Crime Scenes: a short story

Criminal lawyers see things you just shouldn't. You remember the photographs mostly. Broken things. Injuries. Bodies. Always blood. Like you've never seen it. Crusty, the red life gone from it. Later, black and thick as tar. And you remember the crime scenes. If you practice long enough they become part of your landscape. I've practiced long enough and decided to write about it. There's a twist of course.

How to Eat a Car.

When I was six I decided to eat a car. Leon Samson, a sideshow strongman who bent, chewed and ate improbable objects, inspired me. Along with the Jimmy Sharman boxing tent and the bearded lady, Samson was an agricultural show regular. I suppose that women comparing tea cakes and men battling over the size of their butternuts were regulars too, but if they were I never saw them. For kids, the rides and sideshow alley were the attraction.

The Lawyers' Black Dog.

Churchill called it the black dog. The condition that steals colour from the world and drains energy, enthusiasm and hope from sufferers. At its worst it renders victims unable to eat, drink or move. And of course, it kills.

Depression can strike anyone, anywhere. High functioning professionals are not immune. This article considers the prevalence of depression among barristers.

The Murder of Miller's Point

The last old residential streets of inner Sydney still cling to life. You have to leave the colour and cruise ship crush of the Rocks to find them. Up Argyle Street, under the dripping belly of the bridge, past the pubs that fight to be first.

This is Miller’s Point, an unlikely community for such a place. Unlikely because it is home to ordinary people of modest means, surrounding by the harbour's splendour and wealth.

Here, wedged between the city and the Walsh Bay wharfs,  are old lived-in streets close to the water. Rows of brick terraces, rickety steps, cracked chimney pots, quiet back lanes, sun soaked laundry, straggly old orange trees, flags and football banners in the windows. Old people and younger ones coming and going, walking mostly. At night the waft of roasts, the aroma of warming spices and the clank of bottles. People at home. Living simple lives at street level in the heart of the city.