Simon Barnes Information & Simon Barnes Links at HealthHaven.com

Simon Barnes is an English journalist. He is currently Chief Sports Writer of The Times newspaper. He also writes a column on wildlife in the Saturday edition of The Times.

Barnes was educated at Emanuel School, and after cutting his journalistic teeth on local newspapers in Britain, Barnes travelled to Hong Kong, where he wrote for travel magazines and the South China Morning Post. After his return to Britain, he became a sports writer for The Times, rising to the position of Chief Sports Writer and winning a number of awards in the process. In March 2009 he was runner-up in the Sports Journalists' Association's Sports Columnist of the Year award, an award he had last won in 2008. He is the author of 16 books including three novels and the best-selling How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher. His latest book, The Horsey Life, about horses, was published in autumn 2008.

A highly fluent writer who is at his best when covering the rhythm, throb, ebb, pulse, tide, surge, wash, and flow of human emotions, whether related to sport or not, Barnes is versatile, inventive, well-read and intelligent. Although sport has been his bread and-butter for more than two decades, he is passionate about horses, wildlife, and birds, as many of his articles in The Times and elsewhere would attest. He is an admirer of the quintessentially English writer/novelist Anthony Powell and his love of the work of James Joyce spatters his columns.

A modest man who is engaging in company, Barnes has turned down many invitations as a guest on TV sports shows, but has made or appeared in a number of programmes on BBC Radio 2, including a reading of his book, How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher. He is also an acknowledged specialist writer on the environment and wildlife.

He lives on the county of Suffolk, in the United Kingdom, with his family, and five horses, and was on The Times team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his sixth summer Games that he has covered for the newspaper.

Barnes's coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic games came under scrutiny in an edition of Private Eye published at the time which quoted some examples of his Olympic reportage -

"I suppose the problem is that some people can't come to terms with the idea that intelligent people like sport and might want to read someone who tries to write about sport in an intelligent way. My attempts to do so have met with a bewildering hostility in some quarters."

"This is the greatest sporting event in history so naturally all I want to do is create the greatest sportswriting that the world has ever seen ... the Olympics are about being the best you are capable of being. And every writer wants to be the best he can over the 16 days of the competition ... a great event demands great writing."

"I have a raft of Chinese literature with me, some modern, some like the poetry, improbably ancient."

"Sport is a universal language, and triumph is always triumph, and disaster is always disaster."

"When the journalistic awards come around, we always dig out our coverage of the best stories of this year. So perhaps I'll choose my 100 metres piece; and then another on Michael Phelps. Maybe when I get to the veodrome tomorrow, I'll write an award-winner on the British cycling team's endless pursuit of gold. I'll certainly be trying to."

In particular, Barnes's coverage of Yelena Isinbayeva was satirized for what was described as 'drooling' prose. "What's a chap supposed to do when a gorgeous woman in mascara, nail-polish and a sarong shows him how unbelievably beautiful her body is? Particularly when she then removes the sarong to jump...?"

[edit] Bibliography

Barnes, Simon; Nik Wheeler (1981). China in focus. Hong Kong :: CFW Guidebooks,. pp. 63p. : chiefly col ill.. ISBN 9627031127.
Barnes, Simon (1986). Phil Edmonds a singular man. London :: Kingswood,. pp. xi,179p,[8]p of plates : ill., ports. ; 24cm.. ISBN 0434980927.
Barnes, Simon (1988). Eamonn McCabe, photographer. London :: Kingswood,. pp. xxii, 88 p. : ill., ports. ; 29 cm. ISBN 0434981478.
Barnes, Simon (1988). Horsesweat and tears a year in John Dunlop's racing stable. London :: Heinemann Kingswood,. pp. xii, 228p, 8p. of plates ; 24cm.. ISBN 0434981524.
Barnes, Simon (1989). A la recherche du cricket perdu. London :: Macmillan London,. pp. v,137p : ill ; 21cm.. ISBN 0333487222.
Barnes, Simon (1989). A Sportswriter's Year. London :: Heinemann London,. pp. v,224p : ill ; 25cm.. ISBN 043498180X.
Barnes, Simon (1992). Flying in the face of nature a year in Minsmere Bird Reserve. London :: Pelham,. pp. xi,227p ; 25cm.. ISBN 0720720052.
Barnes, Simon; Peter Jackson (1994). Tiger!. London :: Boxtree in association with Tigress Productions and Meridian Broadcasting,. pp. 160p ; 29cm.. ISBN 1852839317.
Barnes, Simon (1997). Rogue Lion Safaris. London :: HarperCollins, London. pp. 320 p. : col. ill.. ; 33cm.. ISBN 0006498493.
Barnes, Simon (1999). Hong Kong Belongers. London :: HarperCollins, London. pp. 320 p. ; 33cm.. ISBN 0006511953.
Barnes, Simon; Alan Marks (2000). Planet zoo one hundred animals we can't afford to lose. London :: Orion Children's,. pp. 264 p. : col. ill.. ; 28 cm.. ISBN 185881488x.
Barnes, Simon (2000). Miss Chance. London :: HarperCollins, London. pp. 288 p. ; 27 cm.. ISBN 0006511961.
Barnes, Simon (2005). A bad birdwatcher's companion --or a personal introduction to Britain's 50 most obvious birds. London :: Short,. pp. 281 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.. ISBN 1904977375.
Barnes, Simon (2007). The meaning of sport. London :: Short,. pp. 365 p. ; 20 cm.. ISBN 1904977855.
Barnes, Simon; Joseph Barnes (2008). How to be wild. London :: Short,. pp. 1 v. : ill. ; 20 cm.. ISBN 1906021481.
Barnes, Simon (2008). The Horsey Life. London :: Short,. pp. 288 : ill. ; 25 cm.. ISBN 1906021422.

[edit] External links

Who Comments? - Simon Barnes

This article about a British journalist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.