Author Archives: Jimmy Burns

Kabul remembered

Posted on August 16, 2021 in the Blog category

With the Taliban taking power in Kabul, I share this  memory of a visit to the presidential palace with other British journalists and Tony Blair in November 2006.  We were visiting the region on the fifth anniversary of the liberation of Kabul from Taliban control. The visit had begun with an abrupt descent to Kabul airport in a Hercules transport to diminish the risk of   being hit by hostile ground to air fire.  On landing, the rear access to the military aircraft opened like the mouth of a whale and …

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Messi Money

Posted on August 11, 2021 in the Blog, Football Writing category

  The Tokyo Olympics and the move by Messi from FC Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain provide examples to be followed and cautionary tales, writes Jimmy Burns.   Even for those of who have managed only a cursory armchair TV look-in during the Tokyo Olympics between navigating our August break through competing and disruptive terrain of Test cricket, the Lions tour of South Africa , and Covid protocols, the event has served as a reminder of the sheer joy of sport played in its essence along with much else. Mostly very …

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Humo Blanco en Belgravia?

Posted on July 14, 2021 in the Blog, Politics category

SE APROXIMA NOMBRAMIENTO EN LA EMBAJADA EN LONDRES Se espera que el traspaso de carteras en el gobierno de Pedro Sánchez refuerce la coherencia y la efectividad de una administración que en algunas áreas a mostrado una cierta debilidad para no hablar de falta de coherencia. Según el excelente corresponsal en Madrid de La Vanguardia Enric Juliana la cabeza de Arancha González Laya ‘llego ayer por la tarde a Rabat, empaquetada en un servicio exprés de Amazon.’ Pues bien, esperemos que el mismo crudo ejercicio de realismo político lleve a …

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Hans Küng RIP

Posted on April 7, 2021 in the Misc category

Swiss theologian Hans Küng died on Tuesday at the age of 93 in his home in Tübingen, Germany It was a real godsend to be able to see him and talk to him seven years ago when I was researching Pope of Good Promise and when his mind and body was still with him. It was the first and last time I met him and what a privilege it was to be with him. He was a prophet for the Church in our time ! This was my account of …

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Remembering Lorenzo Sanz

Posted on March 21, 2021 in the Blog, Football category

  On the first anniversary of Lorenzo Sanz’s death from coronavirus, my friend the author Ignacio Peyro pays tribute as a football fan and a gourmet, to the man who served as president of Real Madrid from 1995 until 2000. As Peyro posts with his characteristic   humorous lyricism on his Instagram account, Sanz in his heathy days always had the physical exuberance of someone had just emerged from an extremely good meal of Spanish sea food. My own memories of Sanz, which I describe in my book When Beckham   went …

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The Boys in the Park

Posted on November 6, 2020 in the Blog, Football category

Nothing like watching football played in the times of Covid to help one reflect on the sport and what if anything we might learn from it. My local beloved Battersea Park was earlier this afternoon alive with the sound and sight of young boys enjoying an outing in the glow of a gentle autumn sun, their teacher half-heartedly trying to impose some rhythm and order on their young charges’ play. Hard as the track-suited sports master tried to channel the ball and encourage a decent combination of a pass or …

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London Diary 6

Posted on October 25, 2020 in the Blog, Covid category

In these times of Covid , I woke or rather decided I couldn’t get to sleep so better get up. It was still dark. I looked out at the pavement. It was covered in gold leaves, reflected in the glow of the street lamp. And then as the wind stirred and the leaves danced- I realised that this was it-my day of being let back into the outside. For two weeks I had been without moving from my home, sticking to the quarantine imposed by government after returning to London …

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Messi in the Time of Covid

Posted on August 30, 2020 in the Blog, Football category

There was much tear-jerking comment on an Argentine radio earlier today about the love Messi feels for Barcelona, and the sadness he feels for his friend and neighbour Luis Suarez who has been told he is surplus to requirements by new coach Ronald Koeman. Appearing on the same programme I felt compelled to introduce a touch of reality on the Messi/FC Barcelona saga. The current story involving Messi and Barcelona   is one of egos, politics and greed, a less than edifying  example for  a world suffering dislocation, deprivation, suffering and …

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Swans in Time of C19

Posted on May 23, 2020 in the Blog, Religion category

London Diary : Swans 21 May  Two months on from C19 lockdown.A wonderful early morning in Battersea Park with the appearance of the first cygnet to hatch this year. For us regular park users the swan colony and its evolution across the seasons and the years has always had pride of place among the wild life that inhabits this historic green space near the River Thames in south London. But with the park providing a mental and physical life-line during the C19 lock-down, the bonding, mating and hatching of these …

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A  Test of Our  Humanity

Posted on February 8, 2020 in the Blog, Misc category

News of the evacuation at the end of January from coronavirus-hit Wuhan including 83 British and 27 EU mainly Spanish citizens was largely overshadowed,  in the British and Spanish media at least,  by coverage of the UK’s official exit from the EU. Nonetheless reports   focused on the evident sense of relief felt by some of the evacuees at getting out , as well as a sense of uncertainty about their health prospects.. The only certainty about the coronavirus itself  is that it has affected not inconsiderable numbers in China, enough …

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