Bruce Bucknell
Former British Deputy High Commissioner Kolkata
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23rd August 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Why is there a huge passion for parks, gardens and lawns in Britain? – Eugene Petrashkevich Dear Eugene: thank you for your question – I’ve simplified it from your original version. I understood your question as asking why we have gardens and parks for pleasure, rather than for necessity (to grow vegetables and fruit to eat). […]
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16th August 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
“How do diplomats behave if they get annoyed with a person during negotiations? Is it possible for diplomats to show their feelings or is there some technique they use to switch emotions?” — Lika Akubardia Dear Lika: thank you for your questions – and for all of those who responded to our competition. I hope to […]
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2nd July 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
I’ve discovered that I might have a tendency to “Gladwellian” prose, as practised by Malcolm Gladwell, a Canadian-British journalist who wrote “The Tipping Point”. This is the reduction of complicated issues into simple terms. I came across the term while reading a critique of the “plain and clear language” of George Orwell in the New […]
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25th June 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
When I took on this job, I didn’t expect to be writing about G8* summits. But I was asked to speak to an audience by the Institute of Certified Financial Managers, and I was wondering what to say. Like many of my fellow bloggers, I turned to the G8 Summit which we were about to […]
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18th June 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
I spend some of my time considering the state of civil society in Belarus, as a measure of the political and social health of the country. Is it flourishing? Does it have “space” to grow? Is the government responding to the concerns raised by civil society? I’m struck by how elusive it is to define […]
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11th June 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
It’s all over – the European football season ended on 25th May with the Champions league final at Wembley Stadium in north-west London. Wembley was the right place for the final, as Britain gave the “beautiful game” of football to the rest of the world. We set out the rules in 1863 that eventually became […]
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31st May 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
New information and communications technologies (ICT) are changing the way we live and work. We can communicate instantaneously, find all sorts of information, and share ideas with others anywhere in the world. This transformation isn’t uniform across the world. Not everyone has reliable access to fast broadband let alone the internet, or wants to spend […]
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24th May 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
I took part in the Victory Day ceremony in Minsk on 9 May to honour the veterans and fallen of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. The term “Great Patriotic War” sounds strange to us Britons, but we weren’t invaded. Our memory is of the longer period we know as the Second World War (WWII) […]
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3rd May 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
One of the major attractions of becoming a diplomat is travel to different places. Of course, most diplomatic business is done in meetings inside offices, conference halls and other buildings. But diplomats need to get out and travel round the countries in which they work. Recently, I visited the town of Loyew (Ло́еў in Belarusian […]
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28th March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Last week, I was a judge in an English speaking competition in Minsk, as part of a world-wide competition organised by the English Speaking Union. And then I gave a speech in English at Friendship House (Дом Дружбы). It was a humbling experience to listen to 12 young people from Belarus speaking English fluently – […]
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