There was much tear-jerking comment on an Argentine radio earlier today about the love Messi feels for Barcelona, and the sadness he feels for his friend and neighbour Luis Suarez who has been told he is surplus to requirements by new coach Ronald Koeman. Appearing on the same programme I felt compelled to introduce a touch of reality on the Messi/FC Barcelona saga. The current story involving Messi and Barcelona is one of egos, politics and greed, a less than edifying example for a world suffering dislocation, deprivation, suffering and …
Stonyhurst Memories
Stonyhurst Memories by Jimmy Burns Here follows some further Stonyhurst memories of my own prompted by my contemporary John Mulholland and his thoughtful memoir Ferulas and Thuribles– “Although we were all in it together, each individual journey was different.” World Cup 1966 -my first year at Stonyhurst. As I write in one of my football books , La Premier League ( published last year in Spanish , English version due out towards the end of this year) I was in London and recall going to the Royal …
Ferulas & Thuribles
My review of John Mulholland’s book ‘Ferulas & Thuribles.’ A worthwhile Stonyhurst memoir Memory may fail us, not least as we enter our twilight years, but as luminaries such as Marcel Proust and T.S Eliot recognised, we carry within us our past, and parts of it can resurface unconsciously, and take shape if mind and body allow us that extra mile in which to reflect and discern. As Eliot wrote in Little Gidding, this use of memory is for liberation-‘not least of love but expanding of love beyond desire , …
British intelligence in twilight of Empire
The subject of my new book A Faithful Spy , the late MI6 and MI5 officer Walter Bell was at the heart of the US/UK WW2 and Cold War intel relationship. His hitherto undisclosed private papers , on which the book draws , also covers his posting to Kenya 1949-1952 , to Delhi in 1952-57, West Indies in 1958-1960 , Kenya again in 1961-1967 where he was involved operationally, as British intelligence monitored soviet influence on anti-colonial leaders and played a crucial role in the passing of political power while …
A Faithful Spy
I am delighted that my latest book A Faithful Spy ,on the life and times of MI6 and MI5 officer Walter Bell is being published this autumn . (published by Chisebury October 1 , available in bookshops and amazon.) When Bell died in January 2004, aged ninety-four, the details of his life – not least of his professional career in the British secret services during a defining period in the history of modern espionage and security – remained a well-kept secret. He had been decorated with the US Medal …
Race & Spanish Football
I struggle to find any justified excuse for the abuse suffered by the Real Madrid star Vinicius junior and the way in which a certain high-up in the Spanish La Liga has reacted. The racist nature of chants by a large group of local fans suffered by the young Brazilian during Real Madrid’s game against Valencia last Sunday was only too evident. So was the emotional impact it had on the player who was red carded by the referee after being caught up in a tussle provoked by a …
Good Friday Agreement remembered
A Personal Memory by Jimmy Burns The author, who covered Northern Ireland during the 1990’s as a journalist with the FT , remembers the key final stages of the peace process that led to the historic deal. With the approach of the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Good Friday agreement, and what promises to be a make or break in terms of the latest attempt to settle stormy waters in the province with a planned visit by President Biden later this month (April), personal memories flood back of …
Spook Turf Wars
Review by Jimmy Burns of ‘Need to Know’ , World War 11 and the rise of American intelligence by Nicholas Reynolds (Mariner Books) Blame Ian Fleming but my generation of fellow British public-school boys – privileged private educated friends, some of whom went on to enter the secret world after being born in the early stages of the Cold War -developed our early perception of US intelligence through the prism of James Bond’s alliance with his CIA buddy the similarly fictitious Felix Leiter. The Texan Leiter ,as dramatised by different …
Johnson’s nadir
Even for Boris Johnson, someone who for most of his adult life has set honesty at a pretty low standard, the taking of an oath must have given him some pause for reflection. As he swore , live and streamed, on the bible to speak the truth and nothing but the truth before his l parliamentary inquisitors, one got a sense that the stage was set for a reckoning. Johnson may have made a habit as a journalist and prime minister with playing fast and loose with the facts, …