Your blogger escorted some interesting journalists around Sharm: Peter Kenyon—recognizably NPRian with the New York Review of Books tucked under his arm; Robin Wright—lovely and spirited; Steven Weissman—irascible; Neil Macfarquhar—speaks Arabic, has a lovely assistant.

Shot the shit with Christiane Amanpour for a half-hour. Not part of the Secretary’s traveling press corps, she didn’t have credentials to attend the conference, and so waited in the CNN offices and then outside near our press vans for an interview with the Secretary back at the hotel. We watched together as the intrepid Mona ran down foreign ministers and pushed through their security details for a quote. Christiane gave Mona some advice on becoming, well, Christiane (work hard, love your job, develop good contacts), and was surprised to find an American who smoked.

A reporter from ABC NEWS filed from the press van on the way to the Airport. He called into headquarters from a cell phone, put on his anchorman voice, and gave them 20 seconds of flawless text.