On leaving people in Togo to mayhem (updated April 28, looting and anger about an election result in the west African country that was a foregone conclusion, I felt so relieved regional correspondent Lauren plans to be back soon that my nightly "handover note" at the Factory had a cryptic "L -2" on it.
Then I felt bad about being glad the woman's holiday will soon be over and would rather she didn't have to go to Togo.
If she does, that'll be because people there haven't realised most of them perhaps really did vote for the devil they think they know, even if the books were cooked. I'll give the son the benefit of the doubt though daddy was a dictator.
Overall media coverage has been such that it raises tricky issues important to journalists and those who digest our output alike.
It's no trade secret that AFP, where bosses often say we're held by many clients to be "number one" for Africa coverage in English, has plenty of journalists there, but too few "Anglos".
This is true of our "rivals" without exception, to such an extent that the instant I realised it was wiser to stop sniping at the BBC for its mistakes and taking flak for ours, we'd do better to co-operate. So I picked up the phone ages ago. In 10 minutes we had a deal.
Such unilateral decisions may be "beyond my brief", but dammit: editing Africa in English is above all my job and my neck. In the field, reporters work together when they lack a "scoop" and real ones are rare.
Maybe that's partly why 'Harrison's Flowers' is the most borrowed of my DVDs because while this love and war story in the horror of the former Yugoslavia struck many wise-ass reviewers as unbelievable, it's essentially true -- given a few changes of names and details -- and many journalists can readily identify with it.
I hate the feeling I know other Africa "bosses" in other outfits share: that since the continent's a low priority in the minds of those who do the budgets for today's worldwide media, we end up sometimes regarding the people we have there as pieces on a board, to be shifted around to "optimise resources".
What I plan to do and the thinking behind it is going in the orchard because I've got a bad bout of the 'Media blues', where I have deeper considerations to throw into the debating arena. Thing is, it's not just me, we're all in it together. The chemistry makes for a mix that's stuff of the LP.
Change my mix when somebody has the wisdom and survival instinct to get right out of it for a while, I can't help but see butterflies, rain forests and bad weather. April has indeed been the cruellest month.
Worse, there's an almost universal refrain: "The press isn't what it was. Standards are declining." And it's true, more than the usual "Oh, for the 'good old days'," hence a deeper look at the blues...
The cracks and the weariness are beginning to show, aren't they?
No more front-page stuff until the storm's over.
1:14:04 AM link 
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