Hmmm, am being inundated by brushes with almost celebrity-ness at the moment. Maybe 'inundated' is too strong a word, but it has happened twice in the past few days, so I'm going with it. Firstly, on Thursday Richard Frankland rang in to 3CR while I was working reception, in between flipping through street press and chatting to Camille. I mean RICHARD FRANKLAND! That's big! He made that amazing documentary Who Killed Malcolm Smith? and wrote that great play Conversations With the Dead about his experiences gathering information for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. They did the play at the Playbox a few years ago with Aaron Pedersen playing Richard. I'm not sure if you could see it anywhere soon, but it's good. And that Malcolm Smith doco is just AMAZING!! Try to find it in a library or something. Seriously. Richard Frankland totally rocks! And he was like "Hello. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?" And I was like, "Um, I'm Elanor. I'm just a volunteer at reception." And then he goes, "Hi Elanor. It's Richard Frankland here..." And I'm like "Oh HI!" immediately brightening up like I know him or something. Anyway, he wanted to talk to the station manager about plans for the formation of an Indigenous political party [a fucking great idea, by the way] but the manager wasn't available and so I took down Richard's mobile number so that he could get back to him. And then STUPIDLY, I passed it straight on to the manager, without making a copy for myself! Where the FUCK is my journalistic nouse?! I'm supposed to be filling up my contact book with numbers, etc! And mobile numbers score big points. Christ I am dumb! But let's just call me ethical and leave it at that.

So that was Thursday's brush. And today, apparently, while me and my dad and bro were out at my cousin Robert's 21st birthday family do, Lindsay Tanner himself dropped by our house for a chat. Weird! He left a note too, or at least a person who signs their name Lindsay Tanner did, with a "Sorry I missed you!" That exclamation mark makes it seem like he really means it, don't ya think? He's the Shadow Minister for Communications, too, which is kinda becoming my area. I could've asked him about local content quotas and shit like that, and about adequately funding the ABC and SBS so that they can continue to kick arse, public affairs wise [and also so they can show more live music on TV in which I might appear...see below]. I could have at least had a story for show-and-tell at Uni on Monday [not that we actually have show-and-tell at Uni. Jeez. But I could have slipped it into conversation somewhere, and then basked in the reflected glory of a random meeting with a person of note. Now all I'll be able to do is to try and one-up someone by saying, "Well, I could have spent Saturday arvo yakking it up with Lindsay Tanner but, like, I was busy cos I'm really important, okay? Sheesh! Just because he came to your house and talked to you doesn't mean he likes you more than me. He doesn't even know how much he likes me yet. He wishes I had been home so he wasn't stuck talking to the likes of YOU!" Which might not be so fun, nor very much in the happy spirit of show-and-tell.] Um, anyway, I might have at least been able to chuck a policy 'scoop' in to any discussions we might have been having on Labor's media/communications policy, or something. Fourth commercial network you say? Telstra privatised, yes or no? Straight from the horse's mouth, if you will. It would have at least been interesting to see for myself what the guy is like. Damn! It might've been fun. But probably awkward. At least he left his office phone number for my contact book, which was nice. But, oh well. Lindsay, as an enthusiastic would-be visitor once said, "Sorry I missed you!"