Jimmy Burns's Blog, page 30

Rediscovering The Common Good

Rediscovering the Common Good

One of my favourite stories- and you don't have to be a Christian to identify with it- is that of Saint Peter caught in a terrible storm while out fishing,  and with Jesus seemingly far away and up a mountain. With no fish and his boat flooding, Peter throws himself into the water and starts sinking, convinced that God has abandoned him and all is lost. Then he sees Jesus reaching out his hand and he is rescued.

I guess I am not alone in feeling a bit like a troubled Peter this week. Witnessing the riots on TV and  seeing part of my  local neighbourhood (last night in Clapham)trashed was  to feel a terrible sense of powerlessness.

And yet today civility is showing signs of fighting back in a way that should put the hooligans to shame. In Clapham and other affected areas, ordinary people turned up quite spontaneously with brooms and bin bags to help with the clearing up, and to offer a cup of tea and simple comfort to those whose premises had been destroyed. Such gestures of solidarity was something our parents and grandparents experienced during the Blitz  when large parts of London and other British cities were being badly bombed.

That spirit shows signs of surfacing again, as people react to the utter callousness of those who have looted and torched the livelihoods of ordinary working people in recent days. Finally social networking –twitters, facebook, texts- is being used in a positive sense, not to identity the next target for trashing, but as a way of connecting with people who want to help restore a sense of co-stewardship in our society. People are rediscovering there is such a thing as a common good, and that brings with it a sense of dignity, personal self-worth, and positive power to all of us Peters.

Barcagate

If the media empire of Rupert Murdoch has its hackgate, Spanish football has its Barcagate- or does it?

One of the longest serving football club presidents in the history of the game, Jose Luis Núñez, has just been condemned to a prison sentence of six years by a Spanish court after being found guilty on charges of bribery and falsification of documents.

Also found guilty, and condemned to a prison sentence of eleven year years was Josep Maria Huguet, the inspector of taxes in Catalonia between 1985 and 1994 who was accused, along with some of his also condemned officials, of falsifying tax returns in return for cash and properties at preferential rates.

The case dates back more than a decade and covers a period when Núñez ruled FC Barcelona with an iron grip. I have written at length about Núñez's period at the helm one of the most famous sporting institutions   in the world in my book Barca, A  People's Passion. But it's worth turning to a bit of history here for those who lack memory.

In late 1977, two months after the emotional return to Spain   of Josep Tarradellas the ageing president of the Catalan government exiled by Franco, the president of FC Barcelona Agustin Montal resigned, paving the way for new elections. Two front-runners emerged to succeed him. The favourite was Victor Sagi, a long-serving Barca member who ran one of the biggest advertising agencies in Spain. The other candidate was Núñez, the president of the family owned company Núñez y Navarro, the biggest construction and property company in Catalonia.

Núñez had made a fortune out of the reckless and poorly regulated urban growth that took place in Catalonia during the last two decades of Franco's rule   (1957-73). One of his more notorious developments, or rather destructions, involved buildings in the picturesque Eixample district. In order to increase floor and parking space and speculate on high property prices, Núñez's bulldozers flattened old walls and imposed a crude urban monotony across a large swathe of the Catalan capital. In 1975, the year of Franco's death, Núñez's company constructed a hideous housing block next to Gaudi's magnificent Sagrada Familia, in the exact place where the original plans had at one time promised an extension of the religious masterpiece.

At the beginning of 1978, soon after declaring his candidacy, Núñez was approached by an anonymous fixer and offered a list of all Barca members with their addresses. Núñez later told the Catalan journalist Josep Morera Falco that he had bought the register for 70,000 pesetas. Weeks later Sagi suddenly pulled out of the race. At a press conference Sagi stated he had done so for the sake of unity within the club. It seemed an odd excuse for a front runner but it came amid attempts by Núñez to discredit him with a series of well-placed media leaks about his personal life.

When I interviewed Sagi twenty years later he told me: "Núñez tried his best to stop people thinking that the reason I had done it (left the race) was as an act of loyalty to the club. That is why he spun the rumour that that there were secrets that might put me in a compromising position. There were even rumours that I had hired some private detectives to follow me. Núñez thought that money could buy everything, but the dossier never existed."

Núñez was elected president and served for twenty years. During his time in office, the club membership rose from 77,000 to over 103,000 and its annual revenue from 817 million pesetas to 14.9 billion. Towards the end of the 20th century Núñez had remained in office far longer than the president of any other club or organisation in the world, politicians included.  About that time, in 1999, I interviewed him and asked him whether he had not learnt the lesson of history: that it is sometimes more advisable to walk out voluntarily through the front door, with your head high, than to wait until you are forced through the back, in the midst of scandal.

"I have offered my resignation on certain occasions. The problem is that every time I do so, people have come forward who want to control the club in a way that would not do it any favours," he replied.

Such arguments are those well rehearsed by autocrats, but his answer ignored the complex web of vested interests that had sustained Núñez  in power: his awkward and sometimes tempestuous relationship with Jordi Pujol, who succeeded Tarradellas  as head of the Catalan government ; the dexterity with which Núñez managed to bring onto  his ruling junta key businessmen and officials representing  a broad sweep of the political spectrum, including members of the Catalan Socialist Party; his public rows on occasions with Real Madrid, which enthused Barca supporters.

It was under Núñez also that FC Barcelona won several trophies including La Liga and the first European Cup with Cruyff's 'dream team'.  Cruyff earned not insubstantial pay and conditions during Núñez's   presidency as did some of the world's other better known managers from Cesar Menotti to Terry Venables and Bobby Robson (during whose time one Jose Mourinho worked as the Englishman's assistant and translator), and an impressive list of foreign star players- Cruyff himself, Maradona, Gary Lineker, Laudrup, Koeman, Rivaldo, Ronaldo inter alia.

In style and management Núñez was in many ways typical of the new breed of businessmen that took charge in the 1990's. He echoed the ambitions of Silvio Berlusconi although stopped short of standing for the presidency of Catalonia. In one key respect he was always handicapped: he did not have, nor was he allowed to have, the power that would have come to him as a majority shareholder in FC Barcelona. The club was not listed on the stock exchange. In statutory terms it belonged to its members. And much as he tried to control Barca as his own fiefdom and counted on the support of bankers and sponsors, he ended up having to tackle unsuccessfully a widely felt and deeply entrenched tradition of Catalan nationalism and fan power within Barca. His biggest mistake in the end was perhaps in alienating the club legend Johan Cruyff and thinking that he knew more about football than  his best manager and player.

After an interim period presided over by Joan Gaspart and others, the Núñez era at Barca was effectively brought to an end by a populist fan-based movement called the Elefant Blau whose manifesto called for a greater transparency of the club's accounts, the limiting of the presidential mandate to terms of four years, and more care with the money spent on foreign players. The Elefant Blau put Joan Laporta in as president and his running mate ex-Nike executive Sandro Rosell initially as his deputy. Laporta's presidency (2003-2010) recorded four Spanish league titles and two Champions League twice – the most successful period in the club's history.

Laporta was later elected to the Catalan parliament as member of a left-wing grouping which wants Catalonia's indepededence from the rest of Spain. He is fighting to clear his name amid allegations –he denies-of mismanagement and financial irregularities, unconnected with the Núñez case, made against him since his one-time friend Rosell took over as president of Barca.

God forbid lest Barca's wonderful reputation as the world's greatest football club be tarnished by all the above. It is perhaps just as well that in Madrid, the news today like elsewhere in Spain is dominated by the announcement by the country's beleaguered socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero that he is bringing forward next March's general election to this autumn as the country battles against contagion. The fact that the politically discredited Zapatero is a declared Barca fan is probably better forgotten.

Mr Murdoch's Vatican connection

An interesting twist to the 'Hackgate' saga is to be found in the latest issue of the excellent UK based international Catholic weekly The Tablet which points out the Vatican connections of the besieged Murdoch Empire.

The magazine 's editor  Catherine Pepinster( formerly of The Independent on Sunday) recalls her surprise and that of Tony Gallagher, editor of the Daily Telegraph last September when they spotted James Murdoch in the pew behind them during a Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XV1 at Westminster Cathedral.

But perhaps it shouldn't have been such a surprise. As Pepinster goes on to report, the Murdochs have a history of cultivating the Catholic Church. Rupert Murdoch (whose second wife was a Catholic, but he isn't) gave a $10 million donation to help with the building of Los Angeles Catholic Cathedral which earned him a papal knighthood in 1998. Then when British Catholics (and taxpayers) struggled to help fund the Pope's visit to the UK last autumn, James Murdoch was one of a group of benefactors who put money to the tune of at least £100,000 each into a papal fund.

Reflecting on what she now knows, Ms Pepinster suggests that the Catholic bishops should return the Murdoch money and find other way of replenishing the church coffers. The Catholic bishops said earlier this week that they accept the Murdoch money in good faith. Noone is suggesting, of course, that the Vatican has been hacked, let alone, God forbid,  that James Murdoch is up for beatification.

Diego & Messi

That there are Argentines beginning to demand that Maradona is brought back as national coach while at the same blaming Messi for the failures of the nation's team says something about a country, and a lot about a club.

Maradona was once probably the best player in the history of football but it's also true that his personal and professional decline as a player began after the World Cup in Mexico 1986, and that in South Africa 2010 this overweight drug addict was entertaining as a coach but a disaster in tactical and strategic terms.

But Maradona was mythologized long ago, and came to represent the psychological and collective subconscious of a nation- the same country that proclaimed the macho gaucho Martin Fierro a literary hero and Cristina Fernandez a great and noble leader, just as Evita Peron was in her time. Messi was not born in the slums of Villa Fiorito nor was he nourished as a young player by the hooligans of Boca Juniors. He was sent to Barcelona as a young boy and decided to fix his residence and his footballing soul there. This was seen and continues be seen as treason by some Argentines. Diego also spent seasons in the Camp Nou, in Napoli, and in Sevilla but he always sweated the shirt, not like Messi who seems someone else when he plays for Argentina. This view, held by Argentines , is  a false one, or at least is one of self-denial, since it is not Messi who is to blame but his national team and the conspiracy that surrounds it.

Messi plays better for Barça  because he has a 'Míster' (Guardiola) who understands him better than anyone, and a team with which he is totally integrated, in its system of play and its solidarity, and because culés (the club fans) couldn't care a toss that he is not charismatic outside the stadium, and the Spanish media values him.

Let me give as an example the commentary in today's El Pais newspaper by the excellent Ramon Besa (one of the best writers on FC Barcelona that I know). Besa writes: "The Barça game consists in getting the ball to Messi in the best condition. Argentina, by contrast, doesn't know how to give him the ball because it thinks that his boot is tied to the ball. And because he doesn't speak, nor can count on his own fan club because he left his country when he was thirteen, nor has he got a press (in Argentina) who writes favorably about him, he is a victim of silence."

Diego y Messi

Que algunos Argentinos empiecen a clamar por el retorno de Maradona mientras que le echen a Messi las culpas de los fallos de su selección nos dice algo sobre un país, y mucho sobre un club.

Maradona en su momento fue tal vez el mejor jugador de la historia del futbol pero también es cierto que su declive personal y profesional como jugador fue en aumento a partir del Mundial de México 1986, y que en Sudáfrica 2010 este ex drogadicto gordinflón fue entretenido como entrenador pero un desastre en términos de táctica y estrategia.

Pero ya hace tiempo que el Diego se convirtió en un mito, representativo de una psicología subconsciente y colectiva de su país- la misma que proclama al Gaucho machista Martin Fiero un héroe literario y a Cristina Fernandez una gran y noble líder , tal como fue en su momento Evita.

Messi ni nació en  Villa Fiorito ni se crio entres las barras bravas de Boca Juniors. Se fue a Barcelona de joven, y allí decidió asentar su residencia y alma de futbolista. Esto lo han visto y lo siguen viendo ciertos Argentinos como un traición a la patria. Diego también tuvo sus temporadas en el Camp Nou y Napoli  y Sevilla pero siempre sudó  la camiseta, no como Messi que parece otro cuando juega con su selección. Aquí ya los Argentinos entran en una falsedad, o por lo menos una auto-negación, ya que la culpa no la tiene Messi sino la selección, y la conspiración que la rodea.

Messi juega mejor en el Barça  porque tiene un 'Míster' que le entiende mejor que nadie, y un equipo con el cual se siente plenamente integrado, en su sistema de juego y solidaridad, y porque a los culés les importa un bledo que no sea carismático fuera del campo, mientras que tiene una prensa que también le valora.

Pongo como ejemplo el comentario en El País de hoy del excelente Ramón Besa (unos de los mejores analistas del FC Barcelona que conozco). Besa escribe: "El juego del Barça  consiste en llegar el balón a Messi en las mejores condiciones. Argentina, en cambio, no sabe cómo darle el balón porque piensan que su bota esta cosida a la bola. Y como no habla, ni cuenta con hinchada propia porque se marcho del país a los 13 anos, ni hay prensa (Argentina) que escriba a su favor cuando empata, es víctima del silencio."

The fall-out of Hackgate

One of the many joys of retiring from the manic intensity of 24 hour news has been to be able  to sit back and watch my former colleagues grind away without myself being stuck inside the same machine. I haven't given up writing, but when I do hit the keyboard, it in my own time and when the mood stirs me, much like any other ordinary citizen.

Book writing endures with its own demands so if I haven't got engaged with the wider world since FC Barcelona's victory at Wembley  it is because I am trying to gather some fresh thoughts on Spanish football for a new tome I hope to have out in time for next year's European Championship.

But I couldn't resist returning today to the subject I first blogged on back in January under the heading 'Journalists: Get Your House in Order'. Given its escalating political dimension, it's fair to call the subject now 'Hackgate'.

I was inspired-not for the first time- by the BBC's Robert Peston who last night informed the world that News International had uncovered emails showing that payments were made  to  the police by the News of the World during the editorship of Andy Coulson. The story, the corporation's intrepid Business Editor told us, was based on 'senior executive sources'.

The Peston 'scoop' livens up my days of a semi-recluse, by contrast to so much stuff published and aired or conveyed on the net which leaves me feeling cold and negative. It is never boring, and always relevant, taking a matter of public interest to a new significant dimension.  I have known Robert for many years and remain full of regard for him personally and professionally. We became good friends while he was my boss in the prizewinning investigative unit at the FT (since disbanded). As a matter of record, other members of that FT unit have included William Lewis, who went on to senior roles in the media,  including editor-in-chief at the Telegraph media group, before joining News International last September and taking up his current job as group General Manager.

Hand on heart let me tell you that our little , under resourced, but fun band of brothers followed Bernstein and Woodward (of Watergate fame) by the book- we had our deep throats, ranging from secretaries to  senior executives , were happy to receive leaked documents, and cross-checked everything we did. I do recall once making use of a record of telephone numbers dialled by the late Robert Maxwell and viewing a video of his autopsy.  However we didn't once pay cops for information, let alone hack into someone's phone.

In his insightful Guardian column today Simon Jenkins argues that 'Hackgate' arose out of the competitive pressures that newspapers have had to deal with in the digital age. Perhaps this is an important element to the story. Personally  I remain unconvinced that investigative journalism on the whole has become better in recent years, let alone more ethical. On the contrary, the dubious 'tools' of the trade have made journalists less diligent and more susceptible   to cut corners in order to break the story, at  whatever cost.

It is  is clear that if there is a public enquiry into this whole shoddy affair it should not only examine the conduct of the media, but also its relationship with the police, not least those officers my good friend Peston reported last night had take a questionable  shilling or two for a practice now considered illegal.

As I wrote last January: "Any future public enquiry into the hacking saga may perhaps throw up other uncomfortable insights into dubious journalistic modi operandi such as the close relationship some journalists have with certain police officers or the unspoken slush funds made available to buy stories."

Let's not kid ourselves. The ramifications of 'Hackgate' goes deep and wider than the alleged evils of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

Diana at 50

DIANA cumple 50.  (Transalation of piece by Jimmy Burns published  in El Mundo (Magazine) on the occasion of Ist July, Diana Princess of Wales's birthday –

 

This is not a fable but a story as real as it can be imagined about what Diana Princess of Wales might have become had her life not be cut short so tragically on that night in August 1997 in an underpass in Paris. Permit me , dear reader, some literary license in assuming that had it not been for that terrible accident, Diana would have lived on, along with many of the dramatis personae with which she had, for better or worse, coexisted, and that while history has kept on a path that is familiar to us, she has not remained untouched by its development. Indeed, her role has remained undimished as a  personality, worthy of our times.

To the extent that Diana, as we all are,  is as much a product of herself as her circumstances, this story must begin where that other one ended, or to be more precise, in  a context where her death was not anticipated and where her life had become the latest chapter in a seemingly enduring telenovela, the outcome of which is uncertain.

In  that  summer of 1997 Diana alerted the tabloid press to a holiday she was spending on board a luxury yacht belonging to Mohamed Al Fayed, at that time the Egyptian owner of Harrods. London's most famous department  store had long since ceased to count the Queen of England and her more immediate bloodline as patrons. Al Fayed's past  business dealings were the subject of unresolved speculation, as were the reasons why he had been repeatedly denied nationality  of his adopted country of residency  by the British  sate. Diana was not only on friendly terms with Al Fayed, content to receive supplies from Harrods at her residence Kensington Palace,  but was  being openly courted by  the Egptian's only son Dodi.

Employed by his father as one of Harrods senior managers,   Dodi had shown his  interest in pursuing Diana by breaking off his engagement with the US model Kelly Fisher. Diana' own emotional state at the time was more complex. In June of that she had reluctantly broken off a two year old secret relationship with Hasnat  Khan, a Pakistani heart surgeon, a married man with children of his own. By all accounts, Khan proved a sensitive and reliable close friend to Diana- 'the love of my life' was how she described him to a girlfriend. Khan was certainly the most serious of a series of  suitors Diana had  become involved in following the breakdown of her marriage to Prince Charles. But Khan came from a traditional religious background whose family expected him to be married a Muslim,a  prospect neither he nor Diana believed could be realised between them.

Following their formal split at an emotional late-night meeting in the park adjoining her London residence, Diana toyed with the idea of taking  a summer holiday either in the fashionable Hamptons , Long island New York or alternatively going to Thailand. Instead she accepted  an invitation from Al Fayed to join his son on holiday in the South of France. It raised the possibility at the time that Diana may have been seeking a frivolous adventure, off the rebound off her previous relationship, as a way of either forgetting about Khan or trying to make him jealous.

There is little doubt that in Dodi she found a willing partner. On the 30th August he visited an exclusive jewellers Repossi in Paris. Receipts from the visit shew he spent 115,000 french francs on what the jeweller noted as a baque fiancailles or engagement ring from the 'dis-moi oui' range. However Diana and Dodi had been in a relationship for only a matter of weeks, and several friends to this day refuse to believe that the 'surprise announcement' she had teased some journalists would be made that September would have turned into their marriage. Letters she wrote to Dodi that summer show her warmly thanking him for his kindness towards her. While he showered her with gifts, she gave him a pair of cufflinks belonging to  her late father. But of the ring, Diana told her close girl friend Rosa Monkton: " I know that Dodi is going to give me a ring, but it  is going to go firmly on my right hand." (engagement rings are placed on the marital  left hand.)

Days before this, photographs captured aboard the Al Fayed luxurious yacht off the coast of France showed Diana and Dodi relaxed and intimate in each other's company to the point of cuddling and kissing each other.  But it was an image that underlined the lowest point  that had developed in the relations between the Princess of Wales and the Royal House of Windsor rather than any profound  love for the heir of the Al Fayed dynasty.  For just as Diana's social status and personality was also of a nature that conspired against any enduring emotional link to Dodi and his extended muslim clan, just as it had done in Khan's case, her  relationship with the British Royal family was not irredeemable.  

Born into an old aristocratic English family with royal ancestry, Diana had become  an important and popular public figure in her own right,  managing to carve out a meaningful life for herself long after her fairy-tale marriage to Prince Charles had fallen apart. She is known to have privately regretted-believing it a betrayal of her loyalty to the crown- the interview she gave to the  BBC in which she had admitted she had 'adored' an earlier extramarital lover James Hewitt, her riding instructor,  while questioning her separated husband Charles 's suitability for the job of future King.

She had of course made much, long before then,  of Charles own responsibility for the collapse of her marriage, pointing an accusing finger at the predatory nature of his mistress Camilla Parker Jones. But in the tug-of-war for the sympathies of the English public and her followers worldwide, she had maintained the winning edge , however much her detractors tried to tarnish her reputation as an unfaithful wife who was also a manipulative, publicity-seeking shopaholic, obsessed with her public image while suffering  from a borderline personality disorder.

One royal biographer Sarah Bradford has suggested that the only cure for Diana's suffering would have been the love of the Prince of Wales, which she so passionately  desired, but which would always be denied her. And yet she had agreed to a closure of sorts by agreeing to a formal divorce from Charles on the 28th August 1996, which legally set them each freer to each pursue their futures, but within a consensual setting. Thus while Diana lost the title of Her Royal Highness, and thus renounced the prospect of being future Queen, she was allowed to continue with the title of Princess of Wales and thus officially considered part of the Royal Family, as the mother of the second –William-and third-Harry- in line to the throne.

Her dalliance with Dodi the following summer was nothing more than that, a measured act of independence which would give way to a new life without him,  one which would build on those more positive aspects of her personality that countered the demons that had assailed her in the past. And here it is worth considering the evolving political context of  Diana's life story. In May 1997, less tha  a year after her divorce, the British people had voted in with a commanding majority the Labour leader Tony Blair the youngest British primeminister in two centuries with a bold root-and-branch reform agenda after decades of occasionally scandal  hit Conservative government. Within the traditional Labour party, Blair was something of an outsider. He was not a trade unionist, had soft hands, and was married to a lawyer. It was said that he had never memorised  'The Red Flag', Labour's unofficial anthem, believing instead in a modernising agenda for his party more in keeping with the shifting social patterns  of the 21st century.

Diana was also, for all her aristocratic backround, and enduring titles, something of an outsider who had seemingly challenged the complacency of a Royal family so rooted in tradition that it was in danger of losing  touch with ordinary people, and the struggles  of modern life. Even in  her lowest points, Diana had shown herself a devoted and demonstrative  mother to her children  in contrast to the  cold upbringing to which Charles had been submitted, and before him his father Philip. While conscious of her duty to ensure that William and Harry should grow up as princes with one of them ascending throne one day, she was determined to humanise them from an early age as an integral part of their education.  Thus she carefully chose their 'nannies', dismissing one that had been imposed on her by Buckingham Palace, and remained closely involved in Willian and Harry's engagement with the world beyond the palace walls. For example she took William when he was a young boy to his first  football match, thereby instilling in him an enduring love for the 'people's game' as a necessary addition to his experience alongside the traditional royal sports of polo and hunting.

As for herself, Diana balanced her reputation as a glamorous fashion icon with a commitment to causes that broke new boundaries in terms of the Royal family's engagement with  modern society. The pictures of her holding the hand of an emaciated  AIDS patient or embracing children whose arms or legs had been blow up by mines contributed to raising her profile and that of millions of previously ignored victims around the  world. When, in her famous BBC interview, she had declared her only ambition to be 'queen of people's hearts', she had said so with the conviction that she was by no means alone in thinking that that was exactly what she had already become, or was fast becoming.

During the 1990's when the Laour party was still  in opposition before being returning to government, Blair and some of his closest friends  had secret dinners with Diana where a strong bond of mutual appreciation was established. "The princess is absolutely, spellbindingly, drop-dead gorgeous. ..It was extraordinary just to  see her in an ordinary house..She made us a cup of tea, " recalled Alastair Campbell, one of Blair's top advisers of a meeting Diana helped arrange, out of the media spotlight, in a "ordinary house" in a regenerated  working class neighbourhood of East London.  Campbell said he felt Diana "really felt she was part of the whole new Britain", which Blair's New Labour so successfully campaigned on.

As news of Diana's death sunk in around the world, it was  Blair's live statement, as he stood outside his local church in his parliamentary constituency of Sedgefield  that seemed to best capture a collective subconscious at the time. His "She was the people's princess. And that's how she will stay, how she will remain, in our hearts and in our memories, forever" would join some of Churchill's wartime utterances in school history text books as an enduring epitaph.

Perhaps the myth was created by the nature of her death. But this story does not end there but continues along an enduring line of supposition –"What if, she had not died?"- of  tantalising fiction made reality, like a Borges creation.So that August in 1997, Diana found not a mortal cul-de-sac by the Seine but a new life in London, putting behind her Charles's betrayal, and the unfulfilling nature of her own extramarital affairs- for time can be a great healer and an eye-opener- and finding huge comfort and reward in her dedication to others, less fortunate than herself, and being , what she had always strived to be , as good a mother as she could be, given  the circumstances of her divorce, to her two boys.

Blair played a useful part initially in the process of Diana's redemption –and the House of Windsor's reform –  suggesting as courteously but as firmly as he could-to the Queen's and Prince Charles's new advisers that the British people would be best served by a monarchy that used some of  the Princess of Wales's more exemplary qualities to guarantee its survival for at least another generation-more smiles, more touching, more genuine human engagement with all races and all classes, and please,  no more hypocritical marriages, dressed up as fairy tales. Peace should be declared red between the Houses of Spencer and Windsor, with the two counting on each other's support at times of national need.

In a sense both Blair and Diana stopped being outsiders, and became part of the establishment. Blair sidelined those Labour party colleagues who wanted a Republic, while Diana forgave Charles and wished him well in his marriage to Camilla, his second wife and the real love of his life, even while privately thankful that the ex Mrs Parker-Bowles would end up a competent consort, not a people's princess. That royal title Diana was happy to share with a much younger person who William had chosen as his wife-Kate Middleton.  When William gave Kate the engagement ring that had once belonged to Diana,he did it to show he had learnt the lessons of his parents' failed marriage and chosen his bride because he truly loved her, and because Catherine , Duchess of Cambridge had a mind of her own, while at the same knowing where her duties lay, as a wife, future mother, and member of the Royal Household.

Unlike Diana, Kate was not born into aristocracy .She had  airline pilot for a Dad, and an air stewardess for a  mum- both running their own business of children's entertainment-  and an ancestor who was a miner. But Kate had had a more stable childhood , without the trauma of her parents hating each other, and had more time to prepare herself for a royal marriage so that when she came to it, she seemed to give an aura of self-assurance Diana always struggled with.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Diana's birth, the newly weds are planning to move into Kensington Palace where William's mother lived her good years and her bad ones and, according to our story, now has her own quarters- a small 'granny flat' which was once part of the royal stables. For Kate gets on better with her mother-in-law Diana than she could ever hope to  do with William's step-mother Camilla. They share a mutual pride in William- his nobility in spirit, whether soldiering or raising funds for a good cause, and of course, his good looks.

It's a pity, Diana reflects, that dear Tony (Blair) made such a hash of things in Iraq, and that soldiers-less fortunate than her sons William  and Harry have to die in a war in Afghanistan that seems, like Libya, to have no end. But the Princess of Wales is doing what she does best, comforting the injured and the bereaved, and the socially disadvantaged. She has become a  patron of Help Our Heroes, a charity for soldiers and their families while campaigning, as she was among the first to do, against the use of mines as a weapon of modern warfare. At Elizabeth Taylor's funeral the other day, Diana's presence served as a reminder that you can mix glamour with campaigning for AIDS victims . And with  natural disasters appearing with biblical regularity from Lorca to Tokyo, Diana is never short of foreign trips as a roving ambassador for Unicef.

Three years ago doctors diagnose a malignant tumour on one of her breasts before she sucessfuly underwent treatment. The cancer scare fuelled a  great deal of public sympathy, and helped Dian's reconciliation with Charles and her estranged parents-in-law, the Queen and Prince Philip. She survived, more conscious of her own mortality, while at the same time finding a new serenity, valuing her friends and family more than she had ever done before, and filing the emotional void left by ex-lovers with her charity work. Diana has ageed gracefully, in mind and body.

She is no retiring Jackie Onassis. Had she married Dodi, she probably would have ended up spending most of her time on a luxury yacht.  Nor has she turned into a Mother Teresa. She remains something of a fashion icon, keeping  in step  with latest trends, as she matures in years. She takes  a close interest in Kate Middleton's excellent dress sense, as well as her own.   Recently Diana joined Ali Hewson, the wife of the U2 rock-star, Bono, as she gave ecological style a fresh and funky image at the New York Fashion Week . The Princess of Wales  much enjoyed the catwalk debut of Edun, the eco label Ali founded with  her husband five years ago to promote trade in Africa, and which uses organic materials wherever possible.

After hugely enjoying William's wedding to Kate- (their double kiss on the balcony made her cry with happiness for them)Diana is looking forward to celebrating her 50th birthday with a rock concert in  Hyde Park which will raise funds for her various causes.  U-2 will be the headline act, followed by guests appearance by her old friend Elton John, singing 'Crocodile Rock'  and Chris de Burgh singing  the song she most liked as a newly wed, 'Lady in red.' William and Kate along with Harry and his latest girlfriend (she worries about Harry sometimes as the less predictable of her two sons),are  top of her invitation list along with  several busloads of  injured soldiers, HIV positives, tsunami survivors , victims of the latest budget cuts,  and a Jesuit priest from the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Mayfair.  The spiritual exercises of St Ignatius have  helped her deepen her sense of self and God's presence in all things, helping her  remain chaste and fulfilled in recent years, while still knowing how to enjoy a  good party.

She hasn't see her old friend Tony  for a while although she got a call from him the other day suggesting  that she might considerer visiting the Gaza strip as a way of promoting a humanitarian solution to the issue of Palestine. Meanwhile she has dined on several occasions privately with David Cameron and his wife Samantha.  Cameron would like Diana to help him portray the softer side of his coalition government's policy, making her a kind of propagandist for his vision of a 'Big Society' , in which communities feel empowered to solve problems in their neighbourhood , with charities playing a bigger role in social action and responsibility.

Diana is looking forward to a holiday in Mallorca with the King and Queen of Spain with whom she has remained friends since her early days as a young mother. She also plans to pay a return visit to the Obamas when she is next in the US after they had the sweet gesture of dropping in for tea with her when they were last in London. She thinks that Barack and Michelle  are both wonderful human being , sensitive, like she is, to the only mission in life that really matters – trying to make the world a better place to live in, having found peace within oneself.  ENDS

A Wembley Dream

 

Of all the chants resounding round the Barca section of Wembley last night, few proved as popular as ' Porque,Porque, Porque'.

Why does Barca win was the question's football's agent provocateur Jose Mourinho asked, insinuating-as only he would-that the answer may lie in diving and deranged referees.

Well  Mourinho eat your hat. The answer, as Alex Ferguson recognised, was blowing in the sweet air of a team's collective genius which made an opponent of the quality of Manchester United struggle to keep in the game for much of the match.

It was only fitting that in a week that saw at least some of the alleged dirty washing of football's governing body hung out to dry, a global audience of fans was treated by the world's two great clubs to a display of sportsmanship in which one side excelled in its skill on and off the ball.

I can't remember a match in which my natural instinct as a fan to jump and chant struggled with the wish to follow every detail of Barca's performance, such was the mesmerising impact of the players' movement around the pitch once Pep  Guardiola's team got into its stride.

That said, my nerves were on edge for most of the first half, as were those of my cule friends in Wembley's Block H, with Man U dominating the first ten minutes or so, and then equalising thanks to Rooney. I was haunted by the prediction that some Man U fans had come to the stadium with:  a 3-1 victory to them.

That they were proved wrong was in part down to the undisputed brilliance of an on form Lionel Messi and the constant threat he posed whether as an instigator, decoy, or executioner. Personally I cannot remember a match in which Messi celebrated a goal with such –almost Maradona-like- frenzied abandon. And one can't blame him for that. This was the site of Rattin's humiliating red card before Argentina's defeat by England in the 1966 World Cup. And this was the site where Barca won its first ever European Cup in 1992.

But in the new Wembley, Messi not only conquered history but made a bold statement about a style of football that has already marked an era in the 21st century-to that extent he personified a collective achievement.

For last night's victory was arguably the culmination of a process that was set in motion by Cruyff, and finessed by Guardiola during one of the most bruising seasons in Spanish club football. One dream team has metamorphosed into another.

My enduring moments at Wembley last night: the way the chants of the cules echoed globally; Abidal's heroism; Pujol's nobility (handing Abidal the captain's badge); Pedro's goal; Messi's goal; Villa's goal; Ferguson arguing with Rooney about tactics; Pep Guardiola being thrown in the air by his team; the circle of friendship that was created in the middle of the team before and after the match; Danny Alves leading fellow Brazilians on a merry celebratory dance; sharing the moment with fans who had travelled by coach all the way from Andalucia; the cules  celebrating with tears and laughter; hearing Ferguson describe Barca as the best team he had ever played again. Amen to that.

Carta a Pep

28 de Mayo 2011

 

For the attention of Pep Guardiola, FC Barcelona

 

Querido Pep,

Te escribo como autor, cule (nacido en Madrid de padre escoces y madre Castellana), y Londinense para expresar mi profundo agradecimiento por la gran ilusión y alegría que tu y tus jugadores habeis inspirado en el Barca, profundizando en una gran tradición de humanidad y buen futbol.

Anoche estuve en una cena en un hotel de la capital ingles organizada por la Penya del Londres al cual pertenezco. Había cules de toda la peninsula Iberica, y de todas las edades, y capas sociales. Me emociono escuchar-en una conversación intima que tuvieron conmigo- a dos mujeres de edad avanzada. Me contaron como, nada mas llegar a Londres ayer, se habían dirigido a la iglesia de los Jesuitas en Farm Street para dejar allí, delante de una estatua de la La Moreneta,  una bufanda del Barca. Mas alla de los sentimientos espirituales que puedan afectar a nivel individual, anoche hubo un sentimiento colectivo que sirvió para recordarme lo muy especial que es el  ser del Barca.

A través de Chemi- amigo de siempre que tan buen trabajo hace para las buenas relaciones del club con los medios- quería dejarte a ti a tus jugadores unos ejemplares  de mi libro firmado por el autor – un gesto de agradecimiento de parte mia  y de mi Penya por  lo que eres, y lo que sois.

Esta noche estare entre los cules en Wembley, apoyando al equipo con todo mi corazon. Os deseo todo lo mejor.God Speed y  Visca Barca

Y un gran abrazo    

                          Jimmy Burns Marañon

www.jimmy-burns.com

Thanks, Bob Dylan

As I read my newspaper over the breakfast table this morning, one news item more than  any other today brought instant stirrings of nostalgia, faith , and mortality: Bob Dylan is 70.

Thanks to Bob, I invested in my first guitar, wrote my first poem, busked as a student, turned socialist in my Christianity, romanced my first girl-friend and now wife, and kept believing in the benevolent artistic creativity of mankind, under God.

His music drew from primitive roots, his words from the dramatic landscape of history and its mystical dimension. He drew around him gifted men and women, stirred sleeping youth, and reached out over  the walls of racism and bigotry. Only in the North of England was he ever insulted, and that was because he had moved on, and the beer-bellies were dead in their tracks.

Even now my happiest moments are when I am with good friends, my family, my guitar, and a Dylan song that speaks me to me of love, betrayal, protest, and the challenge of being true to oneself. Happy Birthday Bob- you are my true rolling stone. My love she speaks of silence, without ideals of violence.