Deadline: Old dog up to old tricks at Melbourne blowout

A familiar face was up to his old tricks, getting very hands-on with another reveller’s wife, at a Melbourne blowout where the white stuff was flying freely.

The white stuff was flying around at a recent shindig packed with famous faces.

Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest scallywag scuttlebutt.

It’s a powder keg out there

We heard last week about attempts by a shadowy mob called The Commission to act as a de facto cocaine market regulator.

Like all good business people, the bad guys know that managing supply is the key to keeping prices high. We know they know this because they said exactly that in an ominous bulletin.

The missive, distributed to top-level dealers, threatened all sorts of reprisals for those who sold coke without their endorsement.

Whatever the cost, there appeared to be no shortage of the white stuff at a recent shindig packed with famous faces.

Nor were there any surprises about the identities of the former top sportsmen spending some caring, sharing time in the dunny.

One well-known face was up to his other old tricks, getting very hands-on with the wife of a fellow reveller.

It’s odds on that if he keeps that up, someone will glass him some day, that being the language he understands.

Putting the finger on Valley crime

Having some fingers removed doesn’t appear to have put the slows on one handy Latrobe Valley crook.

It seems our hero bit off more than he could chew a while back, taking on some characters who turned the tables on him and removed a few digits during a lively torture session.

The word is that despite now being able to count only up to five, or maybe six, our man continues to play up.

Proof that humour is not dead in the Valley is that irreverent locals have christened him Edward Scissorhands.

The cheap joke used to be that Moe stood for “moccasins on everyone” has had its day. Now it’s “mittens on Edward.”

Irreverent Latrobe Valley locals have christened the torture victim Edward Scissorhands.

Record of transaction

Word finally reaches us of some olden days shenanigans in a major union over the issue of phone misuse, which makes a change from the usual credit card rorts.

We’re told that representatives on a trip overseas for onerous employment-related duties were accused of using their work phones to arrange visits from local sex workers of fluid gender status.

An impeccable source instructs us that the blokes concerned were pulled in over the issue on their return but were able to reach a settlement with management.

“I believe the investigation was a nil-all draw after the targets threatened to expose their adversaries’ own peccadillos,” our spy says.

A good, old-fashioned Mexican stand-off.

The name of the galloper pictured with Jimmy Buckley has been redacted in case of any possible embarrassment.

Jimmy buckles up the saddle

Speaking of well-placed union men, one of them has supplied us with a rare historical photograph of a well-known former footballer doing something completely different.

The subject of the photo is Jimmy Buckley, a man of many parts. This is the scallywag who as a talented youngster came from hometown Kyneton to board with Carlton footy club’s cunning old fixer Leo Brooks. He was always known for his willingness to defend himself, mostly on the theory that offence is the best defence.

Buckley took chances, a characteristic caught so well in the now ancient ditty coined by the legendary Punter to Punter radio programme.

To the tune of the Muhammad Ali-inspired song “Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee,”, the reworked lyrics celebrated how “Jim-mee, Jim-mee Buck-lee” did some of his best work at “Moon-ee, Moon-ee Vall-ee.”

That’s where he infamously punched out the bold and opinionated racing club boss of the time, Ian McEwen, who was rightly attempting to evict him from the committee room.

What McEwan might not have known back then is that Buckley’s landlord, the said Leo Brooks, was father to gangster’s moll Judith Moran, whose two cheeky youngsters were apprentice gangsters Mark and Jason Moran. Meaning that Jimmy and other Blues premiership players who lodged with Brooks were in fact unknowingly manning a sub-branch of the Carlton crew.

Those with long memories slyly suggest that a certain lethal football personality evaporated from the Moonee Valley committee room that day just as the Barney Rubble started. That fella wasn’t one to chase trouble, at least off the field, which was why he became a premiership coach while young Jimmy B became more of a premiership couch surfer.

But Buckley, these days a model of sobriety and good manners, had other skills besides throwing punches. As our exclusive snapshot shows, one of those skills was in the saddle.

As the song says, “I’m Ji-i-im-ee, catch me if you can.”

The young Jimmy was light and balanced enough to ride racehorses in work. The name of the galloper in the photograph has been redacted in case of any possible embarrassment.

Buckley is one of a short list of gun league footballers at home in the saddle.

Carlton’s John “Ragsy” Gould was a talented polo player who took up riding to hounds in the hunting fields of western Victoria.

Peter “Crackers” Keenan was a skilled horseman who worked at Bart Cummings’ Flemington stable while playing the game.

And Brownlow medallist Shane Crawford knows a bit about the riding caper, as he was taught to sit on tight by his grandpa Alan Crawford, a star international rodeo rider in the 1950s.

Stay away

Deadline can confidently predict a Californian restaurant won’t be branching out with a Melbourne franchise any time soon.

It’s called the Mr Baldy Family Restaurant.