We met in the rice cracker aisle. I hadn’t seen him in 25 years. We’d worked in radio together when I was the bumbling cadet and he was the news editor, sure-footed and velvet-tonsilled. I’d been in awe of him – or scared of him – one and the same thing to a 21-year-old feeling hopelessly inadequate. I can remember how he’d grow more and more frenzied as the clock sped towards news hour. He’d pound away on his IBM electric, a gravity-defying stub of ash dangling from the cigarette wedged into the corner of his mouth.

Now he was barefoot shopping in Coles and I was loading up on Saos for school lunches. We made small talk about radio days before he announced matter-of-factly: “You chicks have got it made. The media’s biased towards women. I should know – I got the sack for being male.”