My mother’s daughter

As a celebrity and entertainment writer, I do a fair amount of interviews with actors and singers and the like. I don’t get flown to Los Angeles or Europe to meet these people, but I get to talk to them over the phone, or maybe even see them if they’re in town and I get really lucky. (I’ve been toying with the idea of making a list so I don’t forget who I’ve interviewed.)

So it says something about me that probably the biggest highlight – the one that has stuck in my head well into this year – of 2007 was attending press conferences for Roger Federer, Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal and Richard Gasquet when they were in town. I don’t splash out on expensive designer clothing, I don’t seek retail therapy and I have zero ambition when it comes to corporate success, but when it comes to sports, I am truly my mother’s daughter. She is entirely responsible for getting me started on watching badminton, tennis, football and even Formula One (although it took a while for me to truly become a fan of that last one).

The realisation surprised me – that I was more excited about sporting personalities than I was about showbiz stars. That’s not to say I would turn down an opportunity to interview U2 or George Clooney or someone – I would do a lot of things for a one-on-one interview with my list of favourites – but for me at least, few bands/actors induce the same level of delirious excitement FedEx and Rafa evoked when they came to KL.

It also explains why I was excited about interviewing Choong Tan Fook, why I am thrilled about the French Formula One GP later tonight and Wimbledon starting tomorrow, and why I absolutely cannot wait for the Beijing Olympics.

I went to the Sepang Circuit for the first time on Friday. We had to attend a press conference and I drew the short straw in the last minute. No, actually, the guy who was supposed to do it called in sick. It was a Super GT press conference, and even though I have no interest in Super GT and wouldn’t have been able to tell the drivers from Adam, I was excited about checking out the circuit.

Luckily for me, the attraction lay in going to Sepang, because the press conference was awful. The drivers had just landed a new sponsorship deal but I swear they looked like their cat had just died. They looked completely miserable to be there, they didn’t smile even for the photographers, they mumbled their answers – it was bad.

I was, to be honest, really surprised. Wouldn’t the Japanese work ethic inspire them to at least smile for the media? My boss, who was with me, says Japanese are generally all like that and that is why the country has such a high suicide rate, but I’m not convinced. The country cannot all look like they’re in mourning all the time.