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I know I said I’d stop talking about this, but it’s too freaky not to mention.
1:15, I said I’d meet them. A couple of friendly journalists,going to a ministerial press conference, wanted to talk to me afterwards. As I walked the two blocks to Treasury Place, I passed office workers coming back from lunch, Asian tourists taking their pictures of themselves outside Parliament House, a gaggle of schoolgirls seeing the sights of Spring Street.
I arrived outside 1 Treasury Place. I stood alone, watching the picnickers in the sea of green that is the Treasury Gardens. I think I’ve only ever passed this way at night or on the weekend before, when the building was all closed up. Bureaucrats wandered in and out of the building. Security guys prowled around. I wondered if they’d nab me for loitering.
My phone rang. A radio station lady wanted comments. As I spoke to her a crowd of people – the techos holding cameras and microphones and dressed in jeans, each with their reporters, better dressed and holding notepads and folders gathered in front of me.
What followed was a surreal experience. A full on press conference. A scrum of journos, me standing in front of four cameras lined up like a firing squad, and a mass of microphones.
I hope I talked sense. I hope I didn’t look too silly (I was initially told to look at one person throughout, but forgot and moved my head around a bit when different people spoke). I hope I sounded sane. I’m glad I wore a nice tie today.
They finished and I had a few quiet words with the Age journalist. I started to walk out back to the street, and passed a guy in a union shirt. Trevor Dobbyn from the RTBU, also going to talk to them. I pondered this, then went back and watched his interview, then introduced myself to him, swapped cards. Networking.
Then I walked back to the office, a nobody again.
I feel exhausted. I need a beer.
