Category Archives: Misc
Pope Francis and the Malvinas
Pope Francis and the Malvinas The snapped moment of encounter projected fast and globally on the world wide web has become as much as a characteristic of the Francis papacy, as his twitter account @pontifex. This is a papacy with a charismatic personality and instinctive communicator at its helm. It is also a papacy advised by media specialists and diplomats that know something about the opportunity offered by the digital age to spread a message with an impact that would have inconceivable just a few years ago. Since Francis’s election, …
Francis’s God of Surprises
Much of the Vatican-including its majority of civil servants and regular press corps- is on holiday although evidently not Pope Francis. On Wednesday of this week he resumed his weekly general audience after a month partly caught up in challenging foreign travels, some at life-threatening high altitudes, and spoke in a way that once again generated global new stories. This is a Pope that draws attention, rarely in a negative sense. Pope Francis called for a church of “open doors” to divorced Catholics and their families, reviving the ongoing debate …
Adios, Iker
They tried to make up for it today-the fans and the club and the execs in the Bernabeu with a belated act of homage- but neither the President of the Club nor your team mates were with you when, alone on sunday, you gave your final press conference as a departing Real Madrid player prior to your transfer to Porto. “C’est fini”,you said at the end of a press conference which inevitably had you shedding tears before the grateful photographers. At the age of 34, you have a record as …
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 …
