Pulped Non-Fiction
No longer available for legal reasons (see here), this book began when I got back from the Cannes Film Festival in May/June 2009 (name dropper!) 
and had two calls on my answering machine. One from the Underbelly tv series Executive Producer Des Monaghan of Screentime and the other from publisher Richard Walsh. Des’s call said “phone Richard”. Richard’s call said “phone me”.
Des and I knew each other from way back when he was a senior exec at Channel Seven and later, when he went independent, he developed my Bondi soap Breakers as Screentime’s first project. I had worked for Richard before that, at ACP Magazines, but had never met him
Anyway, I finally did call him and met up and he told me about this larger-than-life character we came to call The Inspector, his nickname on the street, who had walked into the Underbelly 3 office and said if there’s anything you need to know about Kings Cross in the past few years talk to me.
And click HERE to listen to Jimmy and The Inspector interviewed by Merrick, Ricki-Lee and Dools on Nova 969.
And go HERE for print and radio reviews and features
Now, that’s not unusual except this guy really did have the goods: he had worked for some of the heaviest crims and was and still is friends with the Ibrahim family. He had also, incredibly, been a police informant and helped catch the killers of a police constable and politician John Newman.
Des saw the potential for a book and sent him to Richard who’s a consultant at Allen & Unwin. Richard asked Des who he thought was crazy enough to take on a project like this and Des immediately thought of me. Seven months later, the idea became a short-lived reality (although it came close to selling out).
The book is gone now, never to be seen again, but here’s the pitch that got it commissioned.
SNITCH – A PROPOSAL
As the trials and triumphs of the Ibrahim brothers of Kings Cross fill our newspapers every day, a close friend has broken years of secrecy to tell the whole story – his story.
The Inspector first knew nightclub owner John Ibrahim when he was a teenager (and almost accidentally got him killed) – yet for many years he was a confidante of some of the top detectives in NSW police.
From the moment he led police to the killer of one of their own he was given a “green light” to operate in the Cross, protected by the good cops, resented by the bad ones and accepted by his criminal friends who knew he’d never dob them in.
He traded information with both sides of the law, earning his nickname from his police friends and respect from his peers but only now is he telling the whole story.
The scams and rorts, the power struggles and gang wars, betting rings, illegal gambling and the rise of the Ibrahim empire – he was in the thick of it all.
He knew the good cops who only wanted information and the “dirty” cops who demanded money. He met the international stars who flocked to the Cross for fun … and those whose addictions wouldn’t allow them to leave.
The Inspector was the Snitch and as Australia reels at the increasingly lurid tales from the Cross, the one man who knows the whole story finally talks.
THE BACKGROUND
Between 1986 and 1996 crime was out of control in Kings Cross in Sydney and cops were as likely to be as crooked as crims.
Old school villains like Lennie MacPherson, Abe Saffron and George Freeman were past their prime and new names were moving in on their territory.
Louis and Bill Bayeh were already living large and another new clan was on the horizon: the Ibrahim brothers.
And in the midst of it all was The Inspector, a man who traded in a commodity that was more valuable than cocaine, booze and sex combined – information. A known police informer he was a close personal friend of the Ibrahim brothers and cohort of some of Sydney’s most notorious gamblers.
If John Ibrahim was right when he told police “you guys don’t care what happens as long as nobody gets hurt,” The Inspector was the man who made the unspoken agreement run smoothly.
Snitch will track his life from when he arrived in the Cross as a callow youth and immediately began earning $2000 a week as a strip club doorman to the point where he became the very first witness called at the Wood Royal Commission into Police Corruption.
It will take us from strip clubs to illegal gambling dens, from low-lifes in the streets of Kings Cross to the high life in Sydney’s top hotels, clubs and restaurants. It will chart the decline of one crime empire and the rise of the Lebanese youngbloods, the Bayehs then the Ibrahims.
And finally it will take him to another life completely, when he is arrested and charged – ironically because he has been recorded discussing drugs on a wire being secretly worn by one of his friends.
Click HERE to listen to Jimmy and The Inspector interviewed by Merrick, Ricki-Lee and Dools on Nova 969.
A NOTE FOR YOUNG WRITERS
I entered TV script writing very late (having been a journalist for many years) and, in an effort to make up for lost time, my motto was “never turn down a paying gig”. That led me to some weird and wonderful places but all the time I was learning how TV worked. Eventually I found myself working on Gladiators (think Lycra, muscles, giant Q-tips) under Des Monaghan. A couple of years later he quit Seven and set up Screentime and let it be known he was looking for a new teen soap. I knocked together a proposal for Breakers, because he knew me he took my pitch and then took the proposal to Cannes and sold it to Ten and the BBC and they made more than 300 episodes. That’s how TV works – it’s not what you know, it’s not even who you know, it’s who knows what you know. And never turn down a paying gig.
Snitch in the media
The very few remaining copies of Snitch were pulped as a consequence of an out-of-court legal settlement with a person named in the book who claimed that they had been defamed. I can’t name the person or comment on the outcome of the case which, contrary to some reports, never actually went to court. All I can say is that for legal reasons Snitch is no longer available … but we had some fun publicising it, though.
Jimmy and the Inspector on Nova 969.
01-05-2010 Newcastle Herald, feature
Watto
One of these three isn’t used to having his picture taken: Me, Shane and Alan Jones at the launch of Watto in Dymocks, George St, Sydney, in November 2011
I often joke that the reason I came to live in Australia was so I could support an international Test team that wasn’t England. That’s a bit of an exaggeration but there would be an element of truth in that for any cricket-loving Scot.
Anyway, you can imagine my delight when I was approached by my publisher Allen & Unwin to see if I was interested in writing Shane Watson’s biography.
Now, to be fair, Shane would be the first to admit that he’s a bit young to have his life story written – but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a story worth telling. His battle back from being the player most likely to be out with injury to the first name on the team sheet is inspiring and compelling (and that’s without my help).
He wasn’t even 12 years old when he got his first back injury although it’s hardly surprising, given he was playing rugby union, rugby league and cricket at the time. Eventually, the other sports had to give way as he tried to build and strengthen his young body. A process that has often been misrepresented as vanity was really the results of his efforts to ward off injuries that had plagued him from an early age.
What he couldn’t have known was that all those hours in the gym were the worst thing he could have done. One observer said he was “too strong for his body” and while he scoffed at that at the time, he would later learn that there was a lot of truth in that comment. Physio Victor Popov was the first to suggest that he needed to build his core rather than his bi’s, tri’s and thighs. It took a lot of courage and determination to turn his back on the traditional view of team medics and take his own route to fitness. However he had been advised that the only cure for his recurring back injuries was to give up bowling.
Right now, Shane has been recovering from his first fitness issues for years but, he assures me, it’s only because of his new regime that he can hope to make an appearance in the Test series against India.
Commentators like Peter FitzSimons and Alan Jones have both praised the book – and whatever you might think of Jones’ political views, the former Australian rugby coach knows his sport.
Despite side and ill-informed comments that Watto was a quick, exploitative knock-off (hey, Cricinfo, if you can’t get basic facts right, what are you any good for?), this book was 18-months in the making and many hours revising and reviewing material – often with the help of Skype when Shane was in India – made sure this was Shane’s story, in his voice with the slightest non-Shane phrases removed. For instance, I had no idea that he never refers to the No 3 batsman as ‘first drop” but he soon put me right.
My contribution was to prod and probe and try to get to the heart of the man then set my ego aside and write it so that it was his personality that came across (rather than mine). The greatest compliment paid to the book was his sister Nicky telling me that when she was reading it she could hear his voice in her head.
One thing I did contribute was the idea of “drinks breaks” – little sections of insight where Shane explained everything from how reverse swing works (and how to get it) to the design of bats. At one point the publishers even thought of extracting them and publishing them separately but it was decided to keep the book together and provide better value for money.
If you like cricket and you don’t know what to do with the book tokens you got for Christmas, have a look at this. It is, quite simply, the best thing I have ever written. It’s not full of stats or lists. It’s a rare insight into the thinking of a top-class sportsman (and one of the most decent human beings I’ve ever met). For my part, considering I’d just written Snitch about the underworld in Kings Cross, I think Shane was pleasantly surprised that I knew the difference between a full toss and a happy ending.
You can buy Watto in most bookshops and online HERE.
‘Snitch’ in the media
Jimmy and the Inspector on Nova 969.
01-05-2010 Newcastle Herald, feature
The Koala Who Bounced
Karri the Koala came to life when the artist/cartoonist Eric Lobbecke asked my wife Sue if he she would write a kids book for him to illustrate. For some reason she suggested that he and I collaborate and meantime she introduced us to the remarkable Selwa Anthony whose writer management agency was just getting going. With Selwa’s help we produced a kids book together called “The Koala Who Bounced”.
It took me six days to write and Eric six months to draw but we get equal shares of the royalties. How can that be fair? I even get top billing. I wish I could draw as well as Eric – actually, I wish I could write as well as Eric draws.
Eric is now writing his own stories but we still get cheques for that book every six months and it has even been translated into Korean. Why? Maybe someone thought it should be translated into Koalean and there was a mix-up at the printers. Anyway, thanks Eric and Selwa – our little bouncing koala has done us proud.
This year, the book is going to be published again in its original large-size, hardback format. Until then I have a few of the small pocket paperback versions which I can sell for $10 including postage. Click on the PayPal button if you’d like to buy one.
The Ultimate Guide …
Apartment Living led to my weekly Flat Chat column in the Sydney Morning Herald. Ironically, based on the column, Fairfax Publications invited me to write The Ultimate Guide to Buying and Renting Houses and Apartments which is a much more practical and down-to-earth “how-to” book about buying, selling and renting – although it does have a “Best and Worst of Flat Chat” included.
The Ultimate Guide to was published in June 2006 and updated in April 2008 (rrp $29.95).
If you can’t get a hold of The Ultimate Guide … in a bookshop or newsagency click here and they’ll sell you one.
Apartment Living
APARTMENT LIVING – DESCRIBED BY ‘THE AGE’ AS “the Lonely Planet for apartments’ IS NOW OUT OF PRINT BUT WE ARE PLANNING TO UPDATE THE CONTENTS AND MAKE THE CHAPTERS INDIVIDUALLY AVAILABLE IN pdf FORM FROM THE NEW FLAT CHAT DEDICATED WEBSITE (click here).
Apartment Living was written by my partner Sue Williams and me in response to the fairly troubled times we faced when we first moved into a new apartment block in Sydney.
We ran the whole gamut of issues, from a dodgy Executive Committee the chair of which was a little too autocratic and close to the developers for comfort, to a building manager – also employed by the developers – who was not only utterly incompetent but ran nasty little vendettas against any residents who dared to criticise the way the building was being run.
It took a group of committed owners nine months to resolve this scandalous situation, sack the original EC and the building manager and get things running smoothly (for which I can take no credit).
Both being writers, our instinctive response was to get it down on paper and make some of the stuff that we’d discovered available to others. We also tried to make the book as entertaining and informative as we could.
It was published by ABC Books in June 2004 and one reviewer for The Age in Melbourne called it “The Lonely Planet for apartments” which was just about the feel we were looking for.
Check on the Flat Chat website to see when the PDF version of Apartment Living will be available.
Write away (or punning for a living)
Once upon a time, all I wanted to do was write a book.
About 20 years ago I wrote a novel called “Own Goals”, set in my home town, Dumfries, and related in a bizarre way to Scottish football fans. I sent it to one publisher who told me he didn’t want it but added that if I could find an agent, he was sure it would find a publisher. These were my glass-half-empty days and I took that as a crushing rejection and thought no more about it.
Soon after that, I met my current literary agent Selwa Anthony and everything changed.
Selwa introduced me to Sandy MacGregor, who, as a young officer in the Australian Army in the early days of the Vietnam War, led a troop of volunteer engineers who not only defused Viet Cong booby traps but were the first to actually go down into the now-famous tunnel systems. Sandy told me about his experiences but I interviewed a lot of the men who served there and got the other side of the soldier’s life; the stuff they don’t write about in military histories.
My wife Sue Williams was approached by artist Eric Lobbecke who wanted her to write a children’s story for him to illustrate. She was too busy but I was keen and the reult was The Koala Who Bounced.
And then there’s Apartment Living which I wrote with Sue , and which led to the weekly Flat Chat column in the Sydney Morning Herald and then, oddly, to the Ultimate Guide to Buying and Renting … which I wrote for Fairfax.
I was approached to write the biography of cricketer Shane Watson but Watto sold only modestly at a time when the sports book reading public seemed to be more interested in bad boys than good guys.
I then revisited the 3 Field Troop story with Tunnel Rats, which has done well and is still selling, and a more expansive story about all the Sappers in Vietnam called A Sapper’s War.
Eric and I also revisited the bouncing koala with The Koala Bounces Back
This year (2013) Simon and Schuster published my biography of bad boy turned good guy Wendell Sailor which contained a few shocking revelations that answered a lot of questions about this genial giant of both rugby codes.
Meanwhile, there is another crime novel in the pipeline although whether it does any better than “Own Goals” remains to be seen.
BOOKS: A long and winding road
I was 14 years old when I read my first work of grown-up fiction (Leslie Thomas’ The Virgin Soldiers) and decided that was what I wanted to do with my life. It only took 50 years to achieve that ambition of writing (hopefully) entertaining novels, although I’ve written a stack of other books in between. […]
Vietnam Romance and Intrigue
Ever since I led my first tour to Vietnam I have had this sneaking sense of unease. I don’t at all understand why the Australian government so willingly joined America’s war in Vietnam but I do get why Australian troops went there, especially the ‘Nashos” (National Servicemen). Britain decided not to get involved (we had […]
Wendell Sailor: Crossing The Line
Late last year (2012) I was just getting to grips with my latest project, a first person biography of sports star Wendell Sailor. I was chatting about our work with my partner, Sue Williams. She was working on her biography of father Bob Maguire and we joked about how you haven’t really got through to […]
Tunnel Rats
Allen & Unwin published Tunnel Rats at the beginning of July 2011. It’s a major rewrite of ‘No Need For Heroes’ the first-person memoir I wrote for Sandy MacGregor about 15 years before, but updated and re-tooled as a full-blown military history rather than a personal memoir. It’s a real “Boys’ Own” adventure – only […]
Apartment Living
Apartment Living was written by my partner Sue Williams and me in response to the fairly troubled times we faced when we first moved into a new apartment block in Sydney. We ran the whole gauntlet of issues, from a dodgy Executive Committee the chair of which was a little too autocratic and close to […]
No Need For Heroes
After the Koala Who Bounced was finished, my agent Selwa Anthony put me with a former Australian army major called Sandy MacGregor who won the Military Cross for his exploits in the Vietnam War. His men in 3 Field Troop were the first to go down the and explore the incredibly complex Viet Cong tunnel […]
The Ultimate Guide …
Our first book about living in apartments , ingeniously called Apartment Living, led to my weekly Flat Chat column in the Sydney Morning Herald. Ironically, based on the column, Fairfax Publications invited me to write The Ultimate Guide to Buying and Renting Houses and Apartments which is a much more practical and down-to-earth “how-to” book about buying, selling and renting – […]
The first Tunnel Rats tour
In February 2012, Sandy MacGregor and I, as co-authors of the best-selling military adventure Tunnel Rats, led a select group of travellers to where Aussie troops were based in Vietnam, working hard, playing harder, and creating the legend of the Tunnel Rats. That tour, which had guests ranging from young blokes in their 20s to one […]
The Koala Who Bounced … and kept bouncing
Karri the Koala came to life when the artist/cartoonist Eric Lobbecke asked my wife Sue if he she would write a kids book for him to illustrate. For some reason she suggested that he and I collaborate and meantime she introduced us to Selwa Anthony whose writer management agency was just getting going. With Selwa’s […]
Watto
I often joke that the reason I came to live in Australia was so I could support an international Test team that wasn’t England. That’s a bit of an exaggeration but there would be an element of truth in that for any cricket-loving Scot. Now, to be fair, Shane would be the first to admit […]