movie, and this was one of mine.

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This week I found myself back on a flight with my son, who is now 11 years old. We were heading for New York in the very cheapest seats available. Leg room was thin on the ground and we had over seven hours of confinement ahead of us when the bloke in front of my lad decided to recline the back of his seat, knocking a drink off his fold-down table and sending his iPad flying.

I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round looking as if he had half expected some fallout. I had him down as a serial seat recliner: the sort of bloke who made a policy of trying it on at an early stage of every flight, testing the water to see just how much of the piss he could possibly take. A lifelong Tory voter, was my guess.

“Mate, you’re crushing my son.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. Plus you just knocked his drink and his iPad over.”

We eyed each other for a moment, contemplating our next moves. It was so early in the flight that any escalation of hostilities could be lethal. I let the silence hang for a while and waited. Eventually he said: “Well, maybe he could move his seat back as well.”

“But what about the person behind him?” I asked.

“Well, they could move their seat back too…” he replied.

“Mate, where would we be if we all did the selfish thing and encouraged everyone else to do the same? This is how societies fall apart!”

A look of confusion flashed across his eyes, reminiscent of the bloke on that plane from Marrakech. Then he said: “How about we split the difference?” and moved his seat back up by 50%.

It was an outcome we were all happy with and reflected the beauty of pursuing a pragmatic compromise over an unrealistic utopia. A fine advertisement for the often maligned worldview of centrist dads like me.

Vote Starmer.

Read more from Sam Delaney here

Sort Your Head Out: Mental Health Without All the Bollocks by Sam Delaney is out now (Constable £18.99). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.To support our work buy a copy!

If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today. Or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop