Unaccustomed as I am to spending lengths of idle time away from home and all the books and all the records of my lifetime, a while back I found myself looking over the Southport Broadwater with not much apart from my laptop, a load of washing in progress and dig Radio for company.
The view isn't too shabby at all early in the morning with the sun's rays seeping over a bank of clouds out to sea. Unfortunately the night time view isn't quite as good. True, looking away to my left I'd be able to enjoy the night lights of downtown Surfers Paradise, but that's not a prospect that generates great excitement as far as Hughesy's concerned.
As a result, the night before I'd left the television on slightly later than I would at home, where there are other things that I could use to pass the time while I wait for the time to make a phone call to my brother between eight-thirty and nine.
This was before I discovered that Dad's new TV set offered dig Radio among its many options, you understand.
So, where in 999 cases out of a thousand a program about a prominent member of Australia's celebrity media would have produced questions like Why should anybody care? and a flick of the off switch or the channel changer, the set stayed on and while I wasn't watching intently I had a vague general awareness of proceeding until I heard a comment along the lines of (and I know this isn't an exact quote) Who do you blame, the photographers, the magazines or the people that buy them?
The particular instalment of Australian Story dealt with a bloke who's achieved a degree of notoriety for dogging Nicole Kidman's footsteps. Not that I'm a big Nicole Kidman fan. As related in one of the movie blogs I wasn't able to identify Our Nic from a distance of fifteen metres at six-fifteen on a Wednesday morning.
Like a substantial segment of Bowen's population the presence of the paparazzi while Baz, Nicole and all the rest of them were in town was a source of some irritation though it did produce the occasional lighter moment.