25th March 2019 Geneva, Switzerland
Last autumn, Pixie – our much loved cat (and subject of a 2015 blog trilogy) – fell seriously ill. After a week in pet hospital, the vets advised that she needed an urgent blood transfusion to survive. Except they didn’t have any cat blood in stock, so they asked if I could round up some […]
21st December 2016 Lagos, Nigeria
The second South Africa Science Forum 2016, which was held from December 8 -9 at the International Convention Centre of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria, South Africa (SA) was a great opportunity for SIN Officers (Nairobi, Kenya; Cape Town, South Africa; and Lagos, Nigeria) to meet and interact with various […]
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7th July 2015 Geneva, Switzerland
UN diplomats spend much of their lives fretting about securing exactly the right words in international documents. I’ve seen a whole day of negotiations conclude with only a comma added, to mutual back-slapping and a general sense of a job well done, and have spent weeks painfully debating the insertion of a footnote or an […]
26th March 2015 Pretoria, South Africa
Last week had a distinctly technical flavour for me, with the arrival of Professor Robin Grimes, the Foreign Secretary’s Chief Scientific Adviser making his second official visit to South Africa. Prof Grimes gave a lecture in Pretoria hosted by the National Science and Technology Forum on the UK’s Nuclear Energy Vision to a packed room of scientists, journalists and officials(recordings available). […]
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30th January 2015 Pretoria, South Africa
This week the UK Government launched the Global Calculator, a free and interactive website that allows anyone to test out different solutions to climate change and find out what it really takes to stop global warming. Climate change often feels like such a massive and nebulous problem, and so for me it has been fascinating […]
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1st July 2014 Geneva, Switzerland
It’s been a difficult month. Like many other Council goers I’ve been trying to find enough time for the essential trinity of work, family and football. This is a struggle at the best of times but I feel that however many late-night shifts I’ve put in trying to make time for my council workload, my […]
9th May 2014 Pretoria, South Africa
As South Africans prepared to go to the polls Wednesday in the Republic’s fifth democratic national election since its first in 1994, I sat here in Chicago – 9,000 miles away and seven hours behind – keeping up with the news over a cup of tea and a heap of quickly-disappearing buttermilk rusks, South Africa’s crunchy pastry perfect […]
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7th February 2014 Pretoria, South Africa
South Africa is never dull but this last week and the week to follow will test both the physical and mental stamina of the UK Family here. We kicked off on Wednesday with a youth engagement event at the High Commission to encourage support and interest in next week’s International Conference in London against Illegal […]
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16th December 2013 Havana, Cuba
Me sentí muy honrado al ser invitado en representación de Europa, a intervenir en el homenaje del gobierno cubano a Nelson Mandela que tuvo lugar el 11 de diciembre. A continuación les adjunto la versión completa de mi discurso. En febrero de 1990 después de veinte y siete largos años de cárcel, Nelson Mandela fue […]
15th December 2013 Chennai, India
It’s been clear for a while that Mandela’s life was drawing inexorably to a gentle and dignified close. But it’s sad nonetheless. I can’t pretend that I ever met him, although I stood about 2 yards way when he visited the FCO. But he influenced my life massively. I knew little about the horror of […]