Category Archives: Blog
At the Camp Nou
It’s always a joy being back at the Camp Nou to see a live match and Saturday’s Barca vs Valencia was the kind of event that makes it worthwhile. There were close to 90,000 in the stadium which is quite a turn-out for this early stage in the season but then it was an important match. Barca has been floundering a little of late while los ches , as the Valencia players are called, have had an unbeaten run of games, displaying a mixture of attacking football, creative midfield, …
Thought for Today: Belonging
I’m introducing a new occasional item to this website. A thought which I hope may resonate with some of my readers as it resonates with me. This is a short verse from a wonderful book called ‘Eternal Echoes’ by the Irish philosopher writer John O’Donohue. This meditative tome is dedicated ‘for the ones who inhabit lives where belonging is torn and longing is numbered.’ I arise today Blessed be all things wings of breath, delight of eyes, wonder of whisper, intimacy of touch, eternity of soul, urgency of thought, miracle …
On Greene’s trail
My book of the month is Tim Butcher’s Chasing the Devil published by Chatto & Windus. Subtitled, The Search for Africa’s Spirit, this is about a continent I rarely touched as a foreign correspondent, still less as an author. However Graham Greene, who inspired Butcher’s journey across Sierra Leone and Liberia, has formed part of my life since, as a young boy, I was introduced to him for the first time by my father at the Garrick Club. My father was one of Greene’s early editors, and a life-long friend. In WW2 …
Chemistry
Interesting observing Real Madrid and FC Barcelona play in their respective Champions League games this week. Both teams frustrated by the defensive tactics of lesser mortals. But there all comparisons end. What I find hugely striking is the tension and poor chemistry that is evident not just between Mourinho and his players but among the Madrid players themselves. The Madrid players seem not to be enjoying themselves. They also show signs of genuine fear of what Mourinho might do to them. By contrast Barca players , even under pressure, …
Barca without Messi
A good source of mine at FC Barcelona told me a few days ago that he was convinced that Barca will win La Liga and the Champions League this season. But that was before Messi got injured. I wrote not so long ago on the paradox afflicting Guardiola’s Barca. Its current greatness and potential weakness lay in the Argentine star. With Messi firing on all cylinders, Barca as a team is inspired to greatness , with all the other key parts- Xavi, Iniesta, Pujol, Villa- contributing to a collective effort …
Newman: The Necessary Saint
My online Book Review of the Month is dedicated to Newman’s Unquiet Grave by John Cornwell (Published by Continuum) I have two reasons for picking John Cornwell’s biography of Newman as my latest book of the month. First on the personal front, my own recently published attempt at biography, Papa Spy , reminded me of how much its subject, my father, the late Tom Burns, owed to Newman, as a leading Catholic publisher (and wartime spook at odds with those Marxists who had infiltrated British intelligence.) From his early schooldays …
The wise Jesuit
I cannot recall ever having been present in a congregation that greeted a sermon by a Catholic priest with more deserving spontaneous applause, not in England at least. But applause was what Fr William Pearsall the Jesuit priest at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street got this Sunday after speaking with sensitivity and wisdom about the upcoming Papal visit. Fr William began by telling us how a day earlier he had opened his office window and listened to the raucous song emanating from nearby Hyde Park. He heard …
Not in harmony with Catholic Voices
I’m listening withy difficulty I came away from last night’s debate at the Conway Hall on the upcoming Papal visit with an uneasy feeling I found myself quickly trying to dispel, drowning a pint with a sympathetic friend at a local pub. I write as a journalist, author and Catholic who found myself poorly represented by Austen Ivereigh and Fr Christopher Jamison OSB, coordinator and patron respectively of Catholic Voices before a packed audience, in which a majority appeared less than enamoured with our current Pope. Catholic Voices is a …
Barca: beware of The Transalator
A long season ahead Barca has got off to a good start this season, winning the Spanish SuperCup and beating Racing Santander 0-3 , but it would be foolish for cules to get over excited at this stage. It would be foolish in the extreme to write off Jose Mourinho on the basis of a somewhat lacklustre draw for Real Madrid in Mallorca. Mourinho has signed up an exciting crop of talented young players led by Mezut Ozila. He will be relying on the experience of Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo …
A Dark Book in August
This month’s online Book Review: Berlin at War by Roger Moorhouse (Bodley Head) 432 pages August in the northern hemisphere always has always struck me as having something of a tail-end feel about it, not least in the publishing industry. Long-past are the pre-Christmas heavy-hitters with ‘star’ authors or their ‘star’ topics hogging the front-desks. Gone too is the excitement of the new titles out in spring and early summer. Many readers have taken the few good hits, in paperback, off to the beach for the last glimpse of sun …
