So, are you suggesting I quit my job in order to spend three days in Belgium? That seems, well, feckless.

Believe me, I'd rather be eating Neuhaus chocolates in the Place du Grand Sablon than working endless 18-hour days (if I'm lucky they'll only be 18 hours) trying to plow through towering piles of videotapes. But I'm a grownup (or so my birth certificate says, emphatically) so I'll do it.

It won't be the first time news events have wrecked my plans--not even the first time this year. Can I come work for you, instead?