It was a Wednesday afternoon about 15 months ago. I was at my desk at the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Television Centre, preparing to go and grab a sandwich for lunch, when a colleague came up to me and asked if I had plans for the next hour.
I didn't know it at the time but my life was about to change forever - well, actually that's a slight exaggeration but I'm trying to build up some drama here!
My colleague told me that he was going to a ´óÏó´«Ã½ seminar about Twitter but didn't want to go alone. "Come along," he said "."
I'm sure that I just stared back at him blankly. I hardly knew what Twitter was - it is a social networking site - and a sandwich would have been a much more appealing prospect at the time. Anyway, we reached a compromise. I would go to the Twitter seminar as long as we could stop off for a sandwich on the way..
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I have been at every England training session in South Africa and each one follows a familiar pattern. Players come out to train, the media film them for 15 minutes, the media are then asked to leave while the players continue to train away from prying eyes.
There is, though, one other pattern that has emerged over the past two weeks. Former England captain is usually one of the first out of the changing rooms, striding purposefully on to the pitch, where he chats with manager and warms up with the rest of the players. He then takes his leave, watching the training session a few yards back from the England coaching team.
I must confess that when I was reporting live from outside when the England squad arrived in South Africa, I did wonder what on earth was going on when Beckham was one of the first to emerge from the bus. I just had not expected him to be so prominent, considering that he is only here as a non-playing member of the squad.
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As one of the first of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s World Cup sports correspondents to arrive in South Africa, I'm part of the advance party that touched down on 1 June, although anybody who will know that I only got here after a rather eventful flight - a fire broke out in one of the plane's engines while it was heading onto the runway at Heathrow.
Everybody on board was fine, but I was bombarded with messages from people asking if I thought that this was an omen for England's World Cup hopes also "going up in flames".
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I've been a Sports News Correspondent since 2001. During that time I've covered three World Cups, two Summer Olympics, two Winter Olympics and plenty more besides - so you won't be surprised when I tell you that I believe that I have one of the best jobs in the business. You can also follow me on .