Bar Italia

This is my friend Stephen who I've known for something like 30 years now, God forbid. We're at Bar Italia in Norton Street, Leichhardt. As far as the kids are concerned this is by far the simply best restaurant in Sydney. It has the only truly great spaghetti bolognaise and the best gellato and why would one want to go anywhere else. It's a place where you don't have to bring anything to, others say, and that is why it is popular. They certainly haven't spent any of their profits on new furniture. It's easy to be philosophical here in the middle of the night when things go wrong. The spirit was bloated, like some diseased frog. We played cards and then headed back from Shellharbour way. Stories got bashed away, balls whizzing back across the net.

God a lot of crap went on, a long time ago. We were always out there. We'd be better sorted if we hadn't been. There was a rape not far from where I live the other night. One news report states:

"A MAN has been charged after a young woman was sexually assaulted by up to 15 males in Sydney's inner suburb of Redfern."

There's still a lot of milling around late at night, drunk. It comes and goes in waves. The police in the TNT towers and a proactive approach from the Aboriginal Housing Company has cleaned up a lot of out of control stuff that used to go on around here.

The story of anotheer man who died out the back fence in Caroline Lane a few months back has made the newspapers.

I thought this was a really excellent story:

The full text is here:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/we-bought-lethal-heroin-with-help-of-drug-worker-addict-saysredferns-needle-exchange-bus-at-the-centre-of-shock-allegations/2005/11/19/1132017025580.html]

Here's a couple of pars by
John Kidman and Erin O'Dwyer on November 20, 2005

"A health worker at Redfern's controversial needle exchange bus is alleged to have facilitated a "hot heroin" deal which has left two men dead and another in jail for murder.
The over-strength heroin, which was bought on Redfern's notorious Block, is blamed for the death in June last year of Aboriginal man Edward "Zorbie" Carr, police statements before the NSW coroner show.
The fatal overdose also led to Carr's best friend later trying to avenge his death by brutally killing a man he mistakenly believed responsible.
On Friday, a Supreme Court jury found that Phillip Dale Harrison slit the throat of David Martin - one of three men who were with Carr when he died - in Redfern's Caroline Lane in September 2004.
Carr had died behind a disused recreation block in Sydney's Prince Alfred Park three months previously.
Three of Carr's mates who shared the heroin were rushed to hospital and recovered, but the 40-year-old father of four died at the scene."

We shouldn't default to irritable, restless and discontent, but we do.