Gideon Haigh, who has been described as the finest cricket writer alive, has written 26 books and edited a further seven or so. Photo / Greg Bowker
The finest cricket writer alive is the Australian journalist Gideon Haigh, and I know he is the finest cricket writer alive (I don't know about the dead ones) because I read it on the cover of his book On Warne. It is, obviously, about Shane Warne who is invariably Warnie.
On Warnie would be a very silly title for a book but the author notes, on the first page: "Warnie. He was always Warnie. You can thank television for that - all those exhalations of 'Bowled, Warnie' from Ian Healy filtered through the pitch microphones. But it suited him. After all you could hardly call him Warne ... No, you needed that little Australian tick at the end, in the spirit of prezzy, telly and rellie, identifying him as ours, and also making him everyone's."
I loved Haigh's book. It's a terrific read: Clever and dry; warm and perceptive. It is, I thought, a love letter of sorts to Warnie despite its author noting, cleverly and perhaps dryly, that, actually, he never wanted to marry him.
No, well, who would? There is a marvellous story (one of many) about Warnie and a scandal (one of many) which the cricketer read about in a dossier of media reports given to him by Malcolm Speed, the then-chief executive of Australian cricket, in the presence of player Gavin Robertson.
"Warne flicked through the pages seriously, perhaps struck by the weightiness of the tome. 'I've decided,' he said at last, 'I am going to give up my rooting.' Speed turned to Robertson. 'Do you think he could do that, mate?' The laconic Robertson knew his man. 'Not a chance,' he replied."
None of this really matters, according to the author. Unless you are Warnie or Warnie's wife. But it's too good a yarn to leave out and a book about Warnie which didn't include mention of his off-field antics would be an odd book indeed.
You might think, and so did the author who had already written thousands of words on Warne, that there was nothing left to say. It wasn't his idea. A publisher wanted it. Haigh is more interested in "the road less travelled and the Warne road does seem extensively travelled". Still, he had fun writing it. "Writing about Shane is almost as much fun as watching him, and that's a lot of fun."
Is that enough said about Warnie? There will likely never be enough said about him; he's endlessly fascinating. The author? He's duller than dirt, if you can believe him.
I was very pleased to hear he had fun writing the book. He is here for the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival and he appeared to think this would be about as much fun as being Warnie's wife, say. I spotted him in the lobby of the Langham Hotel, glooming along, looking not a bit like the finest cricket writer alive but more like some geezer who had wandered in from the street in search of the dunny, perhaps. No, not really. I'm just talking him up.
He is hopeless at talking himself up. He excels in that sport of extreme self-deprecation which Australians have in common with New Zealanders - or least used to. Now all writers and some journalists are supposed to be famous and fashionable, if not celebrities.
He said, about being at the festival: "I thought: 'They've got some really good writers here. What am I doing here?"'
What did he mean: What was he doing here? "I don't know. I've never really felt particularly fashionable."
I didn't intend to encourage him - but that T-shirt didn't owe him anything. It was 10 years old, at least, and if he hadn't slept in it, he might as well have. There was a faded picture on the front. "Do you know the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Google it."
(It is a satirical and daft deity but you can Google it yourself.) He said, about the T-shirt: "It doesn't really tell you anything about me." I thought it might. "I like to get the maximum amount of use out of my clothes. I'm a great collector of T-shirts. By no means is this the oldest of my clothes." That was at the end of our hour and so I said thank you very much and that it had been lovely to meet him. He said: "I feel as though I haven't given you very much. I'm trying to think of something interesting to tell you."
I wasn't holding my breath. I'm not being rude, He likes being boring - or pretending to be boring - and has said he finds himself more boring as he gets older. He's 47 and has been a journalist for 30 years (he doesn't like being called a sports writer - he's a journalist who writes about sport, and many other things - but I can't be held responsible for the book blurb.) He doesn't approve of celebrity journalists, and "Australia's bloody full of them". He began at the Age and, having failed maths at school, some wag "whimsically" assigned him to the business department. He has also written a huge history of the office called The Office which is an occasionally terrifying and fascinating read about boredom.
He has written 26 books and edited a further seven or so in addition to his day job, which is freelance journalism. These statistics are not the worst thing about him, which is that he wrote the Warne book in one month. "You know, it was a 31-day month, Michele!" He starts writing at 5am which means he gets up at some hour that is beyond ungodly. In anyone else this would just be skiting.
He has a website which might well be the grumpiest, most user-unfriendly website in the world. Sample: "You can send me a message here. I may even reply." There are some skite sheets for his books. Sample: "The Uncyclopedia: A few weeks work rummaging around my library ... Harmless enough."
"One Summer Every Summer: An Ashes Journal: I came down with bronchitis during the last test of the 1994-5 Ashes series, which I'd covered for the Australian. While recuperating, I started writing a book. Two months later I stopped. This is it."
He has mixed feelings about literary festivals. We ran into the journalist Max Hastings, who is also appearing at the festival, and he said to Hastings by way of introduction: "I'm not feeling very festive." He said, just after we sat down: "In fact I Googled you ... and I went through the list of all the interesting people you've interviewed and I thought: 'God, she's lowered the bar."
Yes, yes. In fact, and of course, I had Googled him and I knew that this was his schtick: That he is entirely uninteresting and not at all fashionable. He works hard at it. "Well, a journalist should always be more interested in things outside themselves."
He doesn't tweet or have a Facebook page. I suppose to many people that would make him boring; it just made him even more interesting to me. I said I didn't understand tweeting (which I call twerping which made him laugh, so of course I liked him. What a top sense of humour he has.) He said: It's just to kill time. I don't have time to kill."
No, of course he doesn't. He's either always working on his books or always playing cricket or always writing and thinking about cricket. I was going to write that he loves cricket but that would be so much of an understatement as to be nonsensical. He has a cricket bat in the kitchen. That is not only also an understatement; it's untrue; he has a cricket bat in every room of his house and even had one in the outdoor dunny until it was, quite recently, pulled down. The bat was saved, I was relieved to hear. Bats must be saved. "You can't just throw them away. A good and loyal servant." Also, he has played some his best innings in the kitchen.
Still, is it not a bit nutty (which might, heaven forbid, be a synonym for interesting) to keep a cricket bat in your kitchen or your outdoor dunny? "I don't think so." Do all cricketers have bats in every room of their houses? "Not really! But cricketers do love picking up one another's bats and trying them out and seeing what they feel like. There's a very nice story ... about Ricky Ponting one day in the Australian dressing room ... picking up everyone's bat and playing fresh air shots with them. A true cricketer loves his equipment and cricket does have really cool gear." I said, idiotically, and in an attempt to pretend to know something about cricket, that cricket really was quite a cool game, wasn't it?
He said: "Not really. If it was a cool game I wouldn't be interested in it."
Oh, all right. It's a game for nerdy, obsessive types then. "I don't know about that! But there is a certain understanding and kinship among cricketers that seems to kind of transcend boundaries of culture and ethnicity and age and background."
Did I mention he likes cricket? He somehow convinced his wife to defer their honeymoon until there was a break in the cricket season (he writes about test matches for the Australian and he plays as well, every weekend) and of course the wedding was in the off-season. Their daughter was born in the mid-season break. He would love to say this was planned but, "no. It was providence".
He had a cat called Trumper, after his great cricketing hero, Victor Trumper, despite the cat being a female. Trumper disappeared about two months ago, she presumably went away to die; she was 16. He is very sad about this. "She was an extremely good cat. Are you an ailurophile, Michele?"
He holds the record for most games played for his beloved South Yarra Cricket Club ("about 221". I did like that about) and when it's not cricket season he has a hit-about on Sundays with some of his old cricket mates, the oldest of whom is 72. Three or four are in their 60s and they call him Junior.
He is, to be kind, a mediocre sort of cricket player. He is a perfectionist and a self-confessed pedant so it seems odd, to me, that he would persist at a game he is, less politely, crap at. He said, cheerfully: "I'm not getting worse at such a rate that it's becoming embarrassing and I require constant practice in order to maintain my level of mediocrity."
I don't know whether he is the finest cricket writer alive - and except for book blurbs, what does it matter? He's simply a very fine writer. I do know he is a very fine chap indeed although he really must stop all that skiting.
• Gideon Haigh is at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.
Much of the South Island is set to plunge below 0C tonight and tomorrow.