Jimmy Burns's Blog, page 2

The Lost Leader

I am thinking Brexit- or not. In moments of doubt and darkness, I find myself not for the first time rereading  Graham Greene, a fellow Catholic who struggled throughout his life with no small number of  existential and political crises of his  own, and yet still managed to draw sufficient creative inspiration and faith in God and humanity as an author and journalist.

In a review of   Postscripts published in the Spectator on the 13th December 1940, Greene paid tribute to the way the novelist J.B. Priestley’s broadcasts lifted the spirit of the British people in their hour of darkness after the collapse of much of continental free Europe.

Following the disaster of Dunkirk when the British army was “driven off the Continent of Europe with a shattering loss of men and material”, his broadcasts “began to lead the way out of despair.”

As Greene relates, in the months that followed Dunkirk, J.B. Priestley ,  a man instinctively of the left but non-doctrinal, became a leader second only in importance to Churchill: “he gave us what our leaders have always failed to give us –an ideology.”

What Priestley  gave the British people and indeed any other European who wished to tune in, was the idea of two orders: “the Nazi and our own, in simple terms, as moving as poetry, and his Sunday broadcasts gave far more confidence in the future than the inclusion of a few Labour men in the Cabinet.”

Churchill let us not forget had, in the interest  of the nation ,  of a Free Europe, and his own survival as prime-minister,  formed a wartime coalition with Tory and Labour ministers, representing a broad Church of political opinion.

As Greene put  it, commenting on Priestley:  “Self-Preservation is not the deepest instinct: we have learnt from childhood the Christian doctrine of the greater love.”

Priestley talked of Nazism not so much as a political philosophy but as an attitude of mind, the expression in political life of a certain unpleasant temperament, “of the man who hates democracy, reasonable argument, tolerance, patience and humorous equality…”

In no time angry letters were flooding the BBC, accusing  Priestley of dividing the country after he had criticised, among others,  those ‘who, for years, had been rotten with unsatisfied vanity”.

On the 20th October 1940, after five months of broadcasting, Priestley  was taken off the air and his talks finally cancelled the following year.

It was thought that this followed a  complaint from  Churchill that he was too left-wing, although Priestley’s son many years later  blamed members of the wartime  cabinet for supplying the prime-minister  with negative reports about the novelist.

And yet how worth remembering seems Priestley in  the times we currently live , not least over  the unresolved issue of Britain’s  future relationship with Europe.  I am not sure what I find more alarming : to hear that the hard Brexiteers  are happy to have the UK  crashing out of the EU, and risking undermining not just the British  economy but peace on the island of Ireland, or the similar total lack of magnanimity, humility, let  alone honesty shown by hard-nosed Corbynistas who “confine” Labour break-away MP’s to the “dustbin of history” as if raising concern about anti-Semitism  and the failure of the leadership to embrace Remain as the only sane  political outcome, was not worthy even of discussion.

In the Rees-Mogg and Corbyn teamsters , not to mention Nigel Farage et alia, Priestley, were he alive today,  would  no doubt have have found those “rotten with unsatisfied vanity”, or worse.

For in their discourse and attitude, both camps  show no tolerance, let alone patience, and arguably little respect for democracy- for otherwise how could they continue to ignore the fact that no one knows really knows if there still a majority for Brexit or against any more, and that this can only be tested by a sufficient extension of  article  50 to allow for another people’s vote which would involve giving the British people two clear options of vote: a Brexit as voted by a majority in parliament, or Remain.

For such a vote  might well focus minds not just on self-preservation but what serves the common good , something that should matter to all true democrats currently in the European  Union.

As one of the more reasonable commentators on the issue Timothy Garton Ash wrote this week:  “ As in 1940  the battle of Britain and the Battle of Europe are one and the same. It’s not good Europeans on one side and bad Europeans on the other; its pro-EU versus anti-EU on both sides of the Channel.”

When he was forced off the air, Priestley had his own ‘black dog’ moment of despair. “The high generous mood, so far as it affects our destinies here , is vanishing with the leaves, “ he said.

But it is early Spring and the blossom is flowering in Britain and across Europe. My hope is that reasonable men and women in the British parliament and in Europe  will prevail  against the forces of hard-right nationalisms-but we need more poets like Priestley to lift our spirits and politicians capable of leading beyond narrow party interests.

 

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The shame of Argentine Football

In the Paraguayan Capital of Asuncion , hardly an icon of historic accountability, a group of South American football executives will meet tomorrow (Tuesday)  to decide when and how, if at all,  the second leg of the continent’s club championship Copa Libertadores final  between River Plate and Boca Juniors of Argentina  will be played.

This is no routine meeting. It comes after the match initially scheduled for last Saturday was cancelled twice over the weekend as a result of a violent attack in Buenos Aires on the Boca team bus which left several players needing medical attention and unfit to play.

The exact circumstances  surrounding the attack have yet to be established. But it appears to have involved a gang of Barras Bravas, politically manipulated  football hooligans linked t0 organized crime, from drug trafficking to extortion.

The enduring and widespread existence of Barras Bravas  across club and national football with the alleged complicity of politicians, certain business  executives and  sectors of the police,   have been at the heart of  violence and corruption  in Argentine football over decades , casting an enduring shadow over a national pastime that has produced champion national teams and two genius  players, Diego Maradona and Leo Messi.

The failure of  successive Argentine governments and of the powerful Argentine  Football Association ( whose previous president the late Julio Grondona was identified by US investigators as one of the main culprits of Fifagate ),  to tackle the problem is a reflection of Argentina as a failed state and the absence of a civic  society with a sense of the common good.

As noted in today’s Spanish El Pais newspaper by the  Argentine writer and journalist  Ernesto Tenembaum , Saturday’s street battle between fans and riot police, and the attack on the team bus,  was not the result  of an accident, or  police error, or the violence of just half a dozen deranged thugs but a symptom of a far greater malaise –endemic corruption and a crisis of authority in a supposedly democratic country.

Thus as Argentines spin webs of conspiracy, opponents of the center right Argentine president Mauricio Macri,  have inevitably pointed to his previous incarnation as President of Boca Juniors, and the fact that his successor in the club Daniel Angelici made his fortune in the  gaming industry and has alleged personal ties to sectors of the judiciary and the police.

Those leading the charge against Macri over the weekend include one-time Boca player Maradona, hardly the personification of moral and judicial rectitude  during and after his controversial career as a player, and now coaching a club in Mexico with a history of alleged links with local organized crime.

But there are others  who point to the alliances struck with the Barras Bravas and other vested interest groups in football by Macri’s most vocal opponent , the previous populist president, the Peronist Cristina Kirchner (currently facing an investigation for financial impropriety  and abuse of power) ,  suggesting a problem that cuts across political allegiances . Indeed it has been so from the 1970’s when Grondona and other football executives grew in influence during a brutal  military regime before  spreading their wings under successive democratically elected governments.

If nothing else the latest violence and the dark shadow  it has once again cast over Argentine  football is a reminder how safe and saved Messi must feel  having chosen to exile himself from his home country from the age of 13, and how different his career might have turned out had he ended up playing in  one of the big Argentine clubs  and his corrupt ridden birth city of Rosario rather than FC Barcelona.

But it falls on those living in Argentina and who love football as a game to be enjoyed not as a den of iniquity to sort out the mess. Beyond any exemplary sanctions, the latest incident cries out for a major independent enquiry that exposes once and for all the shadowy networks and their funding, and concerted follow up action ensuring that Argentine  football ceases to be  a free-for-all for crime and hooliganism.

 

 

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How Catalonia is not Scotand

How Catalonia  is not Scotland          (First published on the 5/October/2017)

 

I have come to visit the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, an elegant, relaxed and welcoming city of the world heritage, which has left me impressed by the tranquility and civility of the Scottish political process in comparison with the disaster that has come to characterize the Catalan issue in Spain.

In the impressive and historic Edinburgh Castle, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Scotland, there is a sense of cultural identity that is British and Scottish.

Visiting it I remembered the slogan “Better Together”, which the Unionists used successfully to win the “no” in the last legal referendum on Scottish independence.

New tensions between the ruling Scottish nationalist party in the region and the conservative government in London have been sown by the majority vote of the United Kingdom in favor of Brexit.

But Scottish nationalist demands remain within the law and are channeled through political discourse and negotiation, and are not characterized by civil disobedience, unilateralism and repression.

 

While the figures of two of the most famous Scottish nationalist heroes of William Wallace and Robert Bruce, are at the entrance to Edinburgh Castle (although none of them has lived there), there is also a huge reverence in the same place. the most recent memory of Scottish soldiers in regiments of the Royal House that died for the king and the fatherland in two world wars.

Once again I could not stop reflecting on how the root of the Catalan and Spanish problems is the absence of a consensual, shared and binding historical narrative, and how distant the wars of Scotland appear with England compared to the opening in Catalonia of old wounds and prejudices of the Spanish Civil War and Francoism ..

In Edinburgh, our guide spoke English with a distinctive Scottish accent (in Scotland, unlike Catalonia, where the majority speaks Catalan, only a small minority of Scots, less than 2 percent of the population speaks Gaelic).

However, the guide showed his different Scottish roots dressed in a kilt  and showing a mischievous brightness in his eye by telling us in detail the Scottish violence used against the English and vice versa in the past battles to conquer the castle dating from medieval times. .

The current political reality is still defined by the “no”, the result of a referendum on independence, whose terms were discussed democratically and peacefully by the British Prime Minister David Cameron and the leader of the SNP and the leader of the Scottish nationalist party Alex Salmond.

The Scots, who voted by majority to remain within the EU, are now uncomfortable with Brexit but are not pushing for another independence referendum yet and neither is London in a hurry to grant them the privilege.

Meanwhile, a consensual historical narrative is found in the Royal Palace inside the Edinburgh Castle where the Stone of Destiny is. So that we do not forget, before the mythical stone returned to its place of natural rest, this ancient symbol of Scottish national identity was stolen by King Edward Ist of England to reinforce his own throne, provoking the fury of the Scots. From then on it was used in the coronation ceremonies of the monarchs of England and Great Britain.

But in 1996 Queen Elizabeth, in an act of reconciliation, agreed that the Stone would return to Scotland, with the agreement that it would be temporarily returned to London to be used when crowning her successor.

For now Queen Elizabeth, thanks to this and other gestures of friendship, remains a highly respected figure in Scotland for a broad spectrum of political opinion as in England, in contrast to the challenge that King Philip of Spain faces in earning respect. and the loyalty of the pro-independents and republican Catalans who do not want anything to do with a Bourbon monarchy.

It should be noted that the Scots had to be seduced in a certain way to reach an agreement with the British state. At the coronation in 1952, there were Scots who opposed her because Elizabeth was crowned 11 despite no Elizabeth before she had ruled as Queen of the Scots. It is worth remembering here that James VI of Scotland, became James I of England in the 1603 union of the crowns. When his line of inheritance was replaced by William of Orange, he was seen by many Protestant Scots, though less enthusiastic by Catholics.

In fact, William never visited Scotland, nor his successor Queen Anne, during his reign the union of the English and Scottish parliaments came in 1707. King George 1V visited Scotland 1822 more than one hundred years after the Act of Union between the two monarchies .

King George was unpopular in London. But his visit to Scotland, organized by the much-admired romantic Scottish poet and historical novelist Sir Walter Scott, was a great success. While on the terrace of Edinburgh Castle, the king said: “I must make my people happy.” The historian Sir John Plumb later commented that the Hanoverian king George showed the way in which the monarchy must continue to survive in a democratic era.

It was Queen Victoria who, during her long imperial reign, built a special bond with the Scots. She loved Balmoral, the Scottish castle bought for her by her husband Prince Albert and enjoyed by his successors. Once widowed, she scandalized part of the London society developing a close romantic friendship with her personal companion, a Scottish mountaineer named John Brown, a story immortalized in the movie Mrs. Brown.

Among the children of Queen Elizabeth, it is Princess Anne who is most often identified with Scotland. A regular and enthusiastic visitor and patron of Scottish sports and arts, she is well known for her support of the Scottish rugby team and happily sings the Scottish national anthem when she attends international games. She appeals to the common Scots as the most ordinary of the Royals, a candidate for the unofficial title of Princess of the Scots.

If many Scots maintain some ambivalence towards the British monarchy, they have not rebelled against it nor do they have plans to declare any unilateral declaration of independence. Monarchy was not a problem in the legitimate referendum of Scotland, even though the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) had many supporters in favor of a Republic particularly among working-class Catholics.

If many Scots maintain some ambivalence towards the British monarchy, they have not rebelled against it nor do they have plans to declare any unilateral declaration of independence. Monarchy was not a problem in the legitimate referendum of Scotland, even though the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) had many supporters in favor of a Republic particularly among working-class Catholics.

The current policy of the SNP is that the queen would remain head of state in an independent Scotland, although she would probably be called Queen of the Scots to underline the idea that sovereignty belongs to the Scottish people. Significantly, the song of the poet Robert Burns to the brotherhood counted on the agreement of the Queen, and was sung in its inauguration of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

Although there are Republicans in the SNP, and indeed not so long ago since the party favored the idea of ​​a Scottish republic, the current policy is that the queen would remain head of state in an independent Scotland. (She would probably be renamed Queen of Scotland to reflect the nationalist view that sovereignty belongs to the “Scottish people”).

 

“The good thing about not having a written constitution is that we get confused, we compromise and we adapt,” said a friend from Scotland, journalist Robert Powell. In other words, giving and receiving in politics and statistics is what matters in a decent democracy.

Robert and I visited the new building of the Scottish Parliament together. It was designed as a “democratic space open to ideas and growing out of the earth”, by the Catalan Enric Miralles, who died of a brain tumor in 2000 four years before the inauguration of his masterpiece.

Built from a mixture of steel, oak and granite, and inspired by the local landscape and the raised ships off the coast of Scotland, the complex building was hailed at the opening as one of the most innovative designs in Britain.

Although the threat of terrorism has since meant an increase in security, it is more accessible to the public than the traditional Houses of Parliament in Westminster, its less crowded members.

 

The Scottish parliament was half empty and immersed in a relatively uncontriversial debate on a question of equal pay when we visited it, in stark contrast to the volatile atmosphere that has characterized the Catalan parliament lately, where the independentist parties in the regional government have openly challenged the Spanish Constitution.

Scottish people like to see themselves as more egalitarian than English and nationalists believe they could build a better and fairer society if they were independent. But there are no signs of insurrection against the British State, as some of the most radical elements of Catalonia show in their confrontation with Madrid.

The decentralized Scottish parliament is at the end of the avenue known as the Royal Mile and next to the Palace of Holyrood where the Queen is installed every yearorganizing dinners and a party in the garden as a way to maintain a closer contact with all her subjects. He also spends his holidays at Balmoral Castle, the Scottish family home where Royal since it was purchased for Queen Victoria by Prince Albert in 1852.

A great deal of pomp and circumstance surrounds the real presence in Scotland from the military regiments to the Company of Archers (the Queen’s official bodyguard in Scotland), but the important thing is that the British royal family in its modern phase has developed an important political activity, cultural and social commitment with the Scottish people that seems to have neutralized the historical antagonisms between London and one of its regions instead of inflaming them. For their part, the Scottish nationalists and the British government have behaved with a democratic ethos that is struggling to prevail in Catalonia.

 

 

 

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England vs Spain Football

Nothing like being a bicultural (British-Spanish) European citizen in a rowdy pub in south London to experience the high and lows of an  England-Spain  football match at Wembley.

Let me say from the outset  that my well-known enthusiasm  as an author for Spanish football had me in a minority of two  in a pub that last Saturday was packed to the rafters with mainly young well tanked English males determined to drink as much beer as possible and back the home team.

The pub and most of Wembley  were of course euphoric  when 11 minutes after kick-off England scored. In fairness I was also full of admiration  for an English goal that in its build-up execution reminded me of some of the best I had watched in the good days of La Roja, Real Madrid, and Barca.

It was a reminder of the great advances in English club and national football which has moved from its pedestrian , long-ball game to one of possession and creative passing and movement, thanks in no small measure to the lessons brought to the Premier League by Spanish managers and players. England,  which long ago brought football to Spain, has turned from teacher to pupil, at least when it comes to football.

It also showed the positive influence on the modern game of   England’s intelligent and noble young manager Gareth Southgate whose young bloods did much better than anybody expected in the recent World Cup.

The  England goal, probably the best in the match, – a slick  finish by Marcus Rushford after a brilliant exchange of passes had cut through the Spanish defence –  suggested for an instant that the Spanish national team and its goalkeeper de Gea   had not yet banished the bad omens  that haunted them during their disastrous World Cup campaign.

And yet the mood in the English pub –and in Wembley- soon moved from general  elation to temporary numbness when Spain began to resurrect  its own best colours , with man-of-the match Saul ‘s equaliser. From then on the team put together by Spain’s new manager Luis Enrique seemed to play to its strengths,  finessing the art of  football as poetry in motion, while upping the tempo and pressing the opponent, with its fluid defence and mid-field play, and flexible and predatory strike force.

Spain’s domination and superior skills were personified with the sight of a player like  Real Madrid’s  Isco being unsuccessfully challenged for the ball by three English players, Barca’s  Sergio Busquets’  calm authority in midfield,  and Thiago Alcantara’s devilish whip on his free-kick which made Spain second and  Rodrigo’s winning goal possible.

Of course there is nothing that England fans like better than an underdog rallying and putting up a courageous patriotic fight.  As the match reached its finals stages, English players played increasingly rough and tough, earning more yellow cards than their opponents. Their fans, unfairly in my view,  blamed Spanish theatrics and the bias  of the Dutch  referee.

The  criticism exploded in a series of collectively aired expletives when the Dutch official penalised Danny Welbeck for a foul on  de Gea , and disallowed a goal claimed by the entire English squad and its manager. Such was the abuse and anger in the pub, that I had to silence my own opinion that it was indeed a foul, and commiserate.

 

In the end, as my English expatriate companion visiting from Spain Dominic pointed out,  the competitive  match proved quite  a battle, and more entertaining than the more insipid nature of a ‘friendly’.  It was also not short of noble humanity  –such as when England captain Harry Kane cane out into the stadium with his team before the match began holding the hand of a young boy  who had suffered a brain tumour.  For all the Spanish and English flag waving, there was also  thankfully a striking absence of racist abuse and nationalist political slogs.

But hard as England tried, its team was just not good enough to come out winning from this first venture into the newly created European Nations League competition. Perhaps there was an  analogy with Brexit, or maybe not.

 

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Messi’s Rites of Passage

We have grown used to Messi speaking through his football, but on Tuesday night against Nigeria he showed a less typical, for him,  capacity to play the leader.

While his opening goal showed the  vision, touch, composure and accuracy that has marked his  genius for more than  a decade, as illustrative of  personality was his talk to his team-mates at half time, and the celebration of Argentina’s second goal.

The talk just before Argentina walked out for the second half,  by all accounts, involved not a huge speech but a few words spoken with sufficient conviction to raise morale in a team that had just had its renewed self-confidence badly dented  by the Nigerian equaliser.

It was a typical Argentine  rallying call delivered not by an army general  or a Peronist trade unionist leader but by a bearded warrior of the game,   uncompromising, defiant, and melodramatic,  urging fellow players to give it their all, to live or die,to go over the parapet and  forward with no other  aim but to win.

And what a contrast to the introverted  tongue-tied Messi of earlier games and indeed of previous world cups where Argentina had  to rely on more assertive sergeants like to lift shattered morale among his under-performing fellow countrymen , and try and make them raise their game to his level, often without success.

Among those inspired to “keep going forward”  was Marcos Rojo, a defender who delivered the match-winning volley with the predatory spirit , vision, and aggressive advance positioning of a star  striker, or a Messi.

It was a goal that seemed there and there to ignite  the whole of Argentina,  and provoked Messi’s  own very special celebration, as he piggy-backed Rojo before himself kneeling down and looking up at the sky, thanking God with open arms.

Both  gestures by Messi recalled other legendary moments in football history. One, on Ist May 2005, had Messi,   aged 17, himself being  piggybacked by Ronaldinho  after scoring a brilliant rites of passage winning  goal against Albacete  in the Spanish La Liga-“the goal that  started  the Barcelona legend”, as the BBC reported at the time. The day after the goal, Maradona, the still undisputed greatest ever player , rang Messi from Buenos Aires to congratulate  him. Maradona , the as yet undisputed living legend of the game , exclusively blessed with the Hand of God,  acknowledging the pretender  to the succession..

Maradona was there yesterday, but a mockery of the legend he was once was-less a noble Caesar than a  decadent Caligula, presiding over football’s equivalent of the Roman theatre. He cut a  grotesque image, as he  watched the Argentine team ,   all from a stadium balcony seat, and gave us an overdose of his theatrical range, from rolling eyes to abusive two  fingers.

But as he celebrated Argentina’s first and second goals, Maradona  was no longer alone in claiming a privileged line to  his fellow countrymen, let alone God.   Even if Messi had yet to win the World Cup, his genius of play coupled with his exemplary leadership exteriorised a transformation of character that if maintained could not only show God firmly on Messi’s  side, but also become one of the defining themes of this tournament.

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The noble Jesuit

Today marks the death in 1591 of the Jesuit saint Aloysius de Gonzaga . The  first-born of a numerous  Italian aristocratic family . He grew up amid the violence and brutality of  the Renaissance and witnessed the murder of two of his brothers. He gave up his inherited wealth and privileged status to work in as a volunteer in Jesuit hospital i Rome  among the sick and dying of a major  epidemic. He became infected, and died aged 23 . The  mystic Carmelite , Maria Magdalena de Pazzi had a vision of him on 4 April 1600. She described him as radiant in glory because of his “interior works,” a hidden martyr for his great love of God. For his compassion and courage , Aloysius has become a patron saint of  epidemic suffers and their carers.

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Cristiano takes the lead, for now

One thing I’ve learnt after tracking Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi’s extraordinary sporting record, is never to write off one or the other, because each has a proven capacity to get back up with  another surprise demonstration of their genius. It’s been the case for the last ten years during which they have developed into an unprecedented rivalry , together busting every major record in the game.

The World Cup in Russia so far belongs to Cristiano, who , at the age of 33, today broke further goal scoring records-that of Puskas and his own-, defying those that had concluded that his less than gracious comments at the end of the Champion’s League final suggested that an era might be coming to an end.

In fact it always seemed only too evident to me that Ronaldo’s threat to quit Real Madrid was part of a strategy simply to get more money and more recognition, and that he was entering the World Cup tournament highly motivated to prove, once again,  that he was worth it.

And so it has proved in his first two games , the undisputed star of a somewhat lacklustre but so far , with him in the team, undefeated Portugal, bringing to mind the possibility that he might take them to the final just as Diego Maradona did with a similarly mediocre Argentine  team in Mexico 1986.

But then it was comparisons with Pele and Cruyff that spun off the lips of one BBC  TV commentator today, not Maradona- a name that still hangs like  a dark shadow over Messi.

Not only was Maradona glimpsed grumpily observing Messi’s failed penalty against Iceland , but his legend permeated the collective criticism that was subsequently launched by the Argentine media and social media hounds at the Barca player who was accused once again of badly letting down his nation.

Thus  while today Cristiano remained elevated in the pantheon of football Gods, Messi awaited what could be a defining match of his career tomorrow , having to face up to the challenge of rescuing  his reputation when Argentina face Croatia,  a potentially much harder to beat team than  Iceland. Like prize fighters, battling out in every round, it is Messi who is clearing losing by points so far in this World Cup- but beware of writing him off, quite yet.The greatest drama of modern football continues.

 

 

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Messi fails to ignite

Argentina went into their first World Cup game against Iceland rather like they invaded the Falklands, thinking it would be a walk-over. Instead they walked away  with their tail between their legs, just scraping a 1-1 draw with tournament rank outsiders Iceland.

Whatever the Icelanders were they were certainly not minnows. “They are Vikings”, an Argentine friend commented as we watched the game along with several of his compatriots, long-time residents of  Catalonia, part of a not insignificant community along the coastal belt  just south of Barcelona, which includes Leo Messi.

Certainly whatever they might have lacked in skill, the Icelanders made up in height, physical strength, and sheer motivation, more than enough to frustrate  an Argentine team that seemed to lack form or method, however much their coach screamed at them.

The biggest disappointment, because the expectation was so high,  was Messi himself, let down by his team mates as much as being at fault himself. For much of the match he seemed to be walking  as he does at Barcelona, waiting for the pass to activate his genius with, only with the difference that with Argentina he was rarely found, and when he did have the ball at his feet, he  either lost it or fired blanks.

Messi certainly looked fitter and healthier than Diego Maradona whose bloated face and puffed eyes briefly made its appearance on our TV screens looking less than happy as ‘live’ Word Cup observer and pundit,  however much he might have celebrated  Putin on his arrival in Russia.

No matter, on today’s performance Messi would have done little to convert those fellow countrymen who still believe he has yet to prove that he is better than Diego, and in a World Cup.

As for his  enduring rivalry with Cristiano Ronaldo, the Argentine’s  one failed penalty and an off-target strike at goal was a very underwhelming response to the Madeiran’s hat trick  against Spain yesterday,  against the real quality opposition that is Spain.

Poor Messi. How he must already miss his Barca mates in this tournament , while Cristiano yesterday was the Portuguese team which played for him and he for them

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The joy of Cristiano

I watched the Spain-Portugal on the sand, in my favourite beach bar in Sitges, El Chringuito Carbonell.

There is something about beaches and football that make me feel happy. I kicked my first ball around on a beach in the north of Spain, organised matches on a beach in southern Spain when my daughters were still little girls and excellent players, then later enjoyed watching other potential  stars of the future, young Latinos, with dancing feet and tanned torsos,  from the Algarve to Copacabana.

I was on  a beach in the Gulf of Cadiz back in 2010 when Iniesta scored Spain’s winning World Cup goal, watching the TV on the terrace where I  had gathered with a group of Spanish friends. We celebrated by stripping off and running naked into the Atlantic.

Against this backdrop of good memories of association, I have to say that feelings were mixed in the Chringuito Carbonell last night.  My friends were an unusual consensus of  Barca and Real Madrid supporters, their divided club loyalties, showing a clear bias of affection for individual players in the Spanish team, and united in their struggle to appreciate Cristiano Ronaldo.

No one missed CR7  looking one way at a camera, when all his team mates were looking at another, and singing the Portuguese anthem with self-conscious enthusiasm of a military cadet on his passing our parade. Then came the theatrical reaction to a soft tackle and the penalty, and he became the wrecker.

When Spain equalised, the Spanish TV channel declared that from then on Spain would be in control and go on to win. Diego Costa obliged up to  a point, but then Spaniards overlooked the capacity of Cristiano, aged 33, and on top form,(in contrast to the substituted tired Iniesta)  to win the game almost single-handedly, his third goal,  sublime in the power and accuracy of its  execution, leaving de Gea mummified.

Afterwards I looked out at the empty beach and for an instance thought I caught a glimpse of the Madeiran wonder boy dancing, while giving us all a cheeky wink.

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Lourdes- we need volunteers

As I kick off with my year long presidency of the Stonyhurst Association, I need your help, and urgently.

We are short of volunteers for the annual Catholic Association pilgrimage to Lourdes(August 24th to August 31), in which Stonyhurst plays such an important part, and less than a week from the extended deadline (8th June) for the receipt of applications.

As per last Friday, despite getting new forms coming in, the pilgrimage remained far short of the number of volunteers we had last year (which stretched us to absolute limits). Unless we all work together to help make up the shortfall as soon as possible we face the sad prospect of having to reduce the number of disabled and elderly assisted pilgrims who so hugely look forward to their very special time in Lourdes, in our loving care.

While I know that every effort had been made to encourage new helpers to come for the first time, at this late stage getting as many experienced returners would be of huge support, even people who have not been been for a few years -age is no bar, so as long as you are reasonably fit and committed.

How can you help as of now?

If you haven’t volunteered yet, please try to do so.

Whether you are joining us or simply can’t, please contact friends and acquaintances from previous pilgrimages and encourage them to sign up. If you haven’t received them, forms can be downloaded from the Stonyhurst Association site.

Lourdes is a mystery and you either believe in what happened there or you don’t. It has been a place of pilgrimage since 1858 when, at the grotto of Massabielle, a young shepherd girl called Bernadette Soubirous claimed she saw a vision of the Virgin Mary. Those of us who are touched by Lourdes owe it to two things: the sense of real presence one feels before the candlelit grotto in the late hours of darkness, and the happiness and love generated by those you help as a volunteer.

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