It was about 8am, and the bloke next to me in the queue, Tony, decided that he had better ring work and pull a sickie. He couldn't remember what excuse he used last time, he thought he was up to stomach upset. Anyway, he went off and made the call. I'm sure ordinarily people don't call in sick from a phone booth, but anyway...
About twenty minutes later the first TV crew turned up. We pointed this out to Tony, and told him that it would look pretty ordinary if he called in sick and was then seen on the news queueing for Grand Final tickets. So we kept watch, and every time the cameras were pointing in our direction, Tony would cover his face with his fold-up chair
This continued right up until we reached the front of the queue. At this stage the cameraman was inside Ticketmaster, and there was no hiding. It was a Channel 10 cameraman, so if any of you saw a scruffy-looking Carlton fan during the sports report on Channel 10, on his hands and knees gazing at his GF ticket in disbelief, then that was me.
Trav reckons I was on the ABC news on Monday night, but I guess only Marguerite and Cam would've been watching - the ABC's run by Marxists, y'know.