Behind the scenes

Inside the Big Issue: Pulp 2025

Pulp are back, set to release their first new album in 24 years. Buy this week’s Big Issue to read all about it

“I used to watch a lot of telly as a kid,” says Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, relaxing on a sofa in the meeting room at Rough Trade Records HQ in Notting Hill.

“It would give me a representation of the world that wasn’t real. I would see a giraffe and think, ‘Right, now I know what a giraffe is like,’ But I didn’t really. The first time I saw a giraffe in real life I was like: ‘Oh fuck, it’s massive and it’s got a blue tongue!”

Cocker is talking to the Big Issue about the importance of boredom in the creative process.

But technology has now outlawed boredom, so will we ever see creativity like that again? “There is a risk of ennui, where we all feel as if we’ve seen everything and know everything already,” says Cocker. “But you don’t know anything. It’s a different kind of boredom, you know, it’s like a kind of overstuffed feeling and it doesn’t leave much room within you to create things, because you’re stuffed with other people’s ideas.”

Cocker has become a permanent fixture at the forefront of British popular culture, releasing solo records and collaborations and serving as a radio host, a curator, an author and occasional actor. He has now returned to the project that first endeared him to us: Pulp are set to release their first new album in 24 years.

Buy this week’s Big Issue to read all about it.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

What else is in this week’s Big Issue

This Welsh housing co-operative has been asked to move on. But they’re not going without a fight

In the scenic foothills of the Preseli Mountains, Pembrokeshire, sits Brithdir Mawr – a community of hardcore off­-gridders. It’s one of the oldest housing co­operatives in Britain but the residents have now been told they must leave. Here’s how they’re fighting it.

Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski is on a mission to frighten Keir Starmer

As Starmer’s government tacks right and Reform UK prove themselves an increasingly serious electoral force, Zack Polanski thinks the Greens can off er a left-wing populist alternative to Nigel Farage’s party and a natural home for progressive voters.

Alex Scott’s Letter to My Younger Self

When Alex Scott first met her football idol Ian Wright she was so shy she could barely speak. Now they’re regularly on the telly together.

“I met Ian when I was working in the Arsenal laundry. I don’t think I even spoke two words because I was so shy and awestruck.”

Promises are easy to break. Sign Big Issue’s petition for a Poverty Zero law and help us make tackling poverty a legal requirement, not just a policy priority.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us moreBig Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy of the magazine or get the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

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