Deadline: It’s not just machete-wielding teenagers causing trouble in our shopping centres

The violence and chaos in our shopping centres comes in all shapes and sizes. In true Victorian style, it’s an equal opportunity pursuit.

Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest scallywag scuttlebutt.

On the back foot

When trouble strikes in our shopping centres, as it so often does these days, it’s good to know security is on hand to keep the peace.

At least, that’s what we thought until we viewed some footage shot at a Geelong retail complex recently.

It shows a short, agitated woman of a certain age confronting two security officers.

Armed only with some extremely fruity language, she clearly has the much bigger fellas on the hop.

They beat a hasty retreat but, unfortunately for them, the ubiquitous phone camera was on hand to capture a small but wonderful moment in regional retail history.

It was then posted on the Take the Piss Geelong Facebook page.

To be fair, there is other footage which shows this little lady’s way with wicked words outside a chicken shop in another part of town. She is, as the saying goes, known to the authorities.

Sniffing out inspectors

Greyhound fanciers in the inner city will be pleased to know that the good folks at Greyhound Racing Victoria have not lost sight of their quarry in the silent war against live baiting.

GRV might not publicise it, but its inspectors and investigators are out doing their level best to hound some renegade traditionalists who insist that many dishlickers need a “kill” to make them keen enough to chase a tin hare in a tight circle.

The authorities’ ongoing campaign highlights heroes and villains. Both were in evidence at a distant Gippsland property recently when a greyhound trainer wondered why his dogs were barking so much at night.

Trainer and friend took a turn around the edge of the property with a spotlight, our source states, and spotted someone trying to hide in the undergrowth.

They then put a couple of gunshots over the supposed intruder’s head, possibly on the grounds that (for all they know) he could be a peeping tom, arsonist or thief.

Some renegade trainers insist many dishlickers need a “kill” to make them race ready.

The truth is they know very well the watcher is a GRV investigator looking for a “hide” to spy on training techniques, and that unusual drone activity around isolated greyhound properties is for that exact reason.

It is now 10 years since the ABC current affairs program Four Corners aired explosive footage of live rabbits, possums and piglets being used and abused to make greyhounds keener to chase. The show made a name for its main reporter Caro Meldrum-Hanna but the Hyphen later hit a hurdle and has faded to black on the nation’s screens.

Greyhounds have, of course, become very popular as calm, quiet and kindly pets since then. If greyhound racing here goes the same way as it did in New Zealand recently, there soon won’t be nearly so many slow dishlickers to choose from. They’ll become as scarce as any other redundant breed.

On ya Mum!

Former dial-a-dealer Eden Turkovic was released from prison on parole last year after serving five years in the steel bar motel for flogging cocaine and steroids.

Our colleague Craig Dunlop tells us the gym junkie now flogs used Rolexes online, in between taking selfies of himself in the mirror.

He also flogs luxury Gold Coast real estate alongside his brother.

All up, he’s quite the flogger.

Melbourne luxury watch dealer and all around flogger Eden Turkovic. Picture: Instagram

While Turkovic was locked up, his blameless and long-suffering mum started a PhD in law. She graduated last week.

Her thesis was about the need for stricter laws to protect the public from rogue parts of the health industry.

No mention of steroid importers, though. The Australian Federal Police obviously have that end of things buttoned up nicely, as her son has learned the hard way, not via lectures and tutorials. According to the brand new doctor, it’s massage therapists and chiropractors that need to be clamped down.

Turkovic took to social media this week to wish his mum well. “Congratulations mum! Officially a doctor (Faculty of law),” he wrote.

Footy funsters and gunsters

Gangsters and scallywags and football clubs seem to find each other, a point Deadline last week with a list of colourful identities and their footy allegiances.

Deadline’s football musings had no sooner popped up on screens from Gold Coast Suns territory to Freo than Eddie McGuire spotted a problem with what he found to be the shocking suggestion that John Kizon might have developed a soft spot for the Eagles.

Kizon has been a lifelong Collingwood supporter, says Ed. And who would doubt it?

But what if Kizon, a tricky customer, denies any association with the Magpies on grounds that it is a knock on his reputation?

He might threaten to sue on grounds that to be outed as a Magpie portrays him as someone with more tattoos than teeth and suggests he might have been a cheer squad candidate back when serial sex offender “Joffa” Corfe ruled the roost among the kiddies.

Eddie McGuire has pointed out John Kizon bleeds black and white.

Kizon, of course, has perfect Hollywood teeth like most successful gangsters and any tattoos he might have are most tasteful and fit under his suit jacket in the event of rare court appearances.

He has been known all this century as a Perth-based man of mystery but, back in his wild youth in inner Melbourne, he was a sharp boxer around the same time his contemporary and great mate Mick Gatto was in the pro heavyweight division.

It is said that Kizon spends much of his time in south east Asia, where a lot of colourful Aussies stay away from southern winters and hometown police while working on their tans and other hobbies.

Kizon rarely comes back to Melbourne except for the odd funeral. But when he does, says Eddie McGuire, he’s extremely loyal to the Pies. Never mind the Eagles.

Reversed name strikes again

Alert readers will have noted the name reversal that happened innocently during coverage of the Aussie underworld shooting in Bali at the weekend.

In the hurly burly of the night’s fatal events, Balinese “polis” gave the name of the murdered man’s wife as Gourdeas Jazmyn, a reversal of given name and surname that often happens in Asian countries where family names are customarily written or spoken first. As was soon realised, the grieving widow of the shot man, Zivan Radmanovic, is actually named Jazmyn Gourdeas.

This cultural quirk of reversing the name order was used to advantage by international drug smuggler and man of mystery David “McVillain” McMillan, who once evaded capture with an instant name reversal that allowed him to buy an air ticket a few steps ahead of the posse and get the hell out of Dodge.

McVillain, an able conman, was able to bamboozle the polite airline clerk into thinking his surname was David and therefore avoided having his passport automatically flagged to security officers.

The lucky break got him out of Thailand but didn’t help him in the long run. He ended up getting locked up in several countries where they knew exactly who “McMillan David” was and how to read his name frontwards and backwards. Every which way but straight.

Fire and ice

Methamphetamine doesn’t discriminate against postcodes.

A recent fire which did extensive damage to an apartment not far from Toorak Rd recently showed again that nowhere is off-limits for ice.

The suspected cause: a carelessly discarded glass crack pipe. Much the same as the ones north of the Yarra and west of the Maribyrnong.