Pope's visit: The press covering Benedict XVI's visit to Britain have faced a punishing schedule'What more do you fucking want?" asked a member of the congregation quite audibly into his mobile.
"I've already sent you 1,600 words on the pope."
The location? Westminster Cathedral on Saturday during the most solemn Roman Catholic service of the pope's visit.
The speaker was a rival in the Vamp, where serene pontifical spirituality bumps up against the frenzy of journalism.
Vamp? Vatican-accredited media personnel, the official term for the party of correspondents that flew in on the papal plane last Thursday and flew back with him to Rome last night.
One of the advantages of buying a place in the papal party – and, at €2,277 (£1,889), it does not come cheap – is that it guarantees early access to the pope's speeches and sermons.
And early means early.
Friday's timetable for the Vamp (or Vat Pack, as one colleague has dubbed us) began: "06.00, Distribution to the journalists admitted to the papal flight of the speeches for September 17."
It continued: "06.15, Holy Mass for the journalists admitted to the papal flight in the office of the press office of the Holy See".
The mass is optional, of course.
But illustrates one of the peculiarities of travelling with a man hundreds of millions of people believe is God's chief representative on earth.
Another is the punishing schedule. On the opening day, most of us had to get up at 03.30 UK time to catch the flight and none of us were at the hotel in London until 23.30 that night.
There was no time for lunch and none for breakfast on the plane either because that was when the pope gave his now customary in-flight briefing.
In the age of the internet, that means getting a dispatch on what he said ready to file the moment the wheels of the aircraft bite the tarmac.
The hour before landing would have given cardiac arrest to most flight attendants. Alitalia's must have been briefed on what to expect.
They showed saintly restraint as camera crews occupied the aisle of the plane to film their correspondents speaking to camera, while plainclothes Swiss Guards and papal gendarmes bundled their luggage into the rear lavatory to be the first off and newspaper and agency reporters typed furiously into their laptops, incidentally spilling coffee on one another.
Il Messaggero's 'Vaticanista' left the plane drenched from the waist down.
When we landed, I and a handful of others in the press pool for the greeting at the Palace of Holyroodhouse were speeding towards it in a coach escorted by police outriders.
That points to another Vat Pack characteristic. You cannot amble into a royal residence, or most of the other places where the pope is received, in jeans and trainers.
The Vamp is probably the most smartly dressed group of hacks to be found anywhere.
Jacket and tie are obligatory for men.
A lot, including photographers, wear suits. Some of the women are in skirts.
Two kinds of correspondents travel with the pope. The first group is made up of those who are non-specialist foreign correspondents who happen to be posted in Rome.
The second consists of reporters for Catholic newspapers, magazines, agencies and even radio and TV stations.
The Vat Pack is perhaps the only journalistic community on earth where you can catch a writer for Faith Today shooting the breeze with a correspondent from Bild Zeitung.
But then where else would you see what happened yesterday at Birmingham?
Federico Lombardi, the pope's spokesman and a Jesuit priest, was briefing us outside the mass when the bell rang as the host was elevated.
He abruptly stopped talking and waited for a minute or more until the next bell.
Back in the media centre, it was soon business again as usual. "Oi," someone was saying, "do we cap up Holy Spirit?"