26th February 2026
Different Memories, Shared Futures: Why Inclusive Remembrance Matters for Serbia and the Region
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
22nd December 2025
Continuing to grow the global alliance for women and girls
17th December 2025
MAKING LIFE SAFER, FOR EVERYONE
16th February 2018 Vienna, Austria
Mozart and Fintech
The room is crammed with over 40 financial services companies. In the next few hours, 27 British Fintech companies and 15 Austrian financial institutions will hold over 120 meetings to explore business opportunities. Why did this event work so well? The UK hosts the world’s strongest Fintech ecosystem, closely followed by California and New York. […]
15th February 2018 Melbourne, Australia
Ten Pound Poms: exploring Melbourne’s museum exhibition
My last weekend started in great style on Friday evening at Melbourne’s Immigration Museum, where I joined hundreds of Melburnians for an evening of 60s and 70s British music, fish and chips and even sneaked in a summer Pimms… The vibrance of the 60s was recreated by the band Marshmallow Undercoat who paid tribute to […]
Read more on Ten Pound Poms: exploring Melbourne’s museum exhibition | Reply
15th February 2018 Vientiane, Laos
The world’s most trafficked mammal
World Pangolin Day takes place on 17 February. The plight of these magnificent small scaly anteaters is often dwarfed by the illegal trafficking of ivory, rhino horn and wild cats, but their existence is in danger.
8th February 2018
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
100 Years of Votes for Women
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 […]
5th February 2018 Los Angeles, USA
Robotics and the Blue Economy
It is no secret that San Diego, tucked away in the southwest corner of America’s largest state by GDP, is rapidly emerging as a hotspot for the development of robotic technology. The pulse of San Diego’s “Robot Valley”, as it is increasingly referred to, is the University of California, San Diego, but the ecosystem is […]
1st February 2018 Vienna, Austria
#ViennaMemories #5: the wall clock
Where did the clock come from? How old is it? I would like to know. My Vienna wall-clock, bought broken at the Naschmarkt flea market in Vienna in 1985, was the inspiration for my #ViennaMemories blogs. I treasure it because: It is old. I do not know its date, but surmise the 1950s. I would […]
31st January 2018 Vilnius, Lithuania
Lithuanian centenary – the people who built our friendship – Sir Thomas Preston
2018 sees the centenary of Lithuania’s modern statehood. Congratulations Lithuania! I wanted to blog this year, then, about some of the many people who have contributed to a close relationship between our countries over the past 100 years. (Although I may go further back in time than that, given Lithuania’s longer history). My first choice […]
Read more on Lithuanian centenary – the people who built our friendship – Sir Thomas Preston | Reply (8)
26th January 2018 London, UK
UK – Russia Year of Science and Education: A year older, a year wiser
Last month Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited Moscow for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Whilst media reporting of the visit focused on our bilateral political relationship and what we are doing to solve together the world’s most pressing global challenges, science and education were also among the topics discussed during the visit. Both […]
Read more on UK – Russia Year of Science and Education: A year older, a year wiser | Reply
26th January 2018 London, UK
Bending the rules to save souls
“And so we must know these good people who helped Jews during the Holocaust. We must learn from them, and in gratitude and hope, we must remember them.” Elie Wiesel You may have heard of Nicholas Winton, the stockbroker who organised the Kindertransport and saved 669 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia. Or Frank Foley, the Secret Intelligence […]
25th January 2018 Auckland, New Zealand
Gateway to Space
In my previous blogs I have informed about the support the UK Science & Innovation Network (SIN) is providing to the UK’s National Space Academy (NSA) in China; helping to spread an inspirational model of teaching which uses Space Science in the context of teaching STEM subjects. The core objective is to get more children […]