Dear Diary: I am writing this at my desk aboard Air Force One somewhere over the eastern Atlantic. Michelle insisted on bringing her mother, her nephew Craig as well as Sasha and Malia, to Senegal and onwards to South Africa. I spent a couple hours watching Storage Wars episodes that my trip director Marv Nicholson recorded for me to watch on the long journey. Halfway through an episode in which Barry Weiss disguises himself as an old lady, my telephone rang. "John Kerry is that you?" a thickly-accented voice said. "No," I said," It's Obama speaking...Vlad...Is that you?"
"Barack? Sorry, wrong number. I was trying to contact Lurch. But it seems that your NSA guys mistakenly transferred me to your number. I wanted to tell Lurch that Snowden geek of yours is still at the airport, singing like a canary to the KGB... Bwaaah-ha-ha-ha! Speak to you later. Bye..."
Well, as you can imagine, that did not put me in a benevolent mood as the 747 shuddered in response to its air-brakes being deployed and we started our descent into Dakar. But enough about me.
