Pope does without TV but misses going out for pizza
The Pope has disclosed that he has not watched television for 25 years — not even the matches played by his beloved Buenos Aires football team.
The Pontiff told an Argentine newspaper that he last switched on a television in 1990 — a year when Cheers, Northern Exposure, The Golden Girls and Seinfeld were still running.
After that he decided “it was not for me”, he told La Voz del Pueblo.
To find out how San Lorenzo, his favourite football team, have fared, the Swiss Guards draw up a table of results for him each week.
The Pope also said he did not use the internet and disclosed he reads only one newspaper — the Italian leftof-centre daily La Repubblica.
Asked what he most missed about his old life in Argentina, Pope Francis cited the freedom to walk out into the streets and go to a pizzeria. The newspaper suggested that he simply order in a pizza to eat in the Vatican. “Yes, but it’s not the same. The nice thing is to go to there, to the pizzeria.
I am under pressure. All those in government are under pressure. At the moment I feel the workload.
Pope Francis
I’ve always been a keen walker. When I was a cardinal [in Buenos Aires] I used to love walking the streets.”
The Pope also said he did not use the internet and admitted to being under pressure.
“I am under pressure. All those in government are under pressure. At the moment I feel the workload. I have a strong pace of work at the moment — it’s the ‘end of the school year syndrome’ with the focus on getting everything done before the end of June,” he said.
The former commander, who was Britain’s most senior officer in planning for the 2003 Iraq invasion, said: “Churchill said back at the beginning of the 20th century, you can destroy an army very quickly, and effectively we did that when we disbanded the Iraqi military back in 2003. It can take a generation to build a strong, capable military that is going to win this sort of campaign.”
His comments followed those of Lord Dannatt, the former chief of the general staff, who on Monday urged the British Parliament to debate deploying up to 5000 soldiers.
Carter said that the fall of Ramadi, 95km west of Baghdad, showed that “we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight Isil [Isis] and defend themselves”.
Ramadi’s defence melted away as Isis advanced earlier this month. Hundreds of policemen were killed after Iraqi troops withdrew. The US responded with limited airstrikes on the city’s fringes. Months of airstrikes and the deployment of advisers to reform and train the security forces have failed to keep up with Isis’ aggressive tactics.
Iraqi leaders expressed disbelief at the accusations. A military commander in Anbar described Carter’s comments as “a provocation to the Iraqi Army and Iraqi people designed to make people lose their trust in the army”.