30th November 2014
Guest blog by Monsignor Charles Burns OBE, Ecclesiastical Advisor of the British Embassy to the Holy See There have been Scots here in Rome for many centuries. The Scottish Hospice was founded in 1475 to assist Scottish pilgrims, and the Pontifical Scots College – where the Feast of St Andrew is celebrated every year – […]
28th November 2014
Guest blog by Greg Quinn, Deputy Head of Mission St Andrew’s Day always has a special place in my heart. Not only do I have many friends from Scotland but there are various other connections. These include the fact that my mother is of Scottish ancestry (and I’m therefore the proud wearer of a kilt), […]
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28th November 2014 Budapest, Hungary
Guest blog by Douglas Arnott, Chairman of the Robert Burns International Foundation in Hungary. Before you reach for a handy online dictionary, this is what Scots around the world celebrate each year on 30 November, St. Andrew’s Day! Named not surprisingly after the patron saint of Scotland, you may nevertheless be surprised to learn that […]
23rd September 2014 Geneva, Switzerland
It’s been an interesting week to be a Brit at the UN. No matter what else has been going on in the rest of the world, all anyone wanted to talk to me about was Scotland. Mostly people just wanted to hear my prediction of what the result was going to be, as though I have […]
26th June 2014
With names like Scott, Cameron, Macdonald, Ferguson and McKenzie, the MPs and Senators who organised last night’s Scottish Dinner in Australia’s Parliament House had a gleam in their eyes at the swirl of the bagpipes and the clink of the whisky glass. Some of them have more distant ancestral links to Scotland, like my own. […]
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24th April 2014
Yesterday at the Residence we marked St George’s Day, the feast day of England’s patron saint, and the week of the 450th anniversary of the birth of England’s and the world’s greatest dramatist and poet,William Shakespeare. A British architect, Rueben Thorpe, talked to us about the excavation of the Rose Theatre in London, one of the […]
9th March 2014 Warsaw, Poland
Piesek P is on the lookout for GREAT British Cheese in Poland – as he finds it he’ll let you know – just smile, Say Cheese from the Scottish Highlands Beautiful lochs and massive mountains, a pleasant summer and a harsh winter. Cheese making in Scotland belongs to the clans and the crofters. While the […]
7th March 2014 Warsaw, Poland
Piesek P is on the lookout for GREAT British Cheese in Poland – as he finds it he’ll let you know – just smile, Say Cheese from the Scottish Highlands – Say Crowdie Beautiful lochs and massive mountains, a pleasant summer and a harsh winter. Cheese making in Scotland belongs to the clans and the […]
27th January 2014 Budapest, Hungary
It’s been quite a start to 2014. No chance of easing my way back into work after the holidays. The year has got going at 100 miles an hour. I was wondering which part of the excitement to write about in my first blog of 2014. But I went to a celebration of Burns night […]
11th December 2013 New York, USA
Sometimes it takes seeing your own national customs through the eyes of another to recognise their strangeness. I was honoured to join Mayor Michael A. Nutter of Philadelphia on his trade delegation to London at the start of November, and one night, as we were having dinner at a riverside restaurant, there was a brilliant […]
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