Here is the link to the video of my TEDx presentation in Krakow on the Physics of Diplomacy. Pretty gruesome watching yourself in action. But I have done so in the name of Science. Some interesting public speaking points emerge. First, I don’t want to cross swords with Max Atkinson […]
Over at DIPLOMAT magazine is my latest piece on the highs and lows of diplomatic public speaking. See this excellent example when Queen Elizabeth I chastised the new Polish Ambassador – in fluent Latin: The first speech any Ambassador makes in her/his own right is the formal address to the […]
Ages ago I gave an interview to the Krakow Post which has suddenly popped out into the open: KP: Which states are Poland’s natural allies in the European Union and which will are its rivals? CC: I tend to fear that on EU issues, Poland and the UK will end […]
More confused or at least confusing analysis of the EU Budget in the Daily Telegraph: The Prime Minister last week promised to fight plans to increase the European Commission’s budget by 5.9 per cent and said its 2011 budget should be frozen or cut. Last night, however, British sources conceded […]
The first presentation at TEDx Krakow last week was by Uwe and Gabriela von Seltmann. They told their story. Uwe (a German) had four grandfathers. The first two were both killed in WW2 and their respective widows both remarried. Grandfather One died an honourable soldier’s death fighting the Russians. Grandfather […]
Readers of this site usually have some interest in central Europe and/or the great battles of ideas which ‘Europe’ represents. One of those battles, perhaps the central battle in that it defines the intellectual space upon which all the others are fought, is the ‘comparison’ between Communism and Nazism, between […]
So, here I am at Krakow airport, my life ruined because of Fog. I may get back home today. There again, I may not. For now I sit and forlornly watch my laptop battery run down… Yesterday was the first time I had seen a TED event in action. TED […]
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague is in Moscow. Some thoughts. One of my earliest blog postings from back in 2008 described some of the issues arising from the Russian authorities’ beastly treatment of the British Council. It recorded something said to me by a senior Russian diplomat in 1996 […]
Daniel Hannan MEP berates the fact that UK contributions to the EU Budget are rising steeply at a time when all Government Departments in the UK are being forced to look for deep cuts. (Note: a terse video clip showing Mr Hannan orating in the European Parliament, a melodrama not improved by an […]
My only ‘live’ encounter’ with Pope Benedict XVI came in May 2006 when His Holiness visited Poland. The venerable Catholic Church hierarchy this time did not need any miracles to turn water into wine – amidst the drought of an alcohol ban for Poles, through a miracle there came Plenty! I was […]
