Simon Barnes Author and Journalist

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Why football is like death, copulation and wildlife television

2 December 2015 by Simon Barnes 8 Comments

I have discovered a new vice. Like all vices it will pall soon enough, but right now I’m really rather taken. It’s the Champions League round-up programme on BT/ESPN, and it allows you to watch all the matches at the same time. But only the sexy bits. So you go from goal to goal to… [Read More]

Posted in Sportsblog/ Wildblog

Elephant stories and David Gower

28 October 2015 by Simon Barnes 12 Comments

Last Friday I did a gig for the World Land Trust with David Gower. Gower — former England cricket captain, should anybody need to know — has been a patron of the organisation since 1996; I am a council member. We had an audience at The Cut in Halesworth, in Suffolk and we did our… [Read More]

Posted in Sportsblog/ Wildblog

How to be patient

18 October 2015 by Simon Barnes 30 Comments

Not a subject on which my wife would consider me an authority. Yesterday I did a quick spot on the Today programme on that subject, with respect to Alastair Cook, the England cricket captain and his astonishing 14-hour innings against Pakistan. They embarrassingly called me Simon Barnes of The Times, but I rose above it…. [Read More]

Posted in Sportsblog

A bitter old man

16 October 2015 by Simon Barnes 75 Comments

                I reviewed a sports book the other week and expressed some reservations about it. The author – let’s keep him nameless – sent me a series of abusive emails. He concluded that I wrote as I did because I am a bitter old man. I was taken aback by this, and thought it advisable… [Read More]

Posted in Sportsblog/ Wildblog

Birding with Nicole Cooke

8 December 2014 by Simon Barnes 17 Comments

The first Brit to win the Tour de France wasn’t Bradley Wiggins. It was Nicole Cooke. She also won the gold medal in the road race at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008. She and I were in contact about her feisty and hugely enjoyable autobiography The Breakaway. After I had written about it… [Read More]

Posted in Sportsblog/ Wildblog

Living in Hell

12 September 2014 by Simon Barnes 2 Comments

             The trial of Oscar Pistorius is almost at an end. He was found not guilty of deliberately murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, but guilty of culpable homicide; we would say manslaughter. He will be sentenced next month. The whole business had been deeply dismaying, because Pistorius was a hero… [Read More]

Posted in Sportsblog

Knowing the Unknowable

10 September 2014 by Simon Barnes 4 Comments

Last week I did a charity gig for World Land Trust. David Gower was the star; Bill Oddie and I mostly asked the questioned. It was a good mix: Bill wanted to know why cricketers have such silly nicknames and what they actually ate during the lunch interval; I wanted to know how David played… [Read More]

Posted in Sportsblog

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