oneplanetmikey

Yesterday I wrote about newsreader extraordinaire, Mary Kostakidis and my ongoing obsession with, err admiration of her.  I wrote that I would turn for her.  And while that is true, it in no way encapsulates my love for the Queen of Cool. 

Dear readers come with me on a journey and cast your mind back to 1990, the year that I truly became a Kostaphille.  It was the year that Australian children were scheduled to stop living in poverty.  And it was the year I flew the parental coop by moving to Canberra to live as a poor arts student in a grotto.    

Now Sydney is a just a short four-hour bus ride from Canberra, and SBS is in Sydney; so it was quite logical that Charlie Smith* and I would travel to Sydney to meet Ms Kostakidis.   We did, arriving at Milsons Point on a cold, wet June day. 

Once there Charlie and I stared nervously and excitedly at the non-descript building which housed our prey, err I mean the SBS newsroom.  After an hour or two of waiting and hoping and wishing and praying and peering into cars, it became rather obvious that we weren’t going to meet her that way, and we decided that because the Lord helps those who help themselves, we needed to display some initiative.  We did because we concocted a story that we were both journalism students from Sunshine TAFE who were great admirers of the news service and please mister, ”would it be possible to have a look at the newsroom and perhaps kidnap a presenter”?  Or somefin like that. 

With a final cigarette to steady our nerves, it was on.  We walked to reception and asked in stern, butch voices to have a look at the newsroom.  Sensing that the answer was to be no, Charlie spied a door and sneakily and surreptitiously walked towards it in a manly and resolute fashion.  Having played spy games as a nipper I knew the score and desperately tried to distract the security guard.  If I wasn’t going to meet Mary, then I sure as hell would do all I could within my power to help Charlie meet her.  

After about thirty seconds Charlie returned to me at the reception desk.  He looked deflated as he walked out of the utility room. 

I never did meet Mary, and to my knowledge neither did Charlie.   

*(Name changed to protect international law lecturers at Johns Hopkins University).