Head of Soft Power and External Affairs Department, Communication Directorate
21st January 2019 London,UK
One of the more unusual invitations I have received of late came from Jane Hasell-McCosh, Founder of the “World’s Original Marmalade Awards”, to a reception last week at the Japanese Embassy to launch the 14th edition of the awards. It turned out that the awards have their spiritual, indeed physical, home in Dalemain Mansion, a […]
9th November 2018 London,UK
Bompas and Parr’s website tells you that their company are “the leading expert in multi-sensory experience design.” A key component of these multi-sensory experiences involves the taste-buds, and their Bermondsey studios are centred on a large kitchen. I met Sam Bompas in a room dominated by what looks like a large church organ. That, says […]
24th October 2018 London,UK
One of the most important events of our annual Chevening Scholarships calendar is the orientation day, held on Saturday at the ExCel Centre in London’s Docklands, when new Chevening scholars learnt more about the year that awaited them, had the opportunity to debate key issues from climate change to artificial intelligence, and heard from such […]
5th October 2018 London,UK
Now on its 27th edition, the Open House London weekend is a celebration of this great city, and above all of its bricks and mortar. The focus is both on the new arrivals on the London skyline and on understanding and appreciating the histories of the older buildings which make up its complex urban fabric. […]
17th August 2018 London,UK
After four fascinating years as ambassador in Romania, I started a new role last month as Head of Soft Power and External Affairs Department in the FCO Communication Directorate. I thought it would be interesting to use this blog to explore the sources of British soft power and its complex relationship to government. Exploration started with our […]
11th July 2018
Our #BritainInRomania public diplomacy campaign aims to celebrate our bilateral partnership. One of the goals we set ourselves was to hold an event in each of the twelve cities across Romania ever to have hosted a UK consulate or vice-consulate, exploring the UK’s links with the city and region in question. We completed this programme […]
8th May 2018
As part of our ongoing campaign, #BritainInRomania, to illustrate the close ties between our two countries, the British Embassy has been working with museums across Romania in all those cities which have at one stage hosted a British Consulate. This took me last month to the Museum of Oltenia in Craiova, for the launch of […]
8th February 2018
The staff of the British embassy in Bucharest gathered this week beside a large flag with three horizontal stripes: purple, white and green. What was this about? One hundred years ago this week Royal Assent was received for the 1918 Representation of the People Act, an important milestone in women’s suffrage in Britain and one […]
23rd November 2017
It was a pleasure to attend on 13 November a stakeholder networking event for a project named Scoli Verzi: Green Schools. This has its origins in evidence from organisations such as Eurobarometer that Romanians are among the least well-informed Europeans on environmental issues. The initiative was launched by two NGOs, WWF Romania and GreenInitiative, as […]
16th November 2017
Oina is a traditional Romanian sport, whose origins appear to be quite ancient. Some believe that the name derives from the Cuman word for “game”, and it does seem to have a linguistic association with many Turkic languages. Other theories place its origins in shepherding, given its closeness to the Romanian word for sheep. While […]