Articles

First the good news from London – it looks like All In The Mind might be made into a film. So if you didn’t get the hardback, get out and buy the newly released paperback now to see why Hollywood (oh ok, a very good UK film company) is interested.  But now the bad news [...]

Paul Fletcher scored the greatest goal I ever saw, several decades ago, for Burnley against Don Revie’s ‘dirty Leeds.’ A picture of the moment hangs in our hallway.  Now Burnley’s chief executive, Fletcher has shown in the last few weeks he still has flair and creativity – with that rare thing, an April Fool that [...]

On to the early Eurostar and, to get my head into French as I prepare for a mass of interviews to promote my novel, ‘Tout est dans la Tete,’ I picked up Le Monde.  First stop a G20 twelve-page pull out, a reminder of the scale and the challenge of the London Summit. Dotted around [...]

To a party last night, to celebrate a friend’s continuing defeat of cancer, at which no fewer than four people – two political, two not – spontaneously mentioned Australian Prime Mininster Kevin Rudd’s interview on yesterday’s Andrew Marr programme. As I had mentioned it myself on yesterday’s blog, commenting on his excellent tone and his [...]

Lots of talk of expectation setting pre the G20 Summit. It is hard enough if you have near total control over an event – as with a single speech by a single politician, when other people’s hopes and expectations for it can impact for good or bad. It is even harder when it is a [...]

I liked it, though not as much as I was hoping to. My sons said much the same. My partner and daughter weren’t that keen to come, which suggests in the build up the message has been football, football, football, rather than incredible story of extraordinary period in the life of remarkable human being. First things [...]

A bit rushed this morning, but enough time to get on one of my hobby horses, plug a radio piece for a TV project I’m involved in, and promote the good side of sport. First, the hobby horse – it is a myth that young people are not interested in politics and political debate. Interesting [...]

Up in Manchester for a speech yesterday, and what an unexpected treat to get back to my hotel room at half ten and channel hop my way to the ITV documentary on Brian Clough.  Non-football fans stay with me …. this was not just about football. It was modern history. A look at one of [...]

I’ve never fully understood quite why Mirror hack Kevin Maguire feels so bitter, but boy does he? I know he still goes on about some Bill Clinton article he drafted which I am supposed to have given to The Sun. I’ve never had the heart to tell him his draft was so badly written I [...]

And so, by popular demand from Facebook friends and Twitter followers, my blog review of my BBC review of In The Loop. First, let me express my continuing confusion as to what does and does not connect with you online community people. I mean, yesterday morning I posted a moderately thoughtful blog about the lessons [...]