DAY 234 - LUXEMBOURG

13 December, 2011

2317.3 miles–4,981,601 steps

After an early visit to the Embassy to meet the excellent team there, I came back to the Residence for the press conference and meeting with the Minister of Sport and the Luxembourg Olympic Committee. There was an excellent turn out which was a tribute to the persistence of Petra Kiefer and the reputation of HMA Alice Walpole. Pictured are: Sports minister, Romain Schneider, Sports ministry representative Marc Mathékowitsch, Luxembourg Olympic Committee, President Marc Theisen and London 2012 Mission Head Heinz Thews.

It was a perfect ‘one stop shop’ for getting the message of the Truce out in Luxembourg. There was a general awareness of the truce, but the thought was that this was a military truce and as Luxembourg has a standing army of less than 1000 and is not currently deployed on active duty overseas, apart from a small detachment in Bosnia as part of the NATO peacekeeping force, that the Truce was not something which applied to them. When I mentioned about the truce being expressed as a humanitarian act, such as when it was used to broker a ceasefire in Sarajevo in 1994, there was a recognition of the possibilities and an undertaking to make further enquires as to what shape the Luxembourg Truce could take. It was a productive and friendly meeting and at the conclusion of it, the president of the Luxembourg Olympic Committee presented me with a replica of the only Gold Medal Luxembourg has ever won at the Olympic Games: it was won in 1952 by Josy Barthel. This was a great honour, as it is a limited edition and I was very grateful. I decided to loan the medal to the Residence to help promote the London 2012 Games.

After lunch Alice had arranged for a visit to the Court of Justice of the European Union to learn more about its work. This walk has already exposed a woeful ignorance on Europe and its institutions, but at least I am willing to learn. We met with two senior British judges at the Court: Eleanor Sharpston who is Advocate General in the Court of Justice—the final court of appeal, and Nicholas Forwood who is a judge in the General Court of the European Union. It turned out to be a fascinating meeting, as it was an opportunity to get some serious brainpower applied to the matter of the Olympic Truce and its prospects for implementation. Two great ideas came from the meeting: the first was that after the Olympic & Paralympic Games are completed, the athletes should be encouraged to undertake bi-lateral acts of peace and reconciliation, perhaps in the country, but perhaps in other countries too. It was acknowledged that athletes and especially Olympian and Paralympians have a currency which is way beyond that which can be mustered by politicians and this must be harnessed and deployed as a force for good. Second, we discussed issues pertaining to the British veto in a very general way and we considered how teams promoted a sense of common purpose; for instance Team Great Britain rather than the four nations.  How would it be viewed, if when displaying the medal tables, there were to be a summary of European medals won—would that make us think any differently? Perhaps not, but we should be open to such ideas in shaping how we see ourselves – after all it seems to work okay in the Ryder Cup.

After our meeting Nick Forwood took us on a tour of the building, during which I discovered that he was a very serious walker and had walked from Holland to Nice and was now working east to west from Luxembourg and had covered a similar distance to myself over the past year and all the while holding down a hugely responsible and demanding role at the European Court. I discovered that there may well be a fellowship amongst lawyers and amongst Olympians, but there is also an instant one amongst walkers. The only difference was that my effort had been on a ‘wing and a prayer’, whereas Nick’s had been conducted with the planning, preparation and equipment with which one might use to invade a small country (not Luxembourg, of course) and his results were testament to that attention to detail.

Back at the Residence I met a fellow ‘House Guest’, Pete Smith, who is a writer from Brooklyn with the kind of rich and interesting life that had me enthralled. He took me on a tour of the backstreets and small art galleries such as gallerie terre rouge. He was able to see things in photographs and pictures that I would never have noticed had I sat in front of it for a month. We walked down into the gorge, which made Luxembourg city and impregnable fortress for centuries, and he explained some of its history. The Grand Duchy had been a disputed and prized territory for centuries by Prussia, France, the Netherlands and the Belgians.  Its independence was only secured as a result of the second Treaty of London in 1867 – although even then the King of the Netherlands was also the Grand Duke of Luxembourg. The independence of such a strategic location did not last long in either the First or the Second World War, when it was occupied by the Germans. After the war it joined forces with the Netherlands and Belgium to form the Benelux free trade area, which was the forerunner of the EEC and then EU. If you are a Luxembourgian and you have France to your left and Germany to your right, you will probably be a very big fan of the EU—this is so. There are three official languages in Luxembourg, French, German and Luxembourgish—for the latter ‘Yo, yo’ ‘tip-top’ will get you quite a long way.

It was then back to the residence, where we were required to be on duty for a Reception for the British-Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce, which is ably led by Robert Deed of Lombard Assurance. It was a very impressive array of guests, largely from professional and financial services. It was fertile ground for me to spread around my business cards and talk about the Olympic Truce, as everyone else was handing out business cards too. The guest of honour was Yves Mersch, the hugely able and respected Governor of the Central Bank of Luxembourg, who has been tipped for a senior role at the ECB. His speech made Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England sound like a wide-eyed optimist. It was quite a depressing message, very true, but it kind of made you want to leap into the gorge to beat the rush.

After the reception there was a smaller group who had been invited to stay on for dinner, of which I was one. We gathered with in the grand dining room of the Ambassador’s Residence for dinner at which I was ‘Guest of Honour’. Looking for an opportunity to enter into the conversation I noticed the dog lying obediently at his master’s feet and enquired what the dog was called: “Dido” she replied—seeing a moment to enter into the conversation I said “ah, Dido, named after the pop singer—she’s great, ‘White Flag’ is my most played tune on my iPod.” The table went quiet as the guests listened attentively to my first ‘wise insight’ to which the Ambassador responded with the full authority of someone who had earned a First in Classics from Cambridge, “No.” “Actually, named after the Queen of Carthage mentioned in Virgil’s poem, Aeneid, who stabs herself to death on the cliffs as she sees her lover, Aeneas depart for Italy.”  I began to toy with my knife and contemplated ‘Doing the decent thing’, but instead simply said, “Of course, nice doggy” Dido lifted his head and rolled his eyes as my fellow guests lowered theirs…..