Listeners of the Europeans, you are witnessing a historic world first.

This is the first ever episode of this

podcast recorded off the continent, or like 50% at least. On one end of the Skype call is my

charming co-host, Dominic Kramer, in Amsterdam as usual. But on this end, it's Katie, usually in Paris,

but today I find myself unexpectedly in South Africa.

What?

Should we cancel the episode?

Because I feel like it shouldn't be called the Europeans.

Now you're not in Europe.

The Europeans and Africans.

Things have taken a very unexpected turn this week.

I'm in Johannesburg.

I got a cool last Wednesday saying,

can you fly out tonight and help the office there for a bit?

They're covering the Zimbabwe elections and it's a massive story and you've got 15 minutes to pack a suitcase, go.

So that's where I am. It's been a really interesting experience covering it. It's the first elections after Robert Mugabe got kicked out obviously, so it does feel quite historic.

But I haven't really seen anything of Johannesburg. I've been

literally sleeping here in the office and just bashing out, breaking news all the time. But yeah,

it's really cool to be here. And the nice thing is, it's way less hot here than it is in Europe

because of the heat wave, because it's spring here in Africa. That's all I needed to do to escape the

heat wave. Who knew it? Go to Africa.

It's not spring in the whole of Africa though, Katie, is it?

...