When I was Ambassador in Warsaw and before the FCO embraced blogging with some enthusiasm, I wrote an in-house blog for a couple of weeks. I was limited to 200 words per entry.

The FCO kindly have sent me the entries after my Freedom of Information Act request.

So, in case anyone is interested, some extracts back from my first-ever attempt at blogging back in January 2007:

Days in The Life of HMA Warsaw
Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late…
Day One 18 Jan
Today’s main job: the first-ever FCO Board gathering in Warsaw on 29-30 January. Plus then a visit by MPs looking at EU Border issues. Busy busy.
Yesterday I met a Polish journalist who asked if I would be the first non-Polish Blogger on his pioneering blog space. Cool! FCO rules? FCONet contact details were wrong, plus it says nothing about blogging(!). To be pursued.
This afternoon I hosted a meeting about my wonderful idea to set up UKinPL.org , a network of networks allowing British people/communities in Poland to interact online. The head of Poland’s largest Internet portal attended. A cyber-savvy English businessman showed us brilliant tools for measuring website hits. Fascinating. We may create a global standard for such things.
Day Two 19 Jan
…Back in 1999/2000 I was a Senior User on the committee setting up the FCO Intranet. I told bemused colleagues that this would become the FCO’s main management tool. UGC – dynamic interaction with staff – should not be a problem but a key feature. I lost the argument. “What if someone posts inappropriate content? How do we control it?”
FCONet has come a long way. It has some democratic elements. But it is stuffy. Look at the Stalinist instructions for setting up a Forum. Basic Message: we do not trust you! Whatever happened to “Just Do It”?
Today young Polish Justice Minister Ziobro comes to the Residence for lunch: a strong candidate for Polish President in some 15 years’ time. We have been working well with him in JHA and Polish reform areas. This lunch meets no Objective. But it is patiently building a relationship which should bring results down the road – including in areas unpredictable today. How to measure the effectiveness of that?
Day Three 20 Jan
… What should the Embassy focus on next week? The deep philosophical problem with Government Objectives is that in principle it is impossible to say what causes what and when. Best to invest today’s effort in (a) a likely win, moderately important, short-term objective? Or (b) a possible win, fairly important, medium-term objective? Or (c) a maybe win, long-term, essential objective?
In 2005 a lot of FCO money was spent on a Europe Directorate review intended to show what each post cost and contributed. I proclaimed that if all this work led to non-trivial resource reallocations I would eat a copy of my email in front of a webcam. My digestion was never troubled.
In practice if we mess up the FCO Board visitation and the MPs’ visit on 29-30 Jan we’ll get told off! So let’s focus on that.
Day Four 21 Jan
On the subject of Objectives, why is Supporting British Democracy not there prominently? It is a great deal of what we actually do.
Our accounts structure and ‘risk management’ are based on a requirement to serve up to Parliament detailed explanations of how we spend taxpayers’ money. We must look after visiting Ministers and MPs and promote Scotland/Wales and answer letters from members of the public nicely, even though this sucks resources from SP work.
Yet our resources chuntering makes no allowance for this core work. The Collinson & Grant consultancy exercise was greeted with derision. But it was the first attempt to look at this question intelligently.
You must be wondering about Polish. What sort of country gives Z fewer points than E in Scrabble? Hence “w Szczebrzeszynie chrz