Thank you, members of the Academy. That’s a wrap for another busy year at FMWF, getting through a diverse array of 45 interview subjects. Here is a quick look back at the exchanges that most resonated with you, or most moved me, or turned out to be particularly prescient.

Early on, you loved my interview with Lorenzo Montesini who, three decades ago, was the key player in Sydney’s high-water mark of gossip when he famously left Melbourne socialite “Pitty Pat” Dunlop standing at the altar in Venice, while he ran off with his best man, Robert Straub. Lorenzo flew back into Sydney to be met by dozens of journalists and photographers – and one other, the legendary impresario Harry M. Miller.

Lorenzo Montesini and Primrose Dunlop in April 1990, after the wedding invitations were sent out.Credit: Brendan Read

LM: Yes, Harry M. got me alone and proffered a contract for an exclusive deal to tell my story to The Australian Women’s Weekly and 60 Minutes, in return for $180K, an extraordinary amount of money. I said, “I’m not sure, Harry. I’d like a couple of weeks to think about it.”

Fitz: Whereupon he shared with you the north star he had steered his entire deal-making career on...

LM: He said, “Lorenzo, in this business, you’ve got to get them while they have a hard-on.” I signed.

In April – in his last time at bat – I spoke to iconic ABC election analyst Antony Green, who gave a fascinating insight into who would probably win the coming federal election on May 3.

Fitz: You’re saying the Coalition campaign looks amateurish?

AG: [Very long pause.] Ummmm, it doesn’t look as well organised as the Labor campaign. Where are the announcements? Where’s the detail? And the measure I always use is who’s got the more interesting pictures in the TV news?

Fitz: Really? Why do you say that, particularly?

AG: For one thing, because they are the pictures that so much of the population is influenced by, those people who don’t follow the politics closely. And at the moment, Anthony Albanese looks happy and engaged every day in the stories, meeting interesting people, while Peter Dutton doesn’t seem nearly as engaged. The Coalition campaign looks a little lifeless, as though preparing for something else.

Election analyst Antony Green on the ABC election set for the last time.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Fitz: You are looking at things in a different way…

AG: Well, that is what people see every night. They see this picture and that picture, the detail washes over them, but they’ve got this sense that one side looks more interesting than the other, just in terms of pictures. It does have an impact.

My most frustrating interview of the year was in August, with NSW Minister for Gaming and Racing David Harris, as I couldn’t even get him to agree that the wretched pokies are “misery machines”.

Fitz: Let’s have a mind experiment. There are two communities of 10,000 people. One’s got no poker machines, the other has got one pokie for every 47 adults, which is the situation in the Sydney suburb of Fairfield right now. What would be your expectation of the net amount of........

© The Sydney Morning Herald