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Booty Boot camp

Soul Food

The Twilight Zone

Inside Information

Prada and Prejudice

Profile: Andrea Durbach

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Booty boot camp
Whip your sex life into shape in 7 days

If you and your partner’s sex life were a person - and that person, for argument’s sake, was male – what would he look like? The answer to this question is directly related to what stage your relationship is at. If things are still just-plucked-fresh, chances are Mr Erotic Hypothetical would be a lithe, muscle-rippled lothario with a naughty glint in his eye plus a just-shagged-and-about-to-do-it-again swagger.

If, however, you’re at the stage where the suspender belt only makes appearances on special occasions, your waxing rate has gone from fortnightly to seasonal and his foreplay technique has devolved into groping your behind while mumbling “wodjarekin?”, chances are this imaginary man would look somewhat different. Think not so much love handles but love luggage. Think not so much who’s yo daddy but who’s your granddaddy. Think it’s time for a change?

Welcome to Booty Boot Camp. I am your instructor, Corporal Punishment. For the next seven nights, I am going to throw you into a series of uncomfortable positions – both physical and emotional, at times leave you frustrated and generally hold up a mirror to the sluggish, pot-bellied creature you’ve allowed your sex life to become. But when the program is over, you’ll graduate erotically revived.

Day1: No pain…
To quote Roy Slaven and H.G. Nelson, the time has come to have a good, long, hard look at yourself in a room full of mirrors. No remedies will be successful if you aren’t honest enough to face up to the problems. This is undoubtedly the toughest part of Boot Camp, but it sets the foundation for all that follows. It takes a tremendous amount of courage for two people to frankly discuss where their sex life is failing, unrewarding or blander than Michael Jackson for elevators. The situation is made all more delicate by the tendency for such conversations to involve bitter accusations out of the “you never…”/”you always…” file. As a result, such conversations are often avoided – especially if one was attempted previously and swiftly became a blame game.

So let’s get one thing straight: unless your only outlet is masturbation, you have a responsibility when it comes to stoking the sexual fire. As does your partner.
“I first knew something was wrong when I started fantasising about a girl at work,” says Pete, 30. “My girlfriend and I had been together for six years and although everything else in the relationship was good, the sex was pretty average: once a week, same procedure, same result. Like a lot of guys, I thought I was a fairly good lover but it wasn’t until I asked Erica to tactfully tell me how I could lift my game that I realised I had a lot to learn. Once we’d broken down the initial barriers, we found we could share a lot more of our desires without making the other person fail like a failure for not picking up on them through ESP. It didn’t fix things overnight, but the ongoing process is proving pretty rewarding and we look at it as a joint achievement. How many couples do you know who will not only admit that things could have been better in bed, but actually put their egos aside and did something about it?”

The crucial components in having this chat are timing and tone. Don’t do it immediately after sex, as the person who didn’t initiate the conversation will feel like a dud whose dismal performance prompted this evaluation. In fact, this conversation should be not had naked. Secondly, both parties need to acknowledge that if the situation is anybody’s fault, it’s both of them and commit to a process of turning things around. There are three crucial question everyone has to ask and answer: What am I doing at the moment that you’d like me to change and how? What am I not doing at the moment that you’d like? What am I not doing enough of?

It’s vital to quickly acknowledge the things your partner gets right as this provides a balance between positive and negative feedback.
Exercise: Each participants gets 1x15-minute session to succinctly express what they have to say. This means you need to think about it beforehand while the time limit prevents the rehashing of old ground. The person not talking is at this point listening – not thinking of a response to prove how flawed the talker’s point is.

Day 2: Back to basics
Did you know that the overwhelming majority of sex workers won’t kiss their clients? The reason is that this act combines supreme intimacy with maximum erotic impact. Yet most us take it for granted in relationships. It’s a peck here as we dash out the door, a smoochette when we get home from work, a box to be ticked off in the foreplay list before the “real” action starts.

Remember when you first started dating, sex wasn’t quite on the cards and kisses were all you had to convey your physical attraction? Well it’s time to go retro and rediscover the power and the passion.
“I had become quite blasé about kisses,” admits Dan, 24. “Of course I loved my girlfriend Dani, but for me sex was more about getting our rocks off than anything else. In terms of places I wanted to feel her tongue, my mouth just made the top five. When things started becoming a little stale in the bedroom, I turned to an ex girlfriend who had become a mate for some advice.

“She asked when the last time I kissed Dani was. I replied something like ‘this morning’ and she said, ‘I mean really kissed her.’ Man, did it work! I got home that night, pashed her like I did on the night we met and didn’t stop even while we were having sex. It’s now back on the menu in a big way and not just to start the ball rolling.”

Exercise: 30 minutes of deep, slow, wet kisses. Imagine he’s parked outside your house after a date, you haven’t slept together yet and are not going to that night but are keen to show that you’re attracted to him physically. Wandering hands are optional (as are cold showers) but strictly no clothing is to be removed and a little private fiddle later on is forbidden. The idea is to feel the burn your partner can still inspire.

Day 3: Everything but
After last night, you’re probably craving a little sweet release. So as an almost-at-the-halfway-mark reward good things will come to those who wait. The catch? You can only touch your partner with your hands.
If you have been an item for some time or perhaps live together, it’s easy to become so comfortable with one another’s nudity that your bods lose a fair chunk of erotic value. It’s time to rediscover one another’s physicality through the slow trace of curious fingertips on bare flesh.

“One night when Angela came home after a bitch of a day at work, I offered to give her a massage,” recalls Gavin, 27. “Instead of our usual through the shirt job while she sat on the floor and I was on the couch behind her, she stripped and lay face-down on the bed. We’d shared a house for so long that just seeing her naked wasn’t that much of a turn-on anymore – I’m sure she felt the same way – and I remember feeling like the massage was a bit of a chore. But as it went on, I found myself enjoying it more and more. Our sex life was okay but it was mainly confined to genitalia with the odd nipple suck. I couldn’t remember the last time I had touched her calves, the soles of her feet, her shoulder blades and so on. I felt guilty that I’d almost forgotten how beautiful I thought all of these detailed components were when we first got together. Needless to say, when I did get to her furry bits, the only tension in the room was bobbing a few inches in front of my stomach.”

Exercise: One hour – that’s right, you heard me – of getting naked and touching each other. A high degree of concentration is required as you both need to focus on how the other person responds to your moves. Does their breathing quicken when you rub, tickle or stroke? Which areas respond to more pressure and which to less? Experiment with location and technique then watch for and solicit feedback in the form of questions such as “Does that feel good?”, “Harder? Softer?”, “Will you guide my hand in the motion you like?” and “What’s the capital of Venzuela?” if the ice needs some breaking. There are no out of bounds areas as such, but if you are to complete the task successfully, stay away from the erotic zone for as long as possible. When you do get there, remember that it’s hands only. Although there are many other ways to bring your lover to climax, some manual dexterity is an admirable skill to carry.

Day 4: Variety Performance
Sure, you may know the most reliable way to get each other over the finish line, but who’s to say your usual spiel can’t be improved. Things you may have tried before but weren’t too keen on may now deliver more favourable results because the relationship is better established. There’s no need for your sex life to become a casualty of our time-poor society. No one’s denying that efficiency can be handy from time to time but shaking up the routine is crucial to revitalising jaded jiggy.

“When we had sex, it always unfolded the same way,” says Evan, 29. “I went down on Jo, she went down on me, she got on top until she orgasmed, then I got on top until I did. It was a pretty satisfying deal and I had an ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ approach going. But Jo thought it was plenty broke and one night flipped over onto her knees for some doggy-style sex. I had suggested it early in the relationship but she was uncomfortable with the idea and said it felt a bit demeaning so I never pursued it. Over time, she’d obviously changed her mind. I asked her about it later and she said that she now felt comfortable and secure enough within our relationship to try it again. It was the start of going back to a few things we’d tried when we started dating that had fallen by the wayside. Not all of them worked, but some have become part of our sex life and given the old routine a welcome shake up.”
Exercise: Finally, you get to ride the luurve train, but you’d knew there would be a catch right. No element in your lovemaking sequence can be performed in the usual order. For example, if he usually starts on top, you will this time. If he is the prime initiator of sex, you take the lead and so on. No one’s saying you can’t fall back on some tried and tested techniques, it’s just the order that must vary. Oh, and you have to try at least two positions that haven’t made an appearance in some time.

Day 5: Never seen before
Your task here is a simple one. Each participant has to bring to party something that has never previously featured in your sex life. “After we’d been together for about three years, Amy suddenly started talking dirty during sex,” smiles Richard, 25. “At first it was just the odd word at the point of orgasm but when she saw how much it turned me on, she stopped confining these thoughts to her head. Her vocalising them added a new edge to our lovemaking. When I asked why she hadn’t done it previously, she said that she was concerned what I might think of her if she let loose. I felt a bit ashamed the felt she couldn’t be entirely herself around me but in a way I’m also glad that this new element came along a bit later in the piece – not because I would have thought badly of her had she talked dirty earlier but because it gave things a kick along when we were plateauing.”

Exercise: The world is your oyster as far as this is concerned. If talking dirty is not your thing, find something that is. It could be as simple as a new position or watching each other masturbate. You could also introduce sex toys or indulge in some elaborate role-playing. The only rule is that everyone concerned bring an element of novelty to the party.

Day 6: Sexercise
Now drop and give me 20. I’m talking to your man here because while you’ve been faithfully Kegeling away on the train and lifts in the name of better sex, he’s likely to still believe that all he needs to provide is turgidity and a five-minute window of opportunity. Guess again cowboy. A few work-out tips can give your man the strength and stamina to promote into a new league of stamina.

“My arms always gave out when I was on top of Julia,” says Cameron. “Now I’m a big guy and she’s a fairly petite woman so it became uncomfortable to have this weight on her. Hardly a turn-on. She pulled a bit of swifty psychology on me by saying that she most enjoyed the few minutes of missionary when I could support my torso with my arms as it allowed her to see my penis entering her. I also liked the visuals involved and dragged by flabby butt to the gym to sort this out. It was an investment that paid big dividends.”

Exercise: It wouldn’t be boot camp without press ups and if you’re tired of him collapsing on top you during sex, here’s the solution. “In order to hold yourself up on your arms for longer periods, you need to strengthen the triceps, chest and shoulders,” says personal trainer Kevin Troeger of Sydney’s Kinetic Experience. “This can be achieved with three daily sets of 15 push-up where the hands are held close together beneath the chest. I’d also get him to do the Iron Plank. This is where you hold yourself up on your elbows and toes in a straight line for 30 seconds to a minute. Just one or two reps a day will strengthen his abs and allow him to thrust harder for longer.” Aside from looking better naked, he’ll be able to keep it up for longer.

Day 7: Just desserts
You’ve made it to the end of Booty Boot camp and if you can just stop staring into one another’s lust-filled eyes long enough, there is one final task to complete. In established relationships, it’s often easy to forget that what happens after sex is as important as what takes place during and before. It’s a time to emotionally consolidate the physical experience. So enough with that quick kiss, roll over and fast asleep in 20 seconds nonsense. And I’m talking to both of you.

Exercise: After sex, spend at least 10 or 15 minutes having a chat entwined in each other’s arms. In this era of email and SMS, it can be difficult to find something to say that hasn’t been communicated earlier in the day, so use this time for subject matter that suits the intimacy and vulnerability of the situation. It’s the ideal time in which to reaffirm your feelings for each other, to remind the other person why you love them and even discuss what you might take away from the Booty Boot Camp experience. Congratulations soldier, you’ve just earned yourself an honourable discharge.

Soul Food

Along with shelter and clothing, feeding those in need has long been a key component of charity programs. Recently, however, numerous organisations have looked to food to provide on a deeper level of sustenance. In addition to serving meals to those who might otherwise go hungry, a raft of new programs aim to equip participants with hospitality and cooking skills that will help break the cycle of unemployment and the poverty which frequently follows it.

One of these is Recipe For Success, a four-month course conceived by Youth Matters – a non-profit organisation supporting young people who are disadvantaged or at risk. Unlike other fields where training can only be completed through years of tuition, the qualifications required for entry-level positions in catering or hospitality can be attained within months and significantly boost employment prospects.

Which can especially grim for a teenager who has dropped out of school, is from a turbulent background or both. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 37 per cent of males drop out of school in NSW between years 7 and 12. It’s at this point that they often become part of a trend that sees those aged 15 to 19 have the highest unemployment rate of any age group (23 per cent). Lacking the necessary qualifications, they often are overlooked in favour of other job applicants. Over time, the repeated lack of success erodes their confidence, motivation and self-esteem.

Which is where Recipe For Success begins to pick up the pieces through a combination of one-on-one counselling (on subjects like job interviews or self-esteem issues), plus a syllabus formulated to equip participants with the maximum amount of theoretical and practical skills in a condensed time frame.

Working in conjunction with Sydney’s Observatory Hotel, Hostec (an company which trains and recruits for the hospitality industry) and Australian Hotels Association, Recipe For Success comprises four separate training modules. The first involves recruitment and orientation. The second is gaining certificates in the Responsible Serving of Alcohol, Food & Beverage Service and Bar Operation. Phase three is focussed on attaining the Hospitality II Certificate and the final element involves onsite training at the Observatory Hotel.
It is a gruelling program with a high attrition rate. Of the 20 students who embarked on the second phase of the program only six made it to the final stage. However all of these have now secured full-time work and most of the remainder have secured casual employment because of the skills or qualifications amassed during the course.

Executive director of Recipe For Success, Graham Jackson, is quick to point out that those who did not complete the course are never viewed as failures. “Aside from the end result of helping these six students find jobs, the program was also a success in that we were able to fulfil our aim of rewarding participants at the completion of each stage,” he says. “The biggest issues facing youth today are disempowerment, fear, lack of identity and feeling that they are not going to achieve anything in life. By providing tangible proof of achievement, Recipe For Success instils a sense of pride and motivation that forms the basis for future success. After graduation, they actually appear physically different: they walk taller, hold their heads higher and believe they are not the failures that people have frequently told them they are.”

One of the course’s recent graduates is 18-year-old Alison Hodder who makes the daily trek from Campbelltown in Sydney’s west to Circular Quay to work as a waitress aboard on a Captain Cook cruiser – and wouldn’t have it any other way. Having been raised by an aunt and uncle after a volatile relationship with her own parents then moving through a series of foster homes, Alison left school at 16 and eventually found a sense of stability through the residential care placement offered by Youth Matters. With a dearth family role models and little education or career opportunities coming her way, the Recipe For Success program has enabled Alison to not merely achieve her goal of gaining employment, but is helping broaden her general choices in life.

“I wanted to get qualifications to work in a bar, but that now that I’m doing it, I’d love to work in the kitchen and one day get a chef apprenticeship, she says. “I’d certainly recommend the course to anyone who wants to work in the hospitality. I was always a fairly confident person but that alone won’t get you a job. Previously, I was getting a lot of knockbacks because the competition was better qualified and that eventually dents your confidence. When I went into this course the only thing I had going for me was motivation but that was all that Recipe For Success asked for. They also gave me one-on-one attention, which made me feel important and worth the effort they were putting into my development.”

Jimmy Pham is familiar with the phenomenon of how a small investment in an individual can reap enormous dividends. Born in Vietnam, he migrated to Australia at the age of eight and 16 years later found himself back in Hanoi on a reconnaissance trip for a tourism wholesaler. “On the streets, I met four homeless children who worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week, carrying baskets of coconuts that weighed twice as much as their body weight,” he says, “and these were the luckier of the 25,000 ‘dust of life’ kids who roam the city. I was shocked at how dirty they were, how obviously ill they appeared and the fact that they were covered in ulcers.”

Jimmy spent the next fortnight feeding 60 streetchildren, arranging basic medications for them and ensuring they had access to showers. It was at this point that he resolved to give up the tourism industry and return to Vietnam to help these children. The result of “the decision which changed my life” is KOTO, a small Hanoi café which provides streetkids with employment and training in hospitality industry.

An acronym of Know One Teach One, Koto has trained over 100 students to be chefs, bartenders or service staff and boasts a 100 per cent employment rate for graduates. Aside from the proficiency that has seen Jimmy’s students find work in many of Hanoi’s international hotel chains and upmarket restaurants, he says, “Koto empowers them by delivering a sense of ownership, pride and belonging. None of which many have ever felt before.”

The program – which Jimmy is planning to institute at new KOTO restaurants in central Vietnam, Cambodia and eventually Australia - is split between three components. The first is vocational training in the form of kitchen or front of house skills. “The second is language training so that the kids can communicate effectively in Vietnamese and English in the kitchen,” says Jimmy. “There’s none of that ‘John leaves on a train for London at three o’clock’ nonsense.” Then, there’s life skills such as education about contraception, HIV and hygiene. “Things which many Australian kids are fortunate enough to be taught about at home or school,” adds Jimmy.

Although he is justifiably proud of his students’ success, Jimmy says his greatest accomplishment is, “To see someone I have helped help someone who reminds them of they way they used to be. That is the essence of the Koto philosophy – if you know one, you should teach one.”

Working out of a commercial kitchen in Sydney’s Rozelle, Jeff Gambin’s motivation is as altruistic but his philosophy is far less ethereal. “For me, it’s all about fun,” he says. “If you create an atmosphere that people are naturally drawn to, then the education process will follow.”

Through their charity, Just Enough Faith, Jeff and his wife Alina have been feeding Sydney’s homeless for over a decade. Gregarious and jocular, there is only one thing that makes Jeff bristle: referring to his operation as ‘a soup kitchen’.
“I refuse to believe that just because you are living on the street, you should be given inferior food,” he says. “Every day, we serve a choice of dishes such as penne with three cheese and wine sauce, baked trevally, chicken with ginger and cranberry and various curries.”

The 350 kilograms of food that Just Enough Faith provides daily is prepared by Jeff, a small contingent of volunteers and a growing number homeless people working as apprentices in the kitchen.

With a training café in the works, Jeff is currently schooling a wave of baristas as well as reviving the art of silver service. “By the time I’m done with them they will be able to serve a bombe alaska at the table then whip behind the bar to prepare a perfect latte,” he chuckles. “It’s not for everybody and I can usually sort out those who are genuinely interested in food from those who are not by getting them to peel 40 kilos of potatoes.
“The people who do persevere with the training get to be part of a team in which they have responsibilities. We assume they will perform which gives them back the dignity that life on the streets can remove. Also, the sheer act of feeding someone in need can be incredibly spiritually rewarding. For those who have been on the receiving end of hand-outs for years, the act of giving can be a revelation and they grow as people. And while we’re on the subject, I should point out that the people I’ve had through the kitchen have taught me just as much as I’ve taught them.”

A Guy Thing

We should probably establish from the get-go that I am to cooking what Anna Nicole Smith is to understated elegance. My culinary repertoire runs the gamut from grill to nuke and, shamefully, it was only at age 35 that I whipped up – or, more accurately, messed up – my first omelette. Which is not to say I’m one of those blokes who view food as mere fuel for the body to be ingested as efficiently as possible. I devour the cookery shows on television and scan the papers for new restaurants to visit. I have also educated myself to the point where I no longer believe that degustation is where you put de petrol in de car and I now know that lovage is not a euphemism for what consenting adults get up to behind closed doors.

According the Australian Bureau of Statistics, I was far from alone in my culinary slackness. Among partners who had similar hours of paid work, it found that women spent an hour and thirty-seven minutes per day cooking meals, serving them and washing up afterwards. Men clocked in at a woeful 38 minutes. With my dubious defence of taking out the garbage and walking the dog every day springing more leaks than a colander, I resolved to reconcile the disparity between my enjoyment of food and my trifling attempts to prepare it.

Motivation – as it so often does – came in the form of beer and so it was that I found myself walking through the grounds of a Sydney TAFE en route to a tutorial where I would be schooled in the art of matching two courses plus coffee with a variety of ales and lagers.
The event was thrown by He Cooks – a year-old cooking school for blokes who wouldn’t know their aragulas from their elbows. The brainchild of Ben Apted – who formulated the business as a hypothetical enterprise while completing his MBA – He Cooks has so far drawn over 300 students to its six-week basic cooking course and series of single-evening units, such as the one I was attending.

From its website emblazoned with the bold heading “what’s in it for me?” to the fact that the first lesson of the basics course has the oh-so-masculine title of “knife skills”, every aspect of the He Cooks show is tailored to the male psyche. Judging by the scope of my class mates, it was a strategy that was paying dividends. Their ages ranged from late teens to that time of life when one is greeted with “you’re looking very well”. Some were in boardies and T-shirt while others dispensed with their ties and suit jackets. “We’ve had people from every area of society through the courses,” say Apted. “From the kid who had won a scholarship to Oxford and didn’t know how to cook to a retired guy who had to prepare meals for his invalid wife.”

Each clutching a Monteith’s Rata Honey & Spice Flavoured Summer Ale, we made our way over to the demonstration desk. “Gentleman,” beamed chef Giacomo Posituro in a North Italian accent that at times verged on Schwarzenegger-esque, “our first course is champagne tempura trout.” Daunted by the title, I shot worried look in the direction of Brett Davidson, a financial planner in his early thirties who had completed the six-week course, was intrigued by this tutorial and earlier reassured me, “Nothing’s that hard – you just think it is.”

After explaining why he chose to use champagne instead the traditional iced water for the tempura batter – “the bubbles aerate the mixture and make it lighter” – Posituro went on demonstrate the art of creating batons without added an unexpected digit to the mix. To prove the failsafe nature of his “thumb in the back and fingers flat” cutting technique, he continued to make eye contact with the group with slicing a knob of ginger into gossamer wafers. Cue the swapping of numerous “isn’t that clever” nods of approval.

Aside from the predictable responses that arise when you ask a group of 12 men to turn their oil on, there was far less banter than I had expected. Instead Posituro’s every move was attentively watched and his words hung on. Mindful of keeping the atmosphere light, he not only taught us how to best remove a champagne cork – hold it and twist the bottle – but that the resultant pop should be “like the sigh of a contented woman”. Which would have been helpful if any of us had ever heard such a sound.
Posituro delivered his instructions like a sports coach revving up a team and by the time we were divided into groups of three at the end of the demonstration, the beer-fuelled enthusiasm was palpable. I was teamed with a 52-year-old management consultant named Richard and a 38-year-old IT expert named Paul. Both were He Cooks veterans. Richard had signed up when he began working from his and his wife suggested he may as well learn to whip up a meal if he was going to home alone all day. Paul had been given a voucher from a girlfriend when he promised to cook her dinner but took her out instead. The relationship ended but his lust for cooking did not.

With R&B pumping out the radio and Posituro hovering from workstation to workstation offering praise and suggestions, the class settled into tackling the task at hand. Beers were left untouched as concentration became the order of the evening, furtive glances at how the other teams were getting on were and a distinctly competitive edge filled the air. This was replaced by blokey bonhomie as we reconvened at a central dining table for crunchy tempura Monteith’s Golden Lager and a chat with beer maestro Willie Simpson whose motto is “life’s too short to drink light”. Seated between Posituro and Apted, I asked why they thought men had so taken to their blokes-only venture. “Somehow not having women around takes the pressure of for a lot of guys,” says Posituro. “They don’t feel like they have anything to prove and there’s no judgement since they are often all as inexperienced as each other. It’s a good recipe for bonding.” In addition to the environment He Cooks provides, Apted believes it has tapped into a shift in society where increasing numbers of men are cooking. “With the increased prevalence of younger spunky chefs like Jamie Oliver and the boys from Surfing The Menu, cooking is increasingly being seen as quite an attractive trait to have. But more importantly, where 10 years ago a few men cooked to impress, more are doing so now to express. It’s a way of showing our families, parents, friends and partners how we feel about them – and men have always been better at doing than saying.”

Suitably enthused and primed, we once again gathered around Posituro’s demonstration table for the second course: dual handmade ravioli (pumpkin, and spinach and ricotta) with sage and pine nut cream sauce. After watching Posituro go through his paces, he ordered us to the stoves to “replicate the masterpiece”. Having successfully helped create champagne tempura trout, nothing bar rank incompetence could hold me back. And even that didn’t entirely ruin the dish as my companions rushed to help me on numerous occasions.

Having enjoyed a Monteith’s Original Ale with the ravioli, my classmates and I rose from the table bloated, buzzed and discussing the relative merits of olive versus vegetable oil for frying. If that’s not enough to challenge your gender stereotypes, we then set to cleaning up in a conveyor belt process that had the kitchen’s surfaces gleaming like a just-waxed SUV.

Ultimately, the true test was whether I would actually attempt one of these dishes at home. I did and much to wife’s astonishment, she was presented with a passable version of Posituro’s entree. Doubtless, I still have a long way to go when it comes to bringing my kitchen skills up to par but after one night at He Cooks I am able to do two things I had never considered before. Not only can I whip up champagne tempura salmon, I can also use plate as a verb.

The twilight zone

The last time I was in Darwin I was struck by the overwhelming urge to call Australia’s Most Wanted and say, “I’ve found everybody. Send a bus.” Well, almost.
Eleven years ago, it was a hard-drinking, sport-fishing town far enough from anywhere else that you could escape your past, live in shorts and pick up a real-estate bargain to boot.

What for many tourists was simply a gateway to Katherine and Kakadu has undergone a quiet metamorphosis. The largest house in town is still owned by the man who secured Australia’s sole importation rights to Jim Bean and for the first few hours the heat leaves you feeling blow-dried from the inside, but Darwin has a burgeoning reputation for turning visitors into residents.

It is a compact hub of buzzing restaurants, Shakira-pumping back-packer pubs, live-music venues and cafes whose baristas can match it with any of the doppio snobs down south. Which is saying something for a city where a decade back my request for a cappuccino was met with “we’ve run out, do you mind if I serve it in a mug?”
Few other cities can match Darwin when it comes seducing the senses. Fresh sea breezes are laced with frangipani and mango top notes. Bougainvillea erupt over garden walls in vermillion, mauve and delicate apricots seen all too rarely in nature but all too frequently in bridal retinues.

Because Darwin’s climate is more akin to that of South-East Asia than most other regions of Australia, the produce at the local fruit stores forms the sapodilla on the cake of the city’s sensual delights. The what? Despite sounding like a disease – “Sorry boss. Can’t come in today, the sapodilla’s acting up.” – this is in fact a fleshy fruit boasting a flavour somewhere between caramel and coffee.

The sapodilla was just one of an array of exotic delights on offer at the Rapid Creek Market, open every Sunday from 8am-2pm during the Dry Season (May-November). The place was a vegan’s wet dream. Stall tables bowed under the weight of scarlet rambutans, Malaysian carambolas, Thai love apples, Filipino star apples and the distinctive low-acid lemonade fruit found scattered throughout tropical Australasia.

Being one of those unfortunate “if-there’s-no-meat-there’s-no-meal” types the likelihood of my electing to have a fruit lunch was up there with me signing up for a hysterectomy, yet here I was lazily loping towards Darwin’s Esplanade park with a bulging bag of fresh fare I was set to devour like Hollywood does starlets.
With joy in my heart and pulp on my chin, I strolled along the palm-shaded Esplanade near the city centre, pausing only to rummage in the bag for the next course or take in a foliage-framed glimpse of the shimmering expanse of Darwin Harbour: 54 kilometres across, a surface area of 1000 kilometres and ripped by lavish swathes of aquamarine reminiscent of heavy-handed eyeshadow.

Geographical attributes aside, Darwin is also characterised by intriguing blend of cultures. Almost ten per cent of the population are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin, while 21 per cent of those who call Darwin home were born overseas. Add to that the numerous descendants of migrants - such as the Chinese who flocked to the area in the latter part of the 18th Century when a smattering of gold was discovered or the Greek refugees who fled the conflict between Greece and Turkey at the end of World War One – and you have a city that was multicultural long before the term was invented.

Evidence of this blend of societies can oddly enough be found on the walls of the Chinese Temple in Wood Street near the city centre. Built in 1978 to replace the original 1887 temple destroyed by Cyclone Tracy, it is a cool bastion of tranquillity amid a sweltering CBD. Beneath a simple curved roof, tendrils of fragrant incense smoke swim between red wooden beams, silk tapestries embroidered with silver dragons and boards featuring spiritual affirmations in gold Chinese lettering. A noticeboard beside a row of lush and lovingly tended bamboo in pots proclaims this to be the Year Of The Goat and lists the names of local residents and businesses who have sought a blessing for peace and prosperity over the next 12 months. Among them are Chomper Yeeros and Picollo Puccini Italian Restaurant.

Further evidence of Darwin’s mix of ethnic heritages – and their electoral significance - came in the form of a newspaper advertisement from a politician wearing short-sleeves and a tie with a Magnum PI moustache wishing the Sri Lankan community a happy new year.

Darwin’s myriad links with Asia are also evident in the cultural sphere. Aside from boasting one of the country’s best collections of Indigenous works (plus a five-metre stuffed crocodile – referred to up here as ‘snapping handbags’), the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory has developed a well-earned reputation for innovative exhibits of paintings, sculptures and textiles from around the Pacific Rim. The “Speaking With Cloth” exhibition, which is on until September 7, is a must-see for those inspired by Asian design. A collection of 500 Indonesian textiles, each is accompanied by a poignant tale of cultural loss, revival and affirmation. The term ‘exquisite’ hardly does these pieces justice. Intricate geometrics and vivid blue hues created from the fermented leaves of the indigo plant weave their way through motifs of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. Metallic threads imported from China glisten amid traditional Indian designs tie-dyed by a Sumatran master in 1886.

However, the city’s socio-cultural melange is best displayed at the Mindil Beach Sunset Market. It is located on a verdant oval overlooking the broad arc and lapping breakers of Fannie Bay – named after an Italian opera singer and not, as I had secretly hoped, an unmistakable similarity in human anatomy and the region’s topography.
A local institution for over 17 years, the market is essentially a star-lit buffet with a distinctly Asian flavour. Of the 59 food stalls, 32 are either Thai, Laotian, Vietnamese, Fillipino, Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese or Singaporean. Meandering between the 170 craft stalls and alternative types offering everything from palm reading to shiatsu massage, my nose dictated the path. A alluring waft of prawn laksa drew me this way, the aroma of nasi goreng pulled in another direction before the unmistakable scent of a green duck curry had me salivating like Britney Spears over a merchandising opportunity.

With a pyramid stack of spicy poultry on my plate, I followed a stream of happy diners who were making their way to the mocha-sand beach beside the markets. The sounds of an acid jazz trio filtered through the palm trees where the grass turned to gentle dunes as clouds of ivory taffeta crowned a sinking sun. Tourism types are prone to rhapsodising about twilight in the territory and until I saw it for myself I wouldn’t have believed the hype. Because of a combination of Darwin’s proximity to the red dust of the outback and the scorching desert winds which turbo-blast it northwards, the atmosphere is flecked with light-reflecting particles resulting in sunsets that blush fuchsia at their own magnificence.

If, however, you are planning sundowners at Mindil Beach, be sure to BYO. Forewarned, I had purchased a bottle of crisp Demi Sec from the Kakadu Mango Winery – a thriving boutique business whose motto should be “don’t knock it till you’ve tried it”. Pleasantly trollied, with a sumptuous meal before me and a molten sun bobbing on the horizon of the Arafura sea, an evening at the Mindil Market evoked the feel of Bali and Thailand - yet it wasn’t quite Asia. It was only after three quarters of a bottle of mango wine and a second course of braised beef shin that I realised what was missing. No one had pestered me to buy a fake Rolex or get my hair braided. But that’s Darwin for you.

Territory trivia
5 things you never knew about Darwin:
1. The city was bombed by the Japanese on 64 separate occasions in WWII.
2. It was originally known as Palmerston but was later renamed in honour of Charles Darwin.
3. Around 130 crocodiles are removed from Darwin Harbour each year.
4. In the wet season (November-April), the city records between 20 and 30 thousand lightning strikes.
5. To combat attacks on oil storage facilities in WWII, the city constructed five below ground near what is now Parliament House. Gargantuan affairs, one was 171 metres long and 4.5 metres high but by the time they were completed the war was over and they never stored a drop of oil.

Six of the best
A handful of Darwin’s highlights:
1. Transport: Hop on and off the Tour Tub – an Beemo-style bus – at numerous locations throughout the city for $15 (after 1pm) or $25 (all day).
2. Oasis: The Botanic Gardens, established in the late 1800s, is Eden revisited, the ideal place for a romantic stroll and features 192 varieties of palms alone.
3. Accommodation: The Esplanade is lined with a selection of ocean-facing hotels from the major players such as Novotel and Holiday Inn. However, the pick of the bunch is the Saville All Suites which provides visitors with their own apartment rather than merely a room.
4. Club: Throb on Mitchell Street – the city’s first gay-friendly venue – offers alternative dance music, a chic space and mixes a Vanilla Island Tea that’s nothing short of faaaaaabulous. If, however, you hanker after something way more mainstream, try The Vic on the Mall.
5. Restaurant: Hunaman, all mood lighting and slick service, this Mitchell Street institution is famous for its Nonya cuisine. Try the braised pork belly teow chiu style slow cooked with star anise and cinnamon.
6. Makeover: If you hit town and discover your do simply doesn’t, wander over to Kabuki Haircutters for a top chop amid funky surrounds.
7. Movies: The Deckchair Cinema in the Wharf Precinct is a national treasure. Warm clear nights, a big screen and the comfiest movie seating in the universe. It simply can’t be beaten.

Inside information

There was a time when asking a potential employee their marital status, whether they intended starting a family or if they had children was acceptable -and even expected - but a requesting a blood or urine sample would have been out of the question. Welcome to the post-millenial flipside where this type of personal information is considered to have little bearing on a person’s professional performance but a urine sample can be requested along with your CV.

Despite the fact that certain areas of your life are now off limits to employers in Australia and abroad, they still like to know as much as possible about a worker before taking them on. Is there a high chance of them dissolving in a fit of manic depression during deadline? Do they have a penchant for weekend indulgences that will leave them tired and emotional for the first few days of the week?

Enter medical technology which can reveal all this information – and soon a whole lot more thanks to the recent mapping of the human genome.
The potential benefits of this scientific advance could do for medicine what Tom Ford did for Gucci.

Within a decade, a routine check-up may involve you giving a blood sample from which your DNA will be extracted and screened to determine your risk of developing cancer, heart disease or even complex mental disorders such as schizophrenia and depression. But who does this information belong to? This question is at the heart of a debate that has dulled the sheen of what is perhaps the greatest scientific discovery of our time. Evidence from around the world has already proven that it’s not just doctors and their patients who are interested in the results of such screening.

In a study conducted by Kristine Barlow-Stewart, director of the NSW Genetics Education Program, she discovered over 60 Australian cases of unfair and discriminatory practices by insurance companies and the public service based solely on genetic information that is already available. It’s an area of concern to geneticists like Barlow-Stewart who is quick to point out that despite the quantum leap that has been made by the mapping of the genome, genetic testing can only reveal a predisposition to disease – which is by no means definitive.

However, according to Barlow-Stewart’s research “predisposition” has already become certainty in the eyes of both individuals and institutions. When she surveyed a group of almost 700 people either affected by – or having family members affected by –a range of 113 genetic disorders, Barlow-Stewart discovered that 55 per cent reported they had been discriminated against as a result. She also discovered that this discrimination frequently surfaced in the form of higher life insurance premiums, outright refusal for life insurance, superannuation being adversely affected and difficulties in accessing income protection, travel insurance, IVF, adoption, and health and educational services.
At the heart of this issue is whether or not our society has the foresight to ensure this technology is utilised for the benefit of many and not exploited by a powerful few. “Dangers of adverse discrimination in the future using genomic data may arise unless adequate protections are quickly put in place,” says Justice Michael Kirby, a member of the International Bioethics Committee of Unesco. “For instance, employers may wish to utilise genetic testing. They may argue that training, disability benefits and the cost of sick leave justify having exact knowledge about the medical prognosis of their staff. Will individuals who ‘fail’ the genetic test be refused employment?”

Barlow-Stewart answers the question with the example of a woman with a family history of FAP – a condition which leads to bowel cancer– who applied to join the public service. In her application, she revealed that she had regular colonoscopies to monitor the development of the bowel cancer – 90 per cent of which can be cured if picked up early. Her prospective employers then informed that her application would not be considered unless she took a genetic test to see if she had inherited the faulty gene in regard to FAP. She duly complied, but when the test came back positive she did not pursue the position.

Barlow-Stewart believes law reform is crucial to prevent employers from requesting or requiring a genetic test or genetic information – unless it can be proven that it is for an employee’s health and safety or where the genetic trait gives rise to a direct risk to the public.

Such submissions are currently being considered by the Australian Law Reform Commission and Health Ethics Committee, which have been asked by the Federal Government to make recommendations of any new laws necessary to deal with problems arising as a result of new genetic tests.

The implications of genetic testing for Australia’s $150 million a year insurance industry provide a chilling example of both the complexity of the issue and the potential for misuse. “In the past, the availability of insurance and the rates of premiums were fixed by reference to the sharing of uncertain risks [across the entire population],” says Kirby. “Now, it will be technically possible to subject people seeking insurance to a battery of genetic tests. Risks may no longer be shared if the progress of genetic disabililty becomes absolutely certain.”

This type of genetic discrimination is dramatically illustrated by a family who took part in Barlow-Stewart’s research. A man who was diagnosed via genetic testing with the distressing neurological disorder Huntington’s disease committed suicide at 40 to “spare the family”. Not only did he have to pay higher premiums for life insurance due to his family history of the disease, he was given a reduced superannuation payout. His youngest son, who is in his twenties and has two children under 10, was also tested and shown to possess the faulty gene. He was refused life insurance outright and is unable to secure income protection. His older son tested negative for the gene and asked his life insurance company to adjust his policy from higher premiums to the standard rate. This too was initially refused.
“It is so unfair,” wrote this man to Barlow-Stewart. “Not only does my brother have to cope with knowing he is going to get this awful disease that we have been living in dread of forever, he can’t even get insurance to protect his family.”
“This reflects the powerlessness felt by those who cannot adjust their lifestyle or take other actions or treatment to prevent the onset of a condition,” says Barlow-Stewart. “They cannot change their genes.”

Geneticists and medical ethicists are not alone in grappling with the complexity of the issue. “The community needs time to come to terms with the technology and its implications,” says Lynn Ralph, chief executive of the Investment and Financial Services Association, which represents the insurance industry. “This is why the association has applied to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for approval for the industry not to initiate new genetic tests for Australians entering a new life insurance contract. It’s also to discourage – through discounting – any person to get a test who would otherwise would not have a reason to do so.” (Note the use of the word “new” as under this proposal, insurance companies would be allowed to access existing genetic test results for the purpose of classifying risk.)

The entire submission was rejected by the ACCC who viewed it as a collective agreement on the part of the insurance industry to prevent the offer of lower premiums for some people based on genetic test results.

Dr Trevor Mudge, vice-president of the Australian Medical Association, is less than impressed by the ACCC’s decision. “Life insurers already offer lower premiums to non-smokers,” he says, “but you can’t apply this same logic to genetic testing. For a start, genetic tests are about chances and risk. They rarely give absolutes.
“Secondly, genetic tests carry consequences not just for the person tested but for the other family members.” Mudge points out that the child of someone who agrees to genetic testing for life insurance could well be asked to provide those results in later years and adds, “It’s pretty hard to give informed consent if you haven’t been born yet.”
Then, there’s the question of just what the tests will reveal. “Allowing genetic tests to be demanded by insurers as recommended by the ACCC and employers removes the option of informed choice,” adds Barlow-Stewart. “Some people do not want to know that they are at increased risk. The decision to have genetic testing needs to be undertaken in the context of genetic counselling and all the advantages and disadvantages considered very carefully. Finding that you have or have not inherited a faulty gene or genes that indicates you are at increased risk of a genetic disorder can have a profound impact on the person and other family members. It should not be associated with possible monetary gain such as access to discounted insurance.”

Barlow-Stewart is equally concerned that “the difficulties associated with these tests and insurance may be sufficient to prevent people from having genetic screening and being identified as potentially at high risk of a disease.” She is apprehensive about what genetic testing may hold for Australia. ”For some people, it will provide freedom in terms of choices and treatments,” she says. “For others, the burden of choice will be heavy and anxieties raised. However the nature of these tests, which makes it impossible to determine if or when the condition will onset, makes the utilisation of the information in determining employment or insurance eligibility a minefield. Unless the ethical issues are widely discussed and policies developed which can meet the changing nature and challenges of this technology, discrimination will abound in many forms.”

Prada and prejudice
Confessions of a fash mag hack

I always had a thing for fashion magazines. Specifically women’s titles as I grew up in an era where the very notion of a men’s fashion magazine would be a contradiction in terms that ranked alongside compassionate conservatism, friendly fire and polyester couture. While my pocket money still found its way into the coffers of slot-machine merchants and those who sold action figures with a kung-fu grip, poring over my mother’s freshly-read Vogues offered an intoxicatingly entertaining combination of delights. Since this was the heyday of the tear-and-sniff perfume sample, these magazines were invariably scented with Giorgio of Beverly Hills. They also contained spread after spread of sublime models plus columns percolating with sly digs and caustic wit.

Inexorably, my career path turned out to be more of a catwalk and I found myself eventually working on such a magazine as a copy editor. Over a decade and a slew of titles covering high fashion, low fashion and for God’s sake put it away fashion, I have invariably been the only male (or one of two) on staff. This gender ratio and the subject matter of these magazines coalesced to form quixotic idiosyncrasies, offer unexpected delights and throw down numerous challenges. The first of these was that a significant number of my colleagues and management put two and two together and got gay. I was a man. I worked on a fashion title. Ergo. Because I was unmarried at the time and not wearing the ring I currently do, people would ask what my “partner” and I got up to on the weekend, whether I “had anyone special” my life and if I was “doing Mardi Gras this year”.

Far from taking umbrage at the assumption, I viewed it as a compliment. Long before the dawn of metrosexuality, here was a nod to the fact that here was a man who had mastered the art of being able to use moderate amount of hair product, didn’t equate the term “smart casual” to khaki pants with a chambre shirt and realised that the only place white socks belong is on a tennis court. Truth be told, I was also in no hurry to set anyone straight – as it were. At some point, I would out myself through a reference to my girlfriend or Playstation and that would be that. Until the staff Christmas party when a colleague would let her martinis do the talking and announce, “I so thought you were…” Only to be met by a chorus of “me too” and “you mean you’re not”.

Working in this environment, my language also began to change and I received a crash-course in fashion-speak. I began to use pant as noun instead of a verb. I “worked back” and “teamed with” where I used to “wear”. (I know, what was I thinking!) I learned espadrilles weren’t found in hardware stores. So help me, I even went through a phase where the adjective “fabulous” held all my others hostage.

With the expanded lexicon came a skerrick of fashion knowledge and I actually began to enjoying what was hip and new for the season while shopping with my girlfriend. Being able to swap knowing looks when we spied a blatant Cacharel rip-off made retail excursions more enjoyable than they had ever been and I grew to possess a vocabulary by which I could give her useful feedback about outfits she tried on. Although this was by no means always sought or acted upon, I believe it was often appreciated. By everyone except the sales assistants. When I was just a faceless lump who occupied the mandatory boy chair while her prospective client was in the cubicle, I was nothing but a last-resort ally to be enlisted in the chorus if her “that looks really sexy on you” spiel was failing to produce a Visa card. But now that I could spot a shoddily finished hemline and knew my A-lines from my bias cuts, I came to be viewed as the enemy that stood between the sales person and ka-ching! After tactfully telling my beloved that a certain cut was inferior to another we’d seen or that a four-figure frock was “a bit too Slavic war bride”, I’d be fixed with gimlet-eyed death stares as we left the store.

Aside from the tendency to speak in singular terms about what the rest of the world refers to in plurals, a career in women’s fashion magazines has also fostered in me the appreciation of a great shoe. This is quite a mental shift when you consider that I was among the majority of men who view footwear in purely practically terms. They were there to be worn out as opposed to worn. You had one pair for work, weddings and funerals. You had a pair that you could play sport in and wear with jeans. And you had some thongs. It was only when I justified a second pair of cream shoes on the grounds that the first was a brogue and I really need a loafer as well that I realised how far I’d come. From mules to kittens and Mary-Janes to Manolos, I came to understand the allure of shoe. My first inkling of revolution became apparent one day when my girlfriend and I were approached by a woman wearing too little clothing, too much make-up and the towering faux patent footwear that is to table dancing what tutus are to ballet. “Did you see the gigantic fake breasts on her” gasped Jennie. “No,” I cried, “but did you check out the hideous heel?”

However, the true power of shoes was brought home to me when a colleague suggested that I my then girlfriend now partner a pair as a birthday gift. Running a distant third to diamonds but a close third to cashmere, the mocha suede boots I choose after a clandestine size search through her wardrobe were a smash hit.
Like any working situation, being the only bloke on staff at a women’s magazine offered its share of pleasures and pitfalls. Office politics differed vastly from those at the predominantly male newspaper and lads’ mags where I had spent my formative years as a journalist. Workplace conflict among men tended to be explosive and lead to raised voices then a reconciliatory trip to the pub. Throw conflict into an oestrogen only pool and the result was a slow simmer punctuated by furious emailing among the cliques that often eventuated. Civility was maintained and newly purchased accessories or hairstyles were complimented in the midst of under-the-radar character assassination.
However, because I was a man with little aspiration to scale the heights of editorship, I was viewed as being no threat to those of my colleagues determined to dig their stilettos into anyone who hampered their climb to the top.

Within a few months of commencing my employment, I became viewed as one of the girls. And loved it.
Female colleagues divulge far more details with one another about their lives away from work than males ones. Where men talk about a particular game of football from the weekend or regretting ordering that third jug of tequila, a number of the women I have worked with – not all mind - seem to have the ability to create a deeper bond. After the Monday morning ritual of “love your new shadow/shoe/shades” – a reaffirmed acknowledgement of one another’s to “make a look her own” – the conversation can turn to weightier subjects. One of the most common is relationships. Commencements are celebrated, break-downs are grieved and stagnations are lamented.

As the lone member of club scrotum, I am often asked to explain the general behaviour of my gender in the form of such unanswerable riddles such as “Why are all men such bastards?”. Hushed specifics in the kitchen are also posed. The most common of these is, “He says he needs space. What does that mean?” This is a question one cannot truthfully answer – it means he wants to sleep around and then maybe get back together – without mortally wounding a person’s feelings. Instead, I usually respond to the space question with a glib “maybe he wants to be an astronaut” and hope she doesn’t press the point. Which the co-worker in question usually does and I am forced to tactfully present my take on the fractured male psyche.

However, the best thing about working in this female-dominated environment where relationships are openly analysed is that I have been let into a club where I get to see the mistakes, foibles and redemptions of other men. From the other side of the equation, I witness where they have unwittingly hurt, unknowingly won over and unstintingly supported. This, in turn, has made me more aware of the destructive power of a careless remark in the heat of a tiff and the healing potency of a small gesture of kindness. In short, the girls have made be a better man. Right down to the shoes on my feet.

profile: Andrea Durbach

Andrea Durbach grew up dreaming of becoming an actress. Instead, she ended up starring in courtroom dramas. A lawyer specialising in human rights issues, Durbach qualified in South Africa and took on the apartheid regime in court before migrating to Australia in 198?, where her Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) has subsequently fought cases for members of the similarly disenfranchised stolen generation, successfully lobbied law firms to offer pro bono representation to those who can least afford it and taken up the cause of single mothers (and lesbians) who are denied access to IVF programs because of their marital status.

Growing up in South Africa when apartheid was at its peak, one had two choices: turn a blind eye to the discrimination and enjoy the privileged lifestyle bestowed upon you by your complexion or take a stand and suffer the social, economic or even life-threatening consequences. Durbach's family choose the latter option. “I was made aware of the political situation in South Africa from an early age,” she says. “My mother Rene was involved in oppositional politics at a middle-class grass roots level and it was a household that was concerned about the racist policies in the country.”

However, it was Bill Hoffenburg - a cousin of Durbach's - who was to have the most impact on her choice of career. “He was a professor of medicine at the University of Cape Town in the '60s and he spoke about the injustices in South Africa,“ she says. "I was only six or seven at the time and I adored him. He was eventually put under house arrest and branded 'a banned person'. This incredible person who was so committed to humanity - both professionally and personally - suddenly became silenced. A voice who had spoken out against the wrongs was cancelled out overnight. He could only see one person at a time and I remember police cars circling his house night and day. That left a huge impression on me.”

Hoffenburg eventually left South Africa on an exit visa - the apartheid regime's equivalent of excommunication - and the young Durbach said farewell at Cape Town airport surrounded by "a barrage of policemen with dogs. “It was unbelievable to me that a man like this could be treated in such a manner simply because he spoke out about what life was like for black South Africans,” she says.

While she was still at school, Durbach became a member of an organisation called National Youth Action which was concerned with obtaining text books and stationary for black schoolchildren "who unlike their white counterparts had to pay for these basic educational needs". Her love of drama was pushed aside as National Youth Action brought Durbach into direct contact with black contemporaries who were "living under the horrors of apartheid". This was followed by a year in a small Long Island town as an exchange student where she was exposed to "the Bill of Rights the rights culture" and spent a summer working for a Democrat congressman."

"For the first time, I was going to school with black students, speaking out about apartheid and giving presentations to other students. It was that experience that solidified my desire to work as a lawyer and try to exact justice from the law," she says.
Despite Durbach's outspoken attitude (and the risks this entailed when she returned to her homeland), she still encountered the attitude that because she was a white South African, she was therefore a racist.

Arriving back in Cape Town to study law, she was subjected to the flip side of the coin where her attitudes were dangerous enough to mark her as an enemy of the apartheid regime. She dealt with both situations by relying on "the strong inner convictions my parents fostered in me that I what I believed in and stood for was the most important thing. How people reacted to me was almost a secondary issue."

After graduating, Durbach joined a Cape Town legal firm with a reputation for pursuing social justice and soon found herself in court "up against security police and antagonistic judges and magistrates." A task made all the more difficult by the fact that she was a white woman defending black anti-apartheid activists.
"They formed an impression of me before I had said a word," smiles Durbach. "That's when I often turned to humour, which has always been a valuable tool to me - especially in confronting people's initial perception of what I'm all about. Working with black communities taught me the power of humour - especially when it comes to transcending adversity. For example, being humorous - which is incredibly non-confronting - while cross-examining security police was often of great benefit to my clients as it's amazing what people let slip once you've shared a joke."

Durbach would need all these skills and more when she took on the biggest case of her career a few years later: defending 25 people facing the death penalty for the murder of a black policeman who had shot into a crowd paralysing a five year old boy during a riot in the tiny South African town of Upington.
Working alongside lawyer Anton Lubowski, Durbach embarked on "one of the most extraordinary experiences of my personal and professional life." The case was to last five years. Durbach's first victory of sorts came when 14 of the 25 accused were sentenced to death on the grounds of extenuating circumstances. "Physically, it was only possible for one or two of the people to have committed the murder. Yet the prosecution were determined to draw the web of liability as wide as possible using a law called the common purpose doctrine which basically stated that a whole crowd was responsible for encouraging the brutal actions of one or two individuals. We were then refused leave to appeal and approached the Chief Justice to review this decision," says Durbach. "I then went to London to petition the Irish and English government to put pressure on the South African government not to execute these 14. While there, I got news that we had been granted leave to appeal. I flew back to South Africa and the following day Anton was assassinated by members of the security police who have never been brought to justice.

"A year later we ran the appeal. Twenty one of the 25 murder convictions were overturned and all the death sentences were commuted. They are now all free. "
Durbach's chronicled the experience and the price paid for their freedom in her book Upington and it was during its writing that she migrated to Australia. "The amount of fear that was in me during that period of my life only surfaced when I came to live in a country without the same sorts of pressures. At times, I had even been afraid to open mail and was aware that my phone was tapped. There was also the indiscriminant reaction from government - you never knew where they were going to hit next - and Anton's death, we were very, very close - was a terrible realisation of just how vulnerable I was. It made me re-evaluate my priorities and highlighted the fact that life can be so fleeting. It made me ask myself what was important in life and one of these things was a sense of balance between my work and my wellbeing," she recalls.
"The strong armour I had developed to avoid being exploited by the state fell off when I came to live in a society that was open and nurturing. I no longer had to take up arms."

Describing the book as a "healing process - albeit a very lonely one", Durbach confesses to initially hating being Australia - a destination she only chose because it's where her brother Neil had fled to avoid conscription. "I kept thinking where's the fire in the belly of this place. Everybody seemed to lead such a leisurely existence. There must be something else going on in this society. Eventually though I just surrendured. Australia gave me the freedom to just be - I didn't have to be the woman in combat. It wasn't until some years later that I started peeling back the layers and looking at the dominant social issues in Australian society."

It was Durbach's unquenchable passion for social justice that kickstarted this process and she eventually left the large commercial law practice where she'd found a job to work with PIAC on issues which "nourished her soul".
"Work is such an important part of my life and a sense of purpose is such an important part of work," she says, "and PIAC fed that need. It was like coming home."
Having spent the last three years as Director of the group which carries out legal and policy work surrounding issues of discrimination, institutional abuse, government conduct, accountability and transparency. But the PIAC project that seems to stir Durbach the most is one which revolves around "the rights of the Stolen Generation and the failure of the Government to apologise and pay compensation - it draws very much on my South African experience. The universality of struggles and rights issues has been a revelation to me. It may not be to the same extreme as it was under apartheid but the lessons I learned from that struggle have had great applicability here."

While Durbach admits she's better at balancing her work and wellbeing - often via yoga - she cites the growing list of tasks that lie ahead for PIAC with an unmistakable enthusiasm underscored by the slightest hint of anger. "Right now, I find it frightening how the law is being used to undermine democracy is Australia," she says. "This has been brought home to me by working with communities. There are numerous examples of this. Look at how the amazing rights achieved through Mabo and Wik have been weakened by the government's amendments to the native title act. The government has put forward draft legislation to diminish the sex discrimination act in barring single and lesbian women from access to IVF services. Even during the Olympics, the NSW State Government enacted legislation which enabled authorised persons to remove people - the homeless, kids, Aboriginies - from certain areas.

“All of these examples are an insidious use of the law, which is certainly not as crass as it was in South Africa. Nevertheless, rights that have been cultivated over a long period of time are slowly being taken away.”

Most often representing groups who have little more than their rights - the economically, socially and politicaly disadvantaged, many of who are also frequently from non-English speaking backgrounds - PIAC's work is described by Nick Meagher, president of the NSW Law Society, as “A vital cog that protects the people most in need. PIAC meets the needs of those who often can get legal aid and if Andrea Durbach and her team didn't step into the breach many serious human rights cases would simply never have their day in court.”

The Ritalin Kid

In the course of writing this story, I will make two cups of tea, empty the garbage, take the dog for a walk, do the washing up and check my email twice. Welcome to the world of unmedicated adult Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). My parents first noticed something was amiss during the 30-hour train journey between Johannesburg and Cape Town, when their six-year-old spent close to the duration of the trip swinging Tarzan-style (complete with the man of the jungle’s famous vocal effects) between the top bunks on either side of the sleeper compartment. If that wasn’t trying enough, my airborne antics demanded that the compartment’s window remain shut in case I misjudged a leap and plummeted into the Karoo Desert which was whizzing by.

TEA BREAK

The ordeal of being confined to a two-by-three metre second-class compartment with an ADD child in scorching heat was compounded a few weeks later when a weary teacher informed my mother that I was disrupting the other children in class.

NO NEW EMAILS

My mum – bless her – immediately assumed I was simply a gifted child who was being understimulated. Wrong. A child psychiatrist who made me scrunch up pieces of paper and boot them Tony Lockett style across his office – among other tasks – concluded that I was more pain than prodigy. He suggested I try a new drug that would modify my behaviour to the point where I would be calm enough to learn with greater efficiency. It would also save the adults around me from being driven to alcoholism by the child who was kicked out of class on day six of year one when the class was asked if anyone knew a word beginning with “F”.

SCRUB DISHES

Ritalin and I became mates after a Sunday trial.
“It was dramatic! He was suddenly quieter, more focussed, able to sit still and play with puzzles,” my mum recalls with the tone of relief usually associated with someone who has just been told they don’t need to have that limb amputated after all. “But he was certainly not doped - it did not sedate him- merely made him calmer and able to function normally at school.”
Teachers noticed the difference immediately as did my friends’ parents who no longer had to hide breakables in high places when they heard I was coming over. One of them was so taken aback at the transformation that he dubbed me “the Ritalin kid” – a nickname whose cowboy connotation I came to enjoy.

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Every school day between the ages of six and 13 would begin with a Ritalin. Big and bitter, these pills were the cause of many a tantrum until my mother decided to nullify both of these factors by crushing the tablets – into a tablespoonful of icing sugar. Being the mid-70s, not a great deal was known about the link between hyperactivity – as it was then known – and vast amounts of sugar. Although you’d think the one might have cancelled out the effectiveness of the other, the medication was strong enough to vanquish any of the sugar’s effects and I went to complete primary school with enough “satisfactories” and “needs to apply himself better” to convince my parents that I wasn’t gifted after all. This fact was rammed home when I came home one day with the news that I had won a prize for “intelligence” that was actually for “diligence”.

TEA BREAK

By the time puberty rolled around, I swapped my Ritalin for a voice that could find no middle ground between baritone and soprano and skin that was suddenly yielding more oil than Kuwait. The drug had helped me become academically average and it was decided that for my subsequent education, it would be put on hold. The aim of this move was to see whether I could naturally develop strategies to compensate for a brain which functioned best in intense 15-minute bursts of activity followed the need for distraction. I not only succeeded in this task, I also refined my coping mechanisms throughout high school, university and my working life. I realised that the minute my mind began to wander, I should do the same – whether it was a circuit around the office or a dash to the corner store for a bottle of milk. I also figured out that the more exercise I did, the less restless I became. Now if I could only cut down on the sugar.

GARBAGE EMPTIED

Today, Ritalin is a topic of hot debate among educators, parents and psychiatrists. Prominent Australian child psychiatrist George Halasz has described Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as a “manufactured epidemic” and in 2000, 70,000 West Australian children were prescribed Ritalin for behavioural problems.
Recent clinical trials have also revealed that many of the behaviours which Ritalin has been used to control have been quelled by a combination of exercise, controlled activity, behavioural therapy and diet.

Who can say whether Ritalin prevented me from ending up with a career that involved the phrase “would you like to upsize your combo for an extra dollar?” I can’t be sure whether I was one of the bona fide children with the chemical imbalance that causes ADD or if I was simply a pioneer in the field of kiddie Prozac.
What I am certain of is that Ritalin provided me with the equivalent of training wheels for a brain whose learning capabality was frequently hijacked by an attention span shorter than Tom Cruise in socks. And like all training wheels, it was discarded when I learned how to keep my own sense of balance.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a dog to walk.

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Sextasy

Like many couples in their thirties who had been together for several years and both worked what seemed like ever-increasing hours, Mark and Megan’s sex life had gone from an urgent boil to a slow simmer. Both had experimented with the drug ecstasy in the past and viewed it with a “been there, done that” detachment. Until Mark was made an offer in the pub that he just couldn’t get out of his head. A ubiquitous “friend of a friend” asked him if he was interested in a “bluey for $50”. Some explanation was required and it turned out that this was code for Viagra – the drug originally designed to combat angina but had the side-effect of restoring flagging erectile function. Paul refused, but was then offered a $100 “party pack” including one Viagra and one ecstasy tablet.

As far as chemical combinations go, it was titillating to say the least: one capsule made you feel like having sex all night and the other allowed your body to do so. After convincing a reluctant Megan to participate, he handed over a green Nellie Melba and shortly afterwards ingested the pills.
Four hours later he was lapsing in and out of consciousness in a casualty bed in Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital with an irregular heartbeat. Both eventually subsided and he was discharged late the following day.

The cocktail which incapacitated Paul is becoming increasingly common at casualty wards around Australia. “Although no expansive research has yet been done in this area,” says Paul Dillon of the National Drug and Research Centre, “there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that a reasonable number of men are combining ecstasy and Viagra.”
In a 2004 survey of 216 ecstasy users carried out by the National Drug and Research Centre, 19 per cent claimed they had combined the drugs.
Known as Sextasy – a term Dillon maintains is not common parlance among users but more a media creation – its prevalence has been boosted by the mounting number of ecstasy tablets smuggled into Australia by sophisticated narcotic networks and the emergence of a black market for a legal drug that is aggressively marketed as a flaccid trip at those with erectile dysfunction. In those without the condition it was formulated to combat, however, Viagra results in increased stamina and sensitivity. Within months of its release, doctors were handing out Viagra at such a rate that threatened to become the Ritalin of the new millennium.

“We thought they'd be getting [Viagra] from the internet, but we found that a lot of young men in their 20s were getting it prescribed, no questions asked," Mr Dillon said. So popular is the drug that manufacturer Pfizer has revealed that nine of the little blue diamonds are sold a second.
When doctors refused, the black market complied with the Government Analytical Laboratory recently reported that it had detected Ecstasy and Viagra in the same drug haul.
But why is this particular cocktail combination so tantalising? When combined with ecstasy, Viagra serves to eliminate one of the former drug’s major glitches. “The problem with amphetamines like ecstasy,” says Dillon, “is that although they impart feelings of euphoria and lovingness, they can also affect the hydraulics and impair function. Viagra, on the other hand, works on blood flow and can cancel out the unwanted side effect of the ecstasy.”
Inevitably, there is a price to pay. The participants in the National Drug and Research Centre’s 2004 survey reported side effects such as muscle rigidity, nausea profuse sweating and the intense pounding headaches that give this combination its other nickname: hammerheading.

In rare cases, there is also priapism: unwanted erections that can persist for days and cause urological damage or permanent impotence.
The risk factor for stroke is also hiked with Sextasy. This comes about as the result of mixing a vasoconstrictor like Ecstasy which decreases blood flow then drives up blood pressure with a vasodilator like Viagra which increases blood flow. With little way of predicting how these vastly differing narcotics will interact within an individual, experts like Sextasy to a pharmacological version of Russian Roulette that can poison.

“Sometimes the breakdown of one drug will interfere with the breakdown of another drug,” noted University of Washington drug-addiction specialist Dr Akira Horita. 'There might be toxic side effects from a drug that normally wouldn't produce them.”

Finally, there’s the not-insignificant risk of cardiac arrest. “Viagra puts strain on the heart and so does ecstasy ,” says Dillion, “you're playing with dangerous stuff."
Mark needs no convincing. “I’ve never been so scared in my life,” he recalls. “I was overheating, my chest and felt as if it were going to explode. Afterwards I was all bravado about them not being able to get the lid on the coffin and all that nonsense, but ultimately I didn’t want to cark it in pursuit of an orgasm. At least not before I’m 70 or 80.”