Monday

VERY weird meeting today. We had to sit down with the players' association about the association's grave concerns over the thickness and quality of the paper stock used in this year's bubblegum cards. Joel Bowden turned up as the active players' representative but kept stepping out of the room backwards every five seconds or so. He'd come about a metre into the room, then look around nervously and retreat out again. He only seemed to relax when we declared the meeting over. They're a very strange mob at Punt Road. The second meeting of the day was with the company, Creative Realisation Approaching the Premiership (CRAP), which, of course, is the brilliant collection of brains behind the grand final pre-match entertainment. This is always one of my favourite parts of the year, hearing what their amazing ideas will be! People around HQ still talk about something called "the Batmobile" and shake their heads, I suppose with wonder and admiration. Wish I'd been around for that one. Anyway, this year's concept is a show-stopper. They're keen to tap into how football mixes with other sports. I mentioned my strong cricket connections but there was a strange pause, then they talked about how exciting it was that Melbourne had embraced tennis with its chief executive, Paul SuperMacNamee. They're picturing the entire MCG full of kids waving flags … and tennis racquets. Wow! I'll say it again. Wow!

Tuesday

BIG news today: Tom Cruise might be going to reprise his role of Maverick in Top Gun II. As a joke, I got the article and changed "Tom Cruise" to "Wayne Jackson" and "Top Gun II" to "AFL chief executive". I left it on Andy D's desk but don't know how the joke went down because soon afterwards, he barricaded the door, chained himself to his desk and threatened to shoot anybody who tried to enter the room. I also dropped by AFL CSI because I'd heard that what we like to call a "cold case" has re-emerged. Some Footscray player from the mid-'80s has come forward, saying he is adamant he was struck by Carlton's David Rhys-Jones back in the day, and is demanding a new DNA sample be taken from what's left of his face. Apparently, there's new technology or something. The CSI boys have asked the match review panel to retrospectively tally Rhys-Jones' demerit point carry-over tally. The word is that could take months.

Wednesday

IT MUST be the time of year. I was in the canteen today, having lunch, with player agent Ricky Nixon on one side of me and former Kangaroo Glenn Archer on the other. They were only sitting a metre or so from one another but kept asking me to relay messages and questions, like, "Could you please ask Archer to pass the sauce?" or "Could you ask Nixon for the sugar?" I finally called it quits when Nixon asked me to call Archer a "poopyhead" and Archer responded by asking me to tell Nixon that it "took one to know one". Honestly, it was like attending a Crows-Port presidents' lunch.

Thursday

UNEXPECTED emergency meeting with the grand final pre-match entertainment team. CRAP has changed its mind about the tennis extravaganza for some reason, which is a big shame. Paul SuperMacNamee will be disappointed. Everybody sat around, throwing up ideas. Eventually, Kelvin from marketing suggested we could do an Olympic tribute spectacular, especially because Andy D would be in Beijing, so it would sort of be a tribute to him as well. I tried to find Kelvin later to congratulate him on such a lateral and clever idea but strangely he wasn't at his desk and all his stuff was in a cardboard box.

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