As I write this I have just finished checking my travel itinerary for my trip to Long Beach for the PAIMA and IAM conferences.  Long Beach, I don’t particularly care for (despite the Queen Mary, which is magnificent) but I confess to always being a little excited on the eve of a convention.  After all these years some might think that the novelty would have worn off; but not for me.  The chance to meet the people I have shared that last 40+ years with once again, and pass even part of the day,  is always a joy.  

One of the big advantages, I feel, of embracing the conference scene, is the opportunity for an injection of realism.  We all learn about what’s going on in each other’s countries through the media.  No matter how hard it tries, and some media does not try very hard, the view through a newspaper or TV screen is somewhat polarised and sensationalised. Occasional glimpses through social media are even more distorted. But a conversation with a friend in a bar is not.  It’s real.   

This month we have tried to project a little of that realism through these pages for the benefit of those who are not able to get the news first-hand.  My interview with Joseph Song, I knew, would be calm, measured and sincere – because that’s what he’s like.  It would cut through the agendas of CNN and, dare I say, the BBC, and present a simple assessment of a tragic and worrying situation through the eyes of one of our own who has lived with the north-south posturing day-to-day for his whole life.  He knows it’s serious, but he’s also seen it before, in various guises, and can assess the apparent madness of today with the benefit of history.    

So, I will once again be boarding a 777 in a few days in search of new stories with which to entertain and inform you.  I know that I will be successful because this industry is so awash with well-informed, interesting people it is virtually impossible not to stumble upon something intriguing even during a quiet glass of Budweiser with friends.  What I will discover, I have no idea.  I do promise though to bring them back and share them with you – some of them anyway.  All that’s fit to print, you might say.