Author Archives: Jimmy Burns

Memory, Martyrs and Mission

Rome may be full of enduring Christian relics, many of them well known and repeatedly visited by pilgrims,  but the temporary exhibition currently on show in the  crypt of the Venerable English College is a little publicized gem,  well worth visiting if only for a reminder of the enduring and rich legacy of  English Catholicism and the part played by Jesuits in its defense. But hurry, it send on May 11th, after a short run of less than a month..   Entitled ‘Memory, Martyrs, and Mission’, exhibits included a first …

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Sweet Lemon Grove, Sicily

La Casa di Melo, where we stayed for two nights, was one of several highlights of our Sicilian holiday, along with our visits to Mount Etna, and The  Godfather excursions to medieval  mountain villages. It is a beautifully renovated family-owned farm house which year round welcomes guests as a  bio-hotel,  run with great charm by its current owners, a youthful married couple called Lorenzo and Chiara. The hotel retains a distinctive  traditional air, with  antique  furniture  from Chiara’s original family home, dispersed liberally along corridors and rooms, and  a wine …

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Homage to Iniesta

  Few people will lament  Andres Iniesta’s  departure from FC Barcelona as much as Messi. In a book of personal tributes to Iniesta published last year, that of his Argentine colleague speaks volumes about how integral to Barca’s success the two have been, largely because of the unique personal understanding between them as individuals. Messi tells how he never feels more comfortable than when knowing Iniesta is playing alongside him, for the players both feel and live for their football, without letting politics intrude, instinctively playing to each other’s strength, …

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Catalonia & Northern Ireland

  Twenty years ago today I was among a large assembly of journalists from around the world who had gathered in the  freezing cold of an Easter-tide Belfast to celebrate a magnificent political achievement. Today I simply reflect on that memory. In the days of  fake news and intense and generally justified popular scepticism with the absence of sound political leadership, I have no hesitation in supporting Tony Blair in his assertion that the peace agreement for Northern Ireland was something that those involved in it should feel justifiably proud …

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Mary Magdalene

This past Sunday the  Catholic church I visited had its images covered in deep purple as is traditional at this time leading up to Easter, its altar monopolised by men. Coming in from the bustle of London on  St Patrick’s weekend and finding shelter from the aggressive final snow storm of  the Beast from the East, I was drawn into a controlled clerical space, then soothed by plain chant  and incense  and a  measured silence with which I was encouraged to meditate on the mystery of Christ. Later in the …

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A meeting with a Czech ‘friend’

    I am glad I caught the BBC’s John Simpson’s fascinating recollection  this morning of his avoidance of an  attempted honey pot  trap  by the communist Czech intelligence service during  the Cold War. It brought back memories of a somewhat more mundane encounter I had many years later , thankfully devoid of any attempted sexual subversion, and involving  a very different, and genuinely friendly  kind of  spy of the same nationality. It took place during a weekend conference at Oxford’s  St Antony’s College, attended by an assortment of academics, …

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The Post, the FT, and turning 65

As birthday presents go, I couldn’t have asked for a more timely and worthwhile one than a visit to my favourite London cinema the Clapham Picture House, ‘en famille’ to watch The Post. At one level it was a trip down memory lane , to my rights of passage in journalism, reporting to  newsroom bosses (always male) in  rolled up sleeves, and feeling part of an enterprise that began immersed in  typewriter clatter and reels of telex tape, messenger boys running to deliver urgent copy before proceeding to  Linotype machines, …

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The Catalan Conundrum

  As someone who for personal and professional reasons includes regular visits to Catalonia as part of his year, it is with some  relief that I have managed to experience the region over Christmas and  into the New Year in relative peace, and among friends from a wide political spectrum. But then those of us familiar with the local scene have grown accustomed to  valleys of relative calm prior to resurgent peaks of crisis, a veritable political helter-skelter which baffles most ordinary mortals struggling to catch up. Currently we are …

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Messi & Catalonia

So eat your hat all  you illuminated Catalan nationalists   who thought Lionel Messi would be your standard   bearer all the way to independence and beyond. FC Barcelona had tried its best to keep details on his thoughts on the matter from public scrutiny-but the truth is now out. As reported in the Spanish and Catalan media the Argentine’s latest contract with the club has a specific clause stating that player will be  free to leave the club in the event of Catalan independence having Barca excluded from any major European …

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Duelists in El Clasico

If there was an enduring image of today’s El Clasico it is  that of Lionel Messi celebrating his penalty. He spreads out his legs, pumps his chest  out and raises head and arms to the fans like Moses displaying the most important commandment. That the stadium, happened to be Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu  and the fans in teir vast majority home-grown and visceral tribal opponents of  FC Barcelona made the gesture defiant in itself. What made it cheeky was that it broke with Messi’s usually more modest grsture to his …

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