In Which We Are Put In Our Place

A missive arrives from Dr Ingrid van Beek who was the first Director of Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre which opened in 2001 and who wrote a book- In the Eye of the Needle: Diary of a Medically Supervised Injecting Centre  about her 5 year efforts to get the centre off the ground while facing an extraordinary campaign of opposition.




tall tales-Malcolm Duncan

Sadly the late Malcolm Duncan, barrister of note and colourful Kings Cross character did not attend the launch of her book as we reported.

Well we think he should have been invited but that's beside the point.

 One of Malcolm's endearing traits was the art of embellishment (he was a barrister) and tales often took on a life of their own. He collared the Shuttle one afternoon on Darlinghurst Road and invited us for a cleansing ale in a nearby pub and thus began one of those afternoons in which Malcolm described the book launch proceedings as they unfolded. Perhaps the story of the event was how Malcolm would have liked it to have been.

Mind you he did warn us that he and well known local photographer had just come by a bottle of excellent vintage Moet and polished it off.

When the highly successfully injecting centre opened the uproar was deafening. Local businesses proclaimed there would be doom and gloom and all hell would break loose. One even installed a camera to monitor those who would walk through the centre's doors perhaps in the hopes of embarrassing them. Fortunately the camera was soon removed.

Certainly the medical profession, most of the more sensible local politicians and the police we speak to on the beat, believe the centre has been an unqualified success in providing a clean centre for addicts to inject as well as monitoring the ever present fear of an accidental overdose.

 As to the thousands of visitors to Kings Cross who pass by it every day, it's doubtful they would even know where or what the anonymous looking building was or care what went on behind it's doors.

ABC broadcaster Richard Fidler interviewed Dr van Beek for his excellent series Conversations With Richard Fidler and it's well worth a listen. You can listen to the interview here or download a podcast.

To read a review of In the Eye of the Needle: Diary of a Medically Supervised Injecting Centre by a medical journalist go here.


To buy a copy of the book go to Amazon.com.
For more information on the medically supervised injecting centre go to their website here.

Pairings and Partings

The former Premier of NSW Bob Carr once described him as "the Rumpole of the Lower Traffic Court"- colourful barrister Malcolm Duncan has passed away suddenly at the age of 54.

Duncan was a regular sight around Kings Cross and Potts Point where he was born and lived his entire life.
Taking on what some said were lost causes, he regularly tackled in the city courts issues that he saw as  'attacks on democracy' . One of his regular targets was the Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore who Duncan told the Shuttle was"out to turn Sydney into a bureaucratic nightmare where one will have to file a form in triplicate to the appropriate council office just to cross the road"

Duncan, a conservative was an adamant opponent of the Kings Cross  Medically Supervised Injecting Room but despite this he attended the launch of a book about the centre by it's director Ingrid van Beek.

Earlier in the week he had unsuccessfully attempted to obtain an injunction to prevent it's publication. The book described him in less than flattering terms during the very public political battles to keep the injecting room open. Malcolm was particularly miffed at being described as 'florrid' in the tome. but he couldn't keep away from the party and on spotting Clover Moore there he said "does she have the appropriate planning permission to be here !"

Despite his professed conservatism Duncan moved in many circles, supported the new nightclubs and discos springing up in the Cross with their extended drinking hours, successfully railed against Town Hall plans to redesign Fitzroy Gardens and wrote a blog on the left wing writer Margot Kingston's Webdiary where he described former PM John Howard's 11 year term as The Howard Drears and filed amusing chapters on his two books-The Great Australian Novel and The Chronicles of Nadir.

Duncan will be sorely missed-certainly by his political opponents who begrudgingly put up with Duncan's regular measuring of their campaign posters. Perched perilously atop a ladder in the busy Kings Cross streets during elections with a tape measure Malcolm would check the posters adhered to the rules and more often than not, would place his own above theirs at the same time.

Malcolm stood as an independent at almost every state and Federal election usually getting around 500 votes. He'll miss the appointment he had early next month with the private eye Frank Monte to give him some of his election tips for the March 2011 state election and next week the political rally he was staging in Kings Cross against the ruling Labor Party.
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Oliver and Roxy

Anthony & Terry

They were both at the recent Hermes beach party and they have just announced their engagements. Shoe designer Terry Biviano has told the world she and her current beau the Sydney Swan's footballer Anthony Minichiello will be getting hitched . Terry is also due to join the cast of the new Foxtel reality TV show WAG Nation which will follow the daily lives and adventures of sportsmen's wives and girlfriends.


And the effervescent boss of top PR firm Sweaty Betty Roxy Jacenko was sporting a sparkler on her hand that our diamond adviser says "looks like 5 carats to me!" when she arrived at the bash with her fiancee stockbroker Oliver Curtis. Perhaps these two should get their honeymoon in early. The Shuttle's legal mole says Curtis may soon be called to appear before some sort of official body over the affairs of his friend John Hartman who was jailed recently after being found guilty of insider trading.