FYI (I'm not suggesting you do this) you can access the attribute of a given object from within the format string:

```
>>> e = ValueError('testing')
>>> e.message
'testing'

>>> print 'Hello world {0.message!r}'.format(e)
Hello world 'testing'

>>> print 'Hello world {exception.message!r}'.format(exception=e)
Hello world 'testing'
```