Brian Viner
Brian Viner swapped London for the Herefordshire countryside, and his column ‘Country Life’ documents his attempts to chase the rural idyll. Chiefly a sports writer, he pens a weekly sports column and interview for the paper. He is the author of Ali, Pele, Lillee and Me: A Personal Odyssey Through the Sporting Seventies.
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Brian Viner: I've spent too long talking to TalkTalk
One of the small ironies of our peculiar age is that telephone companies are less communicative than just about any other kind of enterprise. Phone them up and it feels like a minor miracle when eventually you find yourself in dialogue with a human being after all the automated nonsense of pressing 1 if you want this, or 2 if you want that. If only the next option was, press 3 if you'd like to interact with somebody real, but it never is.
Recently by Brian Viner
Brian Viner: Ashes to Ashes – it's a year to celebrate Botham's miracle and Strauss's majesty
Saturday, 15 January 2011
The Last Word
Brian Viner: The real drama in Ambridge is online
Friday, 14 January 2011
All human life is there. Love, hate, bigotry, tolerance, spite, kindness, pedantry, brevity and above all, the conviction that Ambridge is the centre of the known universe. I refer not to The Archers but to The Archers website. I have never listened to more than two consecutive minutes of The Archers, but for entertainment value, not to mention shock, hilarity and a vivid insight into the human condition, I can't believe that it holds a candle in a hayloft (if not a past storyline, then surely a future one) to the extraordinary online rants of its devotees.
Brian Viner: This is the year to toast the memories of Blanchflower, Fangio and Shergar
Saturday, 8 January 2011
The Last Word
Brian Viner: I spent €250 and things started looking up
Friday, 7 January 2011
Last Sunday's opening instalment of BBC1's adaptation of Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen books, about an incorruptible detective in Rome – perhaps the incorruptible detective in Rome – got careful scrutiny in our house, because we'd only just come back from three days in the Eternal City. "That's where we had the ice creams," went up the cry, causing far more excitement than Zen (Rufus Sewell) being followed by a sinister fellow on a motorbike.
Christmas Quiz: A second chance to win a beer for a year
Monday, 27 December 2010
Due to a production error, one of the questions printed in the ever-popular yet ever-fiendish annual Christmas Quiz from The Last Word would have had you scratching your head for far longer than necessary – it was printed wrongly. Apologies. So here it is again in full. As ever, I am hugely grateful to master brewers Shepherd Neame, who have once again agreed to supply a fantastic prize, namely 365 bottles of Spitfire Ale, one for every day of 2011.
Brian Viner: I'm a Christmas card failure. Apologies
Friday, 24 December 2010
Every year it happens, with the utter predictability of my children saying no to the Christmas Day sprouts, and my father-in-law to the parsnips. Somewhere around 25 November my mind turns to Christmas cards, and in particular those destined for friends and relatives in the United States and Australia. This year, I assure myself, will be different. The cards travelling to distant lands, with a bespoke accompanying letter and perhaps a clutch of photographs, will be in the post by the beginning of December. And with that done, I will sit down with the dozens of cards meant for friends in the UK, and actually enjoy writing them, without the pressure of Royal Mail deadlines.
Brian Viner: Fancy a beer (or 365)? If so, get your sporting brain in gear for our tricky Christmas quiz
Saturday, 18 December 2010
The Last Word
Brian Viner: Coco thinks it's grim up north London
Friday, 17 December 2010
Rehab clinics probably don't have guest books – "lovely stay, can really recommend the cold turkey" – but if they did, the children of the rich and famous would loom large. It's no easy matter being born into the limelight, growing up with one or both parents appearing to belong as much to their fans as to you, and in some sad cases even more so.
Brian Viner: Snow gets the better of O'Sullevan but nothing must block AP's path to BBC glory
Saturday, 11 December 2010
The Last Word
Brian Viner: The rise and rise of pismronunciation
Friday, 10 December 2010
Not since my schooldays, when a boy in my year called Ian Hunt was cruelly nicknamed Isaac, even by some of the teachers, has the surname of the current Culture Secretary struck me as potentially comical. So three cheers for Jim Naughtie, whose now-celebrated clanger on Monday's Today programme unwittingly kindled the schoolboy humour that brought some warmth to a freezing winter's day.
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