One of the main roles of ministry press officers appears to be clean up the mess when politicos find themselves in a pickle. Having previously been adviser, is there much difference now you’re supposedly directing the orchestra? Especially with so many blowing their own trumpets and playing discordant notes. They love positive reviews but throw tantrums when they get a bad press. You’ve had capital harassment yourself in the past and, as you received a special mention during an Investigative Journalism Awards ceremony a few years back, you may have felt some sympathy for those journalists who revealed sensitive information about a VVIP who may not have been entirely honourable. But then, who is nowadays?

When in Opposition, politicos support freedom of the press but, once in government, seem to develop a strange form of allergy, which appears to be incurable – until they’re back in Opposition. On the perhaps rare occasions journalists make a mistake, factual statements can quickly refute fake news – without extra-terrestrial attempts to defend the indefensible. After all, it’s easy to stay calm when you’re in the right and only difficult when an arrow’s hit the bullseye. Apart from some Trojan malware here and there, few journalists are actually enemies of the government. Rather, in modern societies, they’ve replaced the Agora as the public watchdog.

If you have any power, you could try to sort things out, perhaps with a course or two on wisdom and prudence. You might also get press and communications staff to attach seismographs to their respective Assembly members before they erupt and put both feet in the crater they’ve created. Moreover, to anticipate future problems and seeing the havoc mobile phones can cause, you could encourage a ban on the use of Twitter before some clown catches the Donald’s CNN disease and tries to wrestle Finlay Salesse to the ground. It won’t be a TV station, as there’s still only one here, and you know all about how flawed its coverage is. But after the MBC’s boss had his knuckles rapped for ignoring a significant disturbance – presumably his knuckles as the Spanish police weren’t involved – a journalist asked for a live comment at Line Barracks earlier this week, meaning there was no opportunity to sensor it. Progress or a one-off?

Hermes was our main messenger – and the god of skilful use of speech and more generally of eloquence. After all, La différence, c’est le contenu. He also guided the souls of the dead to Hades, or the karo kan as it’s known here. In the same way, you’re ideally placed to escort the politically dead in constituency 10 and the debris from number 18.

Communications staff and journalists are all messengers. Unfortunately, there’s a historical tendency to shoot them. You could carry a message to both journalists and Government House: “All I’m asking is for a little respect.” Or failing that, “Calm down, dear.” Although for that remark to a femel MP, David Cameron was crucified on social media. A pity Satyaprakashsing wasn’t listening. Meanwhile, despite having previously taught journalists history, the ex-GoD appears to be suffering from a bad case of amnesia – or cynicism – when he declares things were different in his day. Hopefully, it’s not an indication of a slow decline in memory, thinking and reasoning skills. The best advice to him might be: Physician, heal yourself. Mind you, Mauritian politics is full of people with short memories – and even shorter tempers.