Dinner with my colleagues at a Chinese restaurant in Manly, owned by the father of a Chinese- Australian social work student. The job attracts a strange mix of migrants, misfits and dogooders- E, a middle- aged Argentinian with a handbag collection to rival Imelda Marcos' shoe stash: C, a stud in his early 50s with Indian parents and a freshly trimmed moustache that sits stiffly just above his upper lip like a broomhead: T., sexually abused as a youth and now involved in suspicious cult-like activities with a woman who promises to change his life (this information gleaned secondhand through another colleague who apparently invites confidence more than I do, though an indiscreet soul lies under that trustworthy face): D , a Maori woman with a consuming passion for cigarettes who has been heard to claim that she would rather die than give up, and her Fijian husband hiding at the corner of the table under his cap and occasionally muttering unexpectedly funny additions to the conversation; J, the social work student, and me. A motley assortment of human creatures out to save the world, make a living, and thrive on the proximity of extremity.