FOR a person like myself who has no patience at the best of times, court reporting can be quite the challenge.
The biggest task in fact is not the actual court reporting (something I generally find easy and enjoyable) but the tedious challenge of killing time and managing the boredom as I wait for the case to get underway or reconvene after lunch or one of the many interruptions.
And this particular element of court reporting is something I find the most frustrating.
Indeed the prospect of sitting re-reading a book on WW1 that I’ve already read three times before (probably whilst waiting during a previous trial) or listening to the rather entertaining Notes From A Small Island on my MP3 player for the 19th time is not a pleasant thought.
And this week I have once again come face-to-face with my own courtroom craziness as a rather important drugs trial, which is expected to last between six and ten weeks, finally got underway.
Thankfully court reporting for me has once saving grace. Though the hours of waiting may be as dull as the sky over Lapland in winter, the journalistic rewards are there for all to see.
Through that dullness is one shining light….the chance to work on a massive story and to bag the front page that everyone wants to read.
And though the end of the case remains many moons away, I couldn’t help but sit there like an exciting child waiting to open his Christmas presents as the lawyers massed and the case officially opened.
Now let us all pray that the solitude doesn’t drive me mad before the case concludes.
