14th October 2018 Skopje, North Macedonia
From 11th October to 15th October the British Ambassador’s husband Tom is driving his 1974 Austin 1800 from Birmingham, where the car was made, to Skopje where it will live for the next 4 years. He is being supported by his father Rob who worked at the factory and helped to build the car. For […]
16th August 2018
I was in my home town of Edinburgh last week. August is a great time to be in Scotland’s capital city. The Edinburgh International Festival was born out of the destruction of the Second World War, its creators conceiving it as a “platform for the flowering of the human spirit”. From modest beginnings in 1947, […]
13th June 2013 Washington DC, USA
On Monday, the 39th G8 Summit will commence in Northern Ireland. I am looking forward to Northern Ireland being positively highlighted on the global stage for these two days and beyond for a multitude of reasons. I think that the world will be fascinated with not only how beautiful the country is (please let it not […]
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9th August 2012 Washington DC, USA
As a Londoner, I have to admit that sometimes Londoners can be cynical. As we left for the US last November, we left our friends muttering about anticipated congestion and transport angst and plans to let out their houses to Olympic-crazed tourists and spend the month in Florida. However, from the moment the fabulous opening […]
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23rd April 2012
I returned last week from Bucovina, in the far north of Romania, where I spent Orthodox Easter with my family, my godson and his brother and parents, who were visiting from the UK. There can be few better places in the world to spend Easter than among the fabled painted monasteries of Bucovina. Here five […]
29th February 2012 Athens, Greece
One of the areas I’m working on in the Embassy is the GREAT campaign which is designed to promote the UK abroad. Under the new brand the Embassy is able to join forces with the British Council and other local partners and showcase what UK has to offer. The campaign message is simple and our […]
30th November 2011 Ottawa, Canada
There’s a guest video on the blog today – Jonathan Dart, our Consul-General in Toronto and the head of the UK Trade and Industry network in Canada. We’ve being doing a bit of a blitz in the Maritime Provinces. Jonathan’s been at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, talking tidal energy and marine research; and then […]
2nd September 2011 Bucharest, Romania
I was in London last week for a packed one-day training to understand how the Foreign Office supports the overall work of the British Government to take forward the growth and prosperity agenda. Commercial diplomacy is a newly coined concept yet diplomats have always been looking out for business potential in their host countries, whether […]
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25th August 2011 Windhoek, Namibia
One of the more marvellous traits of human kind is how communities pull together to support each other during times of crisis. We have seen wonderful examples of this in the aftermath of the recent vandalism and arson attacks in London and elsewhere in the UK. Whole communities have mobilised themselves using the same social […]
12th July 2011 Ottawa, Canada
This is part two in a series of blogs by High Commissioner Andrew Pocock on his recent trip to Canada’s Arctic region. Pond Inlet (Lat: 72’42” N; Long: 77’ 59” W) To Pond Inlet on 18 June (Waterloo Day!), pushing ever further north. The local name is Mittimatalik, and we stood on its shore, looking […]