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

Thursday, 11 October 2007

No.171: Djibouti


Full story to follow...

Alex Horne - 11th October 2007

Following up the last of Philippe Sibelly's leads I trudged pessimistically up to the Argos on Kilburn High Street where, four years before, a man called Hufane from Djibouti was working. I asked the security guard if he knew anyone called Hufane. He shook his head, pointed at the customer service desk and went back to looking for shoplifters (not an easy crime in an Argos). After the man in front of me had returned a faulty iron, I asked again about Hufane. 'Hufane?' they replied. 'Hufane' I said (proncouncing it hu-fan).

'Hufane from Djibouti', I presisted.

A pause.

'Ah!' they eventually replied, suddenly enthusaistic. 'You mean D J Hufane! (pronounced hu-fay-nay) Hang on - I'll see if he's upstairs...'.

I hung on and he was.
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