Tonight another dear journo friend has jumped off the cliff and resigned from her respected senior position at a daily paper to do ... well that's unknown as yet because knowing her she's probably going to be at the pub until at least the end of Spring ... but anyway, it got me thinking about the trade.
A year ago I bumped into one of the wittiest guys I've ever met who studied journalism with me at university back in the '90s, but decided to postpone any employment prospects in the industry while he concentrated on his admittedly sexier career in a funk/hip hop rock band.
He played a few festivals, made several great albums and succeeded in minor to average recognition for Australian standards, but leaving the band after a decade, he was now working in a local music shop selling his former band's new CDs to strangers and insinuating he'd regretted not using his journalism degree when it was fresh and semi-appealing to employers. (Kind of made it harder to swallow considering our uni friend who became his flatmate for a decade, went on to become one of the most famous Aussie musicians this new millennium!)
Then there's the girl who started her cadetship at a rural newspaper the same day as me who now has four kids and has just finished studying as a mature age student to become a teacher so she can have more holidays with her family!
Let's not even mention the girl who, the day after our graduation, began working for her father in his used car yard and was making more money than my chief of staff within a month - nor the senior sports writer who was spotted driving trams in Melbourne!!
But journalism has somehow entrapped me and ended up being my life's work, for better or worse, and this week's segue is all about seachanges - my cover story for the new issue of Bmag features Matthew Hayden, the famous Aussie cricketer who holds the records for the highest score in Tests and One Day Internationals and that's just the tip of the iceberg. He kindly told me all about how, after spending 10 to 11 months of the year for what seemed like a century (boom tish!) married to his cricket career, instead of his wife and three children, he's making up for it.
How? He plans to take 'em fishing! And it will probably end up as footage for a new reality TV show.
Can't say I see fishing as being even the slightest bit more interesting than cricket, but I wasn't about to tell Matthew Hayden that. CLICK HERE to read the story on page 15 of Bmag.
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