I don’t know much about clouds at all

Warning: contains obscure NSW-centric references.

I used to believe I was immune from the common delusion that celebrities are our friends. However, I am now beginning to wonder if my lack of exposure to television makes me unusually prone to this delusion. For some time I have been listening to the ABC radio as I drive home, and all this week the presenter of the driving-home-time program that goes out to regional NSW has sounded a bit mournful and lost around about ten to six, because the regular weatherman Mike Bailey isn’t coming in anymore. As well as the weather in regional NSW, they used to chat about all sorts of things, so I knew that the weatherman hated mobile phones, and liked baking scones. And somehow- even though I knew he was based in Sydney, and also appeared on television- I had him mentally classified as a sensible country bloke.

Thus, at the beginning of the week I read at least two complete newspaper articles about ABC weatherman Mike Bailey being preselected by the Labor party to run for the federal seat of North Sydney before the penny dropped that they were the same person. I was only slightly less gobsmacked than I would have been if I had learned that Marco had been preselected by the Labor party.

Note to self: celebrities are not your friends. You don’t know what they’re really like.