Here is my latest Telegraph blog piece, this time on the dilemmas in negotiating with a country such as North Korea where the usual options of Persuasion, Carrot or Stick seem to make little impact: Many humans (and even some governments) aren’t donkeys. So another layer of analysis applies. As […]
Every now and again you see something which you were not expecting. Something which falls into no known category of analysis, logic or meaning. Such as this. The screaming racist cake from Sweden. Wow. Update: here’s the explanation. It’s nothing but über-EU Gay/black Afro-Swede post-modern performance art irony. Move along folks, nothing […]
In case you have not yet had enough about FCO foreign language policy, here’s my first full piece for the Daily Telegraph (ie newspaper + website) on the subject, distinguished on many levels but above all for craftily slipping some words of Serbian into the piece to show how clever […]
Here is a scary piece at the Telegraph bewailing the supposed decline in British diplomats’ foreign language skills. Which draws on some information extracted from the FCO by a Parliamentary Question. And quotes me: Charles Crawford, the former British ambassador to Poland and a speaker of Serbian, Russian, Afrikaans and French has […]
Here’s a fine example of how high-level foreign language skills come in handy when the interpreter deliberately doesn’t translate what has been said to protect her boss from his own impatience: After Bosnia’s first post-conflict elections in 1996, the Contact Group Ambassadors led by High Representative Carl Bildt had to […]
In response to my pieces earlier today about the FCO’s language training policies, this trenchant message has arrived from a reader (edited a tad for anonymity purposes and published here with the author’s consent): I read your blog and comments about the Telegraph’s article on the FCO’s foreign language abilities (or […]
Israeli superspy Jay Pollard – serving out the final years of his life prison sentence in the USA – is unwell. My own modest link to the Pollard story is here. Not to ignore here. Wikipedia blithely glosses over Pollard’s academic links to me, but the general explanation of what the […]
A gush of media reporting on the start of the conflict in Bosnia back in 1992. This one by Tim Judah (who knows his Balkans) is smart but maybe too optimistic. Yes, the likelihood of horrible inter-ethnic fighting has subsided. But is what we have now really good enough and, […]
Here is what appears to be the first-ever speech by a UK Foreign Secretary (maybe the first-ever speech by any Foreign Minister) on consular work. And v effective it is too. I have written here about some aspects of consular work under Labour, not least the appalling Three Ps which […]
Imagine you’re a senior executive. Then imagine that you have a Problem. You have to address a major conference in SE Asia next week. Public speaking is not your favourite thing. You need some serious senior advice about local sensibilities to make sure you make no ghastly gaffes. Plus the presentation […]
