Hello!

This is a project that Owen Powell and Alex Horne started on October 24th, 2006 (United Nations Day), and finished on October 24th, 2007. Our aim was to prove that London is the most cosmopolitan city in the world, by endeavouring to meet and chat to a citizen from every country in the world who currently lives and works in London.

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We managed to meet people from 189 countries. According to the UN, there are 192 countries in the world, so we've proved that at the very least, London contains over 98.4% of the nations of the world!

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We are still looking for people from three countries:

Marshall Islands; Palau; Tuvalu.

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The final encounters during our year appear below, but to follow our story from the start please click on the links under 'How we're doing' on the left-hand side.  The countries appear in the order in which we found their representative. (Any country with an asterisk * next to it has a brief account of the interview - longer versions will appear in the future!)

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To find out more about the project, including our self-imposed rules, then click here.

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Follow this link if you have the urge to see us looking awkward on Channel 4 news.  Or just below you can see us when we were half-way through the project being interviewed by George Alagiah on BBC World.

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Please email us on worldinonecity@hotmail.com if you want to get in touch, or if you know any shy Londoners who are also Tuvaluan, Palauan or Marshallese.

George Alagiah interviews us on the BBC

Wednesday, 18 July 2007

No.114: United Arab Emirates


Full story to follow...

Alex Horne – 18th July 2007

I met Sava and her friend Nilpa by the escalators of the shopping centre on Hounslow High Street. They were both in school uniform. I felt just a tiny bit dodgy.

Hounslow is a cosmopolitan corner of London as close to Heathrow distance-wise as it is in spelling terms. Closer even. As you walk past M&S, HMV and KFC you are constantly aware of planes swooping yards above your head. It’s a place you’re always conscious of immigration.

Sava herself is 17. She lived in the U.A.E for fourteen years but says she prefers school in London; ‘the people are much friendlier’.

Nilpa, by the way, is brilliant. She wants to be a sports journalist and later supplied us with the phone numbers of both Emmanuel Eboue and Kolo Toure’s agents. They are from the Ivory Coast and play football for Arsenal (at the other Emirates of course). Unfortunately that meant they were too busy to talk either to us or Nilpa.
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