I was 30 minutes early. Eden Terrace is a difficult place to while away time. My options were limited. I could go and check out the latest in designer lighting at ECC, sample new cricket bats at Cricket Express, or trawl local lunch bars looking for peppermint slices.
I decided instead to grab a takeaway sandwich and stop and eat it by the new remand wing of Mt Eden Prison. No matter how desperate things get, I find prison perusal a perfect way to keep things in perspective. When confronted with a crisis it's good to remember the gift of freedom.
My final destination would be New Zealand Cricket's new Nugent St headquarters. NZC, under new chief executive David White, had recently moved its base from Christchurch to Auckland to be further from faultlines and closer to sponsors' wallets. It was a controversial move, which resulted in a number of job changes, but one that seemed sensible given the lack of population and ethnic lunch options in present-day Canterbury.
It was my first cricket press conference. I was nervous. I felt like an impostor. I didn't even know which leaky building the press conference was in. Luckily I spotted TVNZ sports reporter Craig Stanaway arrive in the carpark with his crew so I followed him. I was surprised to note that he didn't carry the camera tripod - instead leaving the lugging to a female colleague. It is basic television etiquette that the Pony carries the 'Pod.
Ask Mike McRoberts. He carried his operator's tripod all over Kabul in a flak jacket while dealing with dysentery and 40-degree heat. I seem to remember seeing him carting that thing through a riverbed once on a news promo. McRoberts knows his duty. Stanaway, on the other hand ... disappointing.
