Deadline: Discarded Gotham City caps crop up across South Melbourne

It seems Gotham City customers are a little gun-shy about strutting around in merchandise indicating they’ve been at the South Melbourne brothel.

A discarded Gotham City hat, a site that's not uncommon in a certain part of Melbourne.

Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest scallywag scuttlebutt.

Thanks but no thanks

Not much gets past Deadline’s South Melbourne spy, who is particularly attentive to goings-on around the Gotham City brothel in that part of the naked city.

Of late, he has noticed an unusual number of apparently discarded Gotham City caps in the vicinity of the Clarke St joint.

His theory is that visitors to the Batman-themed business are being given a complimentary cap with each service.

So, why are the caps being found strewn around?

Our source thinks it’s because blokes — and we assume most customers are male — might be a little shy about strutting around in merchandise indicating they’ve been at a brothel.

It’s certainly difficult to imagine any sane married geezer wearing one as he arrives home after a hard day on the tools.

A peek inside Gotham City, Melbourne's 8-star brothel. Picture: Gotham City website

Imagine what the kids might shout, in all innocence: “Look mum, dad’s been to Gotham City to see Batman and Robin!”

It would go down like a Polly Waffle in a swimming pool.

Workers who visit Gotham to relieve work worries during their lunch break could be in the same boat, reluctant to return to the office advertising their stress management tactics.

It isn’t the first time Gotham City has made its mark on the local community.

A couple of years ago, one of Deadline’s best-read items concerned mattresses which turned up in a street near the brothel in question. They looked like some kind of Jackson Pollock art installation created from various bodily fluids.

Gotham City's fleet of heavily used mattresses as hard rubbish.

Judging by their condition, the mattresses had given sterling service until management decided they’d done quite enough hard day’s nights and arranged a hard-rubbish collection between shifts.

It has also been noted recently that Gotham City now promotes itself as an eight-star brothel.

That’s up from the previous six-star rating, and makes it sound as if they’re flogging energy-efficient fridges.

By the way, if anyone knows who hands out the brothel ratings stars, could they please let Deadline into the secret.

We know it can’t be the notorious old gun dealer, George Joseph, who moonlighted as a Miss Nude Australia judge for years after he gave up flogging pistols to crooks. George died last year, remarkably enough of old age.

No story, you dig?

No rumour spreads as fast lately as anything related to the Leongatha mushroom triple-fatality case.

Last week, word surfaced that exhumations were being carried out as part of the investigation which has captured imaginations worldwide.

By the end of the day, there was wild talk that homicide squad boss Insp. Dean Thomas was at a rural cemetery in a high-viz vest at the controls of a bobcat excavator.

Sadly, these reports were off the mark. Thomas’s actual real-life movements were tracked no further than Spencer St headquarters.

Here’s the scoop: might is not right

Anyone looking for an ice cream in the coming summer months should head for the good guys at Williamstown Ice Cream and Frozen Yoghurt.

It’s a chance for the public to lend a hand and a few spare bucks to support a squeaky clean business under attack from bad guys who break windows and light fires.

The bullies are trying to force the Nelson Place ice creamery out of business with the sort of standover tactics usually associated with the current tobacco war, and sometimes with gyms and tattoo parlours.

Late last year, thugs set the place alight, forcing a long period of closure which ended only a few weeks ago.

The fire damaged ice cream parlour at Nelson Place in Williamstown. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Then, on Sunday morning, the same dirty cowards (no doubt paid to do dirty work for others) firebombed the store again, throwing a molotov cocktail at the door.

At 1.05am on Monday, the goons returned. Two of them smashed the new plate glass front window and tried to set the shop alight again.

Thankfully, the fire fizzled, though it left the owners unable to trade for much of this week. But they are not giving in — they hope to be back selling ice cream before the weekend.

Every ice cream the good guys from now on sell is a vote for justice and a fair go. The address is 199 Nelson Place in Willy.

Going anywhere else for a cold confection on that side of town would be positively un-Australian. Together, ice cream lovers can help lick the bad guys.

What’s behind a nickname? a crook, usually

Criminals have had nicknames since well before the First Fleet landed the first mob of convicts on these shores, and they still tend to. But the types of nicknames have changed a bit over time since the pre-television era.

A list of nicknames Victoria Police published in the late 1940s starts with A for “Adelaide Jack” (real name James Fraser) and ends with W for “Wingy Don”, known to his mother as Donald Sydney Stewart.

Between those two were plenty more, some of them even sharing the same monikers. There is only one “Money Box Mick” but three crooks known as “The Count,” a term still sometimes used today because of the cunning way they can take out one letter and change the meaning.

There were two Cheeky Charlies, neither of them christened Charles. But there was only one Dictionary Harry.

The animal kingdom gets a mention. Louis Brandi, undoubtedly exotic, was known as “The Bullfighter”. One of his contemporaries was “Ferret”. The scary-sounding Sam Rabinovitch was “The Lone Wolf.”

The only crook on the list whose name echoed down the years and is still occasionally mentioned in underworld and police circles is the notorious Sydney gunman “Chow” Hayes, never called by his proper name except when facing charges.

It was, for the record, John Henry Hayes. Who lived long enough to see the rise of fellow Sydney gunman Graham “Abo” Henry.

Wigging out

Members of our judiciary have many important matters to weigh up before the nerve-racking task of committing their findings and reasoning to the legal record.

There is great expectation surrounding the ruminations of one such figure at the moment.

That’s why one of our sources was gratified to see him last week giving things due consideration by spending the afternoon having a quiet and reflective session at a bar in the court precinct.

Sometimes, a judge’s best friend is at the bottom of a glass.

A horse with yo’ name

This has nothing to do with crime — apart from the involvement of hardened jockeys — but we noticed a couple of interestingly named horses running at Newcastle the other day.

One event pitted King of the Castle against another nag dubbed I’m a Dirty Rascal, taking many punters back to nursery rhyme days.

There’s an explanation for this apparent coincidence. It turns out that a horse named King of the Castle in New Zealand was brought here but its connections were told there was already one of that name going around on this side of the ditch.

The Kiwi horse’s connections pivoted and made the clever name switch … doubtless never imagining they’d soon be racing against their Aussie counterpart.

As for omen bets, forget it. Neither saluted at Newcastle. As gallopers go, both of them are more rascal than regal.