Brian Viner

Recently by Brian Viner

Brian Viner: Ball helped turn me on to Everton, but Royle was my hero

Saturday, 28 April 2007

For an eight-year-old boy, goals were all that mattered

Brian Viner: Country Life

Wednesday, 25 April 2007

A delightful, rather elderly couple from Anglesey stayed in one of our holiday cottages the other week, and told us almost apologetically on the Saturday lunchtime that there didn't seem to be any hot water.

Brian Viner: Oatley deserves her chance to silence the Jurassic prattlers

Saturday, 21 April 2007

As always it was on the phone-in shows where the dinosaurs roared loudest

Brian Viner: Young couple split. Hold the front page

Tuesday, 17 April 2007

The BBC radio news bulletin I listened to on Saturday led with the bombshell that a man and a woman in their mid-twenties had split up after a four-year romance; the second item was that a suicide bomber in Baghdad had killed up to 50 people. I would be better placed to deplore these skewed priorities had I not issued a short exclamation of surprise at the news that Prince William and Kate Middleton had parted, while taking hardly any interest in the details of the carnage in Iraq. From that point of view, the BBC got it right. The sanctity of human life long ago stopped influencing the order of the news.

Brian Viner: Chiles finds only one winner in fight between faith and football

Saturday, 7 April 2007

'When I went to mass, I didn't see a flash of lightning, but I felt remarkably at home'

Brian Viner: Country Life

Wednesday, 4 April 2007

A package arrived in the post the other day containing a book called The Trials of the Baroness: The Susan de Stempel Affair, by Terry Kirby. It was very kindly sent to me by a reader, Judith Evans, who thought that I might be interested to read it, since its leading lady lived at the height of her notoriety in Forresters Hall, Docklow, about a minute from our house.

Country Life: Brian Viner

Wednesday, 4 April 2007

Brian Viner: Mize's fluke denies 1987 its place among magic Masters

Saturday, 31 March 2007

Searching for something original to write about the US Masters, which begins among the fragrant Georgia pines on Thursday, and about which so many reams are written every year, I wondered whether there might be mileage in some anniversary-led nostalgia, some reflections on the tournament 20, 25 or 50 years ago, perhaps.

Brian Viner: Football punditry? It's a funny old game

Saturday, 31 March 2007

That nice Gary Lineker does not conform to most people's idea of a rabid dog, tearing mercilessly into the exposed hindquarters of over-sensitive England football managers. Can it really be that wounding criticism from Lineker, and from his BBC colleague Alan Hansen, was instrumental in the Football Association's decision to take FA Cup and England coverage away from Wood Lane.

Brian Viner: Country Life

Wednesday, 28 March 2007

Last week, I had to go to Florida for a day, which either sounds jet-setty, or stupid, or environmentally irresponsible, depending on where you're coming from. I was coming from north Herefordshire, which of course rendered the project infinitely more complicated than it might otherwise have been. The prospect of a train journey from Leominster via Newport and Reading to Gatwick, or from Gatwick via Reading and Newport back to Leominster, never fails to fill me with dread. Something always go wrong.