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 …
Humo Blanco en Belgravia?
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 …
Hans Küng RIP
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 …
Remembering Lorenzo Sanz
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 …
The Boys in the Park
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 …
London Diary 6
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 …
Swans in Time of C19
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 …
A Test of Our Humanity
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 …
