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21st July 2017 Vienna, Austria
#Viennamemories #2: a cup of hot chocolate
During my first posting in Vienna from 1984-87 I used to travel down the Westautobahn a great deal – often en route to Salzburg, Tyrol or Munich. On the way home, I used to make a pit-stop at a certain motorway service station and consume a cup of hot chocolate. Oddly, as I then saw […]
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21st July 2017 Canberra, Australia
Dunkirk
Last night I was honoured to host a private screening of the critically-acclaimed new blockbuster Dunkirk. The film proved to be a stunning depiction of an iconic moment in British military history. Personally, Christopher Nolan’s gripping account resonated for two powerful reasons. If you can indulge me I’d like to take you back to 1976. […]
19th July 2017 Jerusalem, Israel
My last day in Jerusalem
Today is my last day as the British Consul General in Jerusalem. I arrived in Jerusalem in January 2014, right in the middle of the negotiations led with great energy and commitment by former US State Secretary, John Kerry, and today I’m leaving as my American colleagues work to relaunch negotiations. My hope is that […]
14th July 2017 London, UK
How science diplomacy matters to UK-Russia Relations
The UK-Russia Year of Science and Education – 2017 (YoSE) is already proving a useful bridge for people to people contacts at a time of challenging political relations. First, the Year’s programme reflects the breadth of science that Russia and the UK are involved in. But, we also aim to understand more general issues such […]
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14th July 2017 Vienna, Austria
How to start a new job with thousands of Twitter followers
(joint blog with @stevenxhardy, Social Media Manager, FCO) Imagine you are starting a new job where you want to communicate with people using the social media tool Twitter. Your predecessor, who is about to leave, has thousands of Twitter followers, who would doubtless be interested in what you have to say after you arrive. How you […]
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13th July 2017 Beijing, China
Who are the Newton Fund Alumni?
The China Newton Fund Alumni are a diverse bunch. Professor Tida Ge is working on carbon sequestration and nutrient efficiency in crops such as rice. Professor Lei Shi is studying a medical condition affecting newborn babies. Professor Zhixun Xie has just been awarded a research and development grant to support his work on infectious disease […]
13th July 2017
Smog Chasing – the UK and China team up on air pollution
On a scrubby patch of land in Beijing’s north-west, over which the capital’s original Mongol citadel’s walls would have once cast an imposing shadow, nine pristine white shipping containers surround a slender meteorological gantry. Erected by the Chinese government in 1979, supposedly after President Richard Nixon noted the Chinese capital’s appalling levels of air pollution, […]
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5th July 2017 Skopje, North Macedonia
Do we have eyes for equality?
In a society where stereotypes and prejudices are much present, one of the main challenges is to work on social cohesion of the vulnerable groups. Often it is a challenge itself to explain to people what is social cohesion, and what is diversity? Social cohesion is when we look at what all of us can […]
5th July 2017 Vienna, Austria
Football unites: Austria, the UK and “FCO FC”
I was delighted last week to attend the match between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Football Club (“FCO FC”) against the Austrian Foreign Ministry Team (“FC Außenamt”). FCO FC have been touring for years. I hosted them when I was Ambassador in Kiev in 2011 in the beautiful setting of the Dynamo Kyiv stadium when […]
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4th July 2017
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Postcard from Ukraine
I recently travelled to Ukraine with 26 other OSCE ambassadors, visiting Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk. This was an important visit for us. In our diplomatic meetings we devote a lot of time to Ukraine and management of the conflict in the Donbas that has already cost over 10,000 lives and disrupted millions more. We […]