17th August 2016
Skopje, North Macedonia
For me, most of August and September will be one massive nostalgia trip. Seven years ago I packed my bags and left the Foreign Office to join the team organising London 2012. I spent three years there on secondment as Head of International Relations. And then from July to September we put on the best […]
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1st August 2016
London, UK
Four years ago tonight I watched in awe as Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony in Stratford launched the start of what would become the most amazing Olympic Games the world had ever seen. London 2012 proved a defining moment for our country. The inevitable pre Games gloom – problems with the M4 corridor from Heathrow into […]
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27th April 2016
London, UK
Today we mark 100 days to the start of the 2016 Olympics games in Rio. It’s also the first of a series of blogs which I and colleagues will write as we prepare for the Games. To celebrate the milestone, we have created a video with some Olympic and Paralympic stars, providing British nationals travelling […]
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5th July 2012
Athens, Greece
London 2012 has been a major FCO priority this year, for British Embassy Athens especially. For 6th century BC city-state diplomats the Olympics was but one of four ancient Greek sporting contests to organise. Mythology suggests the Nemean games were founded by Herakles, having completed the first of his labours – wrestling the Nemean Lion. […]
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5th March 2012
Geneva, Switzerland
It’s been a busy week. With our Ministers in town for the Council’s High level Segment, we’ve all been suffering from higher than average stress levels. Many Ministers chose to use their statements to focus on the appalling violations in Syria, which the Council addressed in an urgent debate on Tuesday. Council members spoke out […]
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14th February 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Last week the embassy hosted a reception to celebrate the fact that the 2012 Olympic and Paralympics Games this summer in London will be the greenest and most sustainable ever. I was pleased to welcome not only the President of the Ukrainian Paralympics Committee Valeriy Sushkevych, the General Secretary of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee Volodymyr […]
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16th November 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Combine hundreds of enthusiastic schoolchildren, top sporting figures signing autographs, music and razzmatazz and you’re guaranteed a lively event. This was the scene at the “Ukrainian House” on 15 November when the All-Ukrainian campaign “On the way to London” was launched in central Kyiv. I won’t say too much about the event because you can […]
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