The last time I spent any time with Christopher Hitchens was in the early summer of 2006. I was house-sitting in Georgetown researching a new book and he, with instinctive generosity towards a friend, insisted I’d come over to his apartment for supper ‘a deux’. I can’t remember what we ate. But I do remember we drank not insubstantial amounts of alcohol and consumed countless cigarettes as we talked into the early hours about God- he was writing his book against him at the time, and he wanted to know …
A better Europe with Pep
I have a suggestion to make in the hope that we might just end up the year with some hope for the next one: let’s appoint Pep Guardiola EU supremo for solidarity and the common good. But first let me eat half my hat. In recent days I have been warning that Real Madrid was a much stronger team than last season’s while suggesting that FC Barcelona, looking tired and demotivated, would find it hard to prevail at the first Classico of the season, at the Bernabeu. Last night I …
When solidarity matters
The story of the International Brigades, the foreign volunteers who fought against the forces of fascism in the Spanish Civil War , is one of the more noble, if tragic chapters of that terrible conflict. The majority of these volunteers , from a variety of national backgrounds including the UK,were motivated by a simple spirit of solidarity, and the belief that Franco’s military uprising against the democratically-elected Spanish Popular Front government, backed as it was by Mussolini and Hitler, represented a defining ideological battleground that would define the future of …
The beauty of youth
I think it was Oscar Wilde who wrote something once about how the best relationships were those that drew together the energy of youth and the wisdom of experience. I guess not many of you bothered to watch Tuesday night’s FC Barcelona game at the Camp Nou against a hardly glamorous champion from Belarussia. After all , Barca have already qualified for the next round of the Champions League at the head of their group, and you are saving your voice, and your liver for this coming weekend’s Classico. You …
I am an indignado
I have been felled with my first flu of the year and I have no doubt about its cause.I’ve spent recent days standing by one of the entrances to Battersea Park , still dressed for the summer, as the days have grown more wintry, trying to get local residents to sign a petition. So there you have it Mad dogs and Englishmen.The park is not short of canines or eccentrics so I have been in good company, and generally treated with respect by people delighted to do their bit to …
The beginning of the end of the coalition
I feel that in future years yesterday’s nationwide public sector strike in the UK will be looked back on as one of those political defining points when the clock starts clicking towards the end of a government. Damp squid it was certainly not. The phrase used by Cameron was not only inaccurate , it was also insulting, as Ed Milliband rightly said, to demonise the dinner lady, cleaner or nurse who earn in a year what the chancellor George Osborne pays for his annual skiing trip. Not only was this …
Mourinho has the edge this season
One year is a long time in football and I can safely predict that we shall not see a repeat of last year when Barca next meet Real Madrid at the Bernabeu. There have been some exemplary matches ( the last one against Milan was one of them) but this season’s FC Barcelona has matured but seemed to have got tired and somewhat demotivated in the process. By contrast Real Madrid is looking sharp and dangerous, not least in front of goal and all this with a club that appears …
Let’s not forget Messi is human
There was collective intake of breath last night when Messi, seemingly fouled by a Zaragoza defender, clutched his achiles tendon and then started hitting the ground to deal with what seemed excruciating pain. For a brief moment there was a deya vue – memories flooded back of September 2010 when Messi badly injured was subsequently carried off on a stretcher. Messi continued playing last night and once again his presence proved decisive in motivating a convincing Barca victory. It would seem that the main reason Messi plays more matches than …
The dog’s dinner at St Paul’s
What a dog’s dinner the clerics of St Paul’s have made of it. The way they have been going about things shows at best naivety, at worst self-indulgence on an issue they could not have handled more pathetically. First let’s be clear: the British coalition government might be pretty awful in many respects but it is not some South American military junta nor some Middle Eastern dictator, nor is the Met police some repressive, torturing out-of-control secret security force, and nor for that matter are the guys camping outside St …
Gaddafi’s Irish connection
BBC NEWS ‘s usually impeccable Nick Robinson last night produced a Cameron-puff report on Gaddafi’s end which might have been scripted by the Ministry of Information, or should I say Ministry of Truth. The focus was on Cameron as hero of his first ever war as prime-minister in contrast to Tony Blair, as arch villain- usual footage of Tony all smiles with Gaddafi in the days when he was ‘on side.’ Robinson did have the courtesy to mention that Blair’s negotiations led to the dismantling of Libya’s nuclear and chemical …
