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

Monday 8 October 2007

No.163: Solomon Islands


Full story to follow...

Alex Horne - 8th October 2007

Arriving in London just two weeks ago, Father Ben has so far found his experience rather confusing. 'Most people can't speak English!', he told me with a genuine look of bewilderment on his face. 'I sit on the bus and can't understand anything. Especially the domestic workers. This surprised me. I always thought people spoke English in London!'

Sent here as part of a staff development programme by his church on Malaita in the Solomon Islands, Father Ben is here to study anthropology. One day he will return to work as a tutor and lecturer along side his job as a priest.

On his first trip to a church in St Martin-in-the-Fields he was amazed both by the number of Chinese people and the lack of young people in the congregation.

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