Category Archives: Latest Journalism
12 people who ruined Catalonia
From a haughty count to a tax fraudster, via a very vengeful dictator. By Jimmy Burns 9/29/15, 5:36 PM CET Updated 10/2/15, 11:54 AM CET As pro-independence parties win a majority in the local Parliament but fall short of 50 percent of the popular vote, we name 12 people responsible for Spain’s potential constitutional crisis. 1. Wilfred the Hairy: Perhaps the Knight of the White Moon who defeated Don Quixote on Barceloneta beach was really Wilfred the Hairy — Guifré el Pilós in Catalan. The legendary 9th Count of Barcelona, …
A CUBAN DIARY by Jimmy Burns 21/3/2008
A version of this article was published in The Tablet Just a small group of Cubans are with us on the Air France from Paris to Havana, and they are the only non-tourists on the plane, apart from the Chinese Olympic volley ball team. They are members of the national judo team, and have just been on a pre-Olympic warm-up tour of northern Europe. While the Chinese spend the flight playing computer claims, like automats, the Cubans crack jokes, eat, and play music. Their physiotherapist has bought a Zorro suit …
Teetering on the brink
Focus on Spain 1 – the economy The Tablet With unemployment now at 25 per cent, Spain is becoming the sickest man of a sick Europe. Its austerity solution to its debt-ridden economic woes has sapped people’s confidence about their future. Fears are growing that an almost inevitable bailout could be coupled with insurrection It is just as well that Spaniards still have their fiestas. Spring is traditionally that time of year in Spain when Spaniards put the winter gloom behind them and usher in warmer weather, returning bird song, …
Is the sun setting on the Spanish Church?
Catholicism in Spain It was announced this week that the Pope will visit Spain in November. The news comes during a tense phase in Church-State relations after the Spanish Senate approved a new abortion law on 25 February. It is the latest round in a battle that the secularising government seems to be winning Last year an estimated one million people demonstrated in Madrid when the proposals to liberalise the abortion law became public. Now that it looks set to become law, the Spanish bishops’ conference has approved a new …
Tribute to Michael Richey
This Obituary by Jimmy Burns appeared in The Tablet on the 21/1/2010 Mike Richey’s death at the age of 92, three days before Christmas Day ,marks the passing into history of the last of a group of English Catholics who left an enduring mark on the 20th century. On the day of Mike’s birth , his father George , a distinguished British officer who had fought in the Matabele War, the Mashona rebellion and the Boer War, wrote to Mike’s mother Adelaide,from the western front: “We are busy preparing for …
The brave women of Buenos Aires By Jimmy Burns
Published by The Financial Times March 13 2010 In the Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, around the central pyramid that commemorates the overthrow of colonial Spain, a neat circle of painted white bandannas marks the spot where Las Madres de Mayo – some of the bravest women in the world – protested in the last decades of the 20th century against Argentina’s bloody military junta. When I was in the square earlier this year the only protest was, ironically enough, that of a makeshift camping site set up by Malvinas, or …
PARK PEOPLE – Jimmy Burns interviews Jean Barker, Baroness Trumpington
Published in Friends of Battersea Park Review January 2010 Told by a mutual friend to expect “ a very lovely personality”, I approached my first ever interview with Lady Trumpington with a huge sense of anticipation , somewhat overawed with the task of engaging with one of the most formidable personalities living in Battersea. Consider this skeleton CV: One of Lloyd George’s landgirls before serving in naval intelligence at the WW2 codebreaking Bletchley Park, a one-time councillor and Mayor of Cambridge, a minister of state and now , aged 87 …
Secrets of Salamanca By Jimmy Burns
Published by The Financial Times: November 20 2009 Madrid has always exercised a curious hold on me. I blame it on the fact that I was born there, only to be whisked off by my Anglo-Spanish parents to England. I have spent more than a half a century making up for my early displacement from the Spanish capital by returning to it as often as possible. Recently, research for a book about my late father’s espionage activities there in the second world war has given me the perfect excuse to …
THE DEFENCE OF THE REALM by Christopher Andrew
Allen Lane) 1031 pages (£30.00) Review for The Tablet submitted 16/11/2010 I approached this authorised history of the British secret service MI5 with a degree of scepticism. Is one dealing here with history researched by an independent historian or an apologia for a government organisation whose hundred years of existence has drawn its lifeblood from secrecy and varying economies of truth? Christopher Andrew is a refreshingly unstuffy professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Cambridge, whose insights into the complex world of espionage and ability to convey them in comprehensible …
Chasing Diego – again by Jimmy Burns
An abridged version of this article appeared in the Dutch magazine Hard Gras in April 2010 Buenos Aires, January 2010, the start of World Cup Year. Superficially Maradona is a man transformed, his latest act of irresponsible behaviour-a foul-mouthed rant against some journalists when Argentina quialified- led to a dip in his poll ratings but is turning into a mere blip on a road to redemption in his role as coach of the national team. In the final preparatory stage for the Cup, Argentina beat Germany in a friendly! His …
