Mean Streets

Back in 2006, a had a brief post on the Australian underworld and a couple of its personalities that had recently found themselves 'wacked', as they say. Little did I realise at the time the full extent of Australia's fascination with its own little gangland wars (which weren't really wars so much as the occasional assassination). Since 2006, Australia has produced not one, but two television series (Underbelly and Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities)dramatising various periods of particularly tumultuous gang activity (which according to the television shows seemed to involve lots of people getting buried in shallow graves, cocaine, and group sex).

But the underworld isn't just a historical curiosity - a fact readily demonstrated this afternoon, when Desmond Moran was shot dead while existing his favourite deli after what was to be his last meal. The Moran family is no stranger to violence as Moran's brother as well as his two nephews also are all 'sleeping with the fishes' as they say.

And so the underworld continues to thrive, in its own small-scale Melbourne way.