There is just a week to go before the presidential elections at FC Barcelona, a sporting institution that has played an inseparable and much loved part of my life for many years . And yet I feel so dispassionate about the event, to the point of negativity. As a member of the Barca’s London Penya or fan club, I have failed to volunteer to collect signatures for two of the leading contenders –Joan Laporta and Josep Maria Bartomeu, and I have decided not to exercise my right as a club …
Saving Battersea Park
Battersea Park is not only the jewel in the crown of Wandsworth Council which is responsible , on behalf of rate payers, for its management and care , but also one of London’s most historic, and best loved green spaces, south of the River but easily accessible from west and east London, and just across two Bridges, from Chelsea and Kensington and all points north. The park has been part of my conscious life as a writer, journalist, local resident, and London citizen, for over fifty years. I remember as …
Renewing my Barca membership
Nothing like renewing one’s FC Barcelona membership card-as I’ve just done – at the Camp Nou-to focus one’s mind. Membership does not come cheap and in the many years of being a cule I haven’t exactly gained much benefit from it. Phones lines are usually busy so it is almost impossible to communicate, let alone vote from London where I live for much of the year. Not being a techo geek, I find the membership section of the Barca website difficult to navigate, and I’ve never managed to get a …
The privilege of being a Barca fan
Let me honest. It’s been a long time since I felt as proud of being a Barca fan as tonight when FC Barcelona beat Bayern Munich 3-0. This was a game played by two great sides, charged with emotion, pursued with strength, and delivered with grace by the best player in the world that worked his magic a amidst giants of the game. This was a first leg that should have been a final but will still endure in the memory of any true football fan as a master class, …
I will vote Labour tomorrow
No I don’t think Ed Milliband is a natural leader- but he has worked hard to be taken more seriously and deserves greater respect than the misinformation and crude insults launched at him during the campaign by bigots- the lie that having more Scot nats in the UK parliament and voting on certain issues with Labour will lead to a disintegration of the UK (more chance of this happening with a Conservatives in power and pushing for an exit from the EU). No I don’t think Cameron has been a …
Why Cervantes should stay in Gibraltar
In this turbulent world we live in, there can be few certainties about what may contribute to a better understanding between the peoples of this earth- but I would personally put language and culture high up on my list- if, that is. both are freed from the stifling intolerance of politics. The news that the Spanish government is to close the Instituto Cervantes in Gibraltar is a backward step in term of engagement between British and Spanish people, given the role it had begun to played in helping new generations …
