In the other incident, two carjackers punched a driver in the nose through the car window, but he managed to speed away with his wife and young daughter safe.

A 19 year old has been arrested.

Meanwhile, a man has been arrested after a woman was thrown from the bonnet of a moving car turning into Hoddle St from Johnston St in Abbotsford and hospitalised with head injuries on 26 February 2007. It is said they had been arguing. The man has been charged with failing to stop at an accident, failing to render assistance and handling stolen goods.

“On 31 December 1901 at St Patrick’s Catholic Cathedral, Melbourne, Wren married Ellen Mahon (d.1968), a police constable’s convent-educated daughter. After a honeymoon in New Zealand, his only trip abroad, he took her to a reconstructed Studley Hall, across the River Yarra, overlooking Collingwood, where they reared seven children (two others died in infancy) on an almost self-contained farmlet. Wren bedded in a sleep-out, showered at 6.30 a.m. in hot, then cold, water, and allowed the air to dry him. He ate spare, near-vegetarian meals, entertained infrequently and avoided business lunches, snapshots and publicity. He prayed daily on his knees, but did not formally practise Catholicism until his last years when he attended morning Mass. He wore suits purchased three at a time off-the-rack, and, disliking automobiles, usually walked to the city, occasionally meeting en route his neighbour Mannix. Wren’s manner and speech remained those of his Collingwood past, but his sons attended Xavier College, Kew, and his four daughters Sacré Coeur Convent, Malvern. In spite of his stern patriarchy, theirs was, apparently, a contented home, though, according to his son, Wren ‘never understood women’. Three daughters married in Europe; one notoriously associated with ‘communists’. His eldest daughter Margaret studied violin overseas which led Wren to sponsor Fritz Kreisler’s tour in 1925. Wren was more comfortable with his football club where, from World War I, he was premier patron but not, as believed, the virtual owner.”

For 14 years to 1907, he ran an illegal tote behind the pictured no. 146 Johnston St, Collingwood, a tobacconist’s enclosed by barbed wire and staffed by hooded bookies who would take as little as 6 penny bets. A reconstruction of it is to be a feature of the Racing Museum’s exhibition. (Now I know why The Tote is so named.)

As John West he was the thinly veiled subject of the Communist Frank Hardy’s novel Power Without Glory set in the fictional suburb of Carringbush. In 1951 it was the subject of an unsuccessful criminal libel prosecution of Hardy. Squizzy Taylor (who used to drink at what is now The Renown Tavern on the corner of Napier and Gertrude Sts, formerly known as Squizzy Taylor’s) and Archbishop Daniel Mannix also feature. The novel itself if a remarkable story, as recounted in this essay published by Trinity College:

“Power Without Glory was researched and written in elaborate secrecy. Hardy and his supporters worked in a clandestine fashion to avoid the attention of police and powerful individuals who could prevent the novel’s publication. After years in preparation, Power Without Glory appeared on Australian streets in 1950. It was self-published and bound by volunteers in suburban homes across Melbourne. Exhibiting its close relation with radical politics and the union movement, Power Without Glory was not distributed through normal literary channels: it was sold in factories, at political and cultural meetings, on street corners, in pubs, and under the clocks at Flinders Street Station. Most contemporary reviewers in the established newspapers and journals ignored the novel. Nevertheless, Hardy’s realist fiction soon became an underground hit, before exploding into public life when Parliamentarians and other leaders of society fulminated against his thinly veiled attack on powerful men and machine politics. The thirty-three year old author was arrested and charged with criminal libel of Ellen Wren, the wife of John Wren, a multi-millionaire businessman and power broker in the Australian Labor Party (ALP).”

Hardy, pictured, only died in 1994.

Manning Clark, ever florid, captioned Wren’s photo in his big history book “the loneliness of a man enslaved by the bitch goddess of success”, as recounted by the the 2004 biography which sought to ameliorate the severity of the accepted wisdom about Wren in the years after his death extracted in this lengthy Age article, by Professor James Griffin.

I discovered today that the whole of the Australian Dictionary of Biography appears to be available online for free. This is what they have on the Wrenster. The things you learn: did you know there was once a barrister named Maurice Blackburn, who founded the leading labour law firm? Or that teetotallism has nothing to do with tea? Or that Squizzy Taylor was so named because of a droop in his left eye?

On Sunday, I had breakfast at Busy Oven on the corner of Johnston St and Nicholson St (9415 7418), not exactly an auspicious location. Once you’re inside, though, it’s lovely. They have new opening hours, and are now open from 9ish on Sundays.  It’s a good place to go for a quiet, quick breakfast on a weekend, with a good chance of getting the paper to yourself, only locals, not too crowded, honest food.  Its decor is just a bit too living room, too utilitarian, too local lunchspot, to be really stylish which keeps out the too-beautiful people but at the same time it is a nice place to be, and if the mufffins aren’t yet ready, it’s not because the delivery is late but because they haven’t got them into the oven yet. I suspect its prices are pitched just a little high ($3 coffees, $5 toast), but if that doesn’t bother you, and you don’t plan on stealing my paper, get along there. I spotted the Scottish Karl Roche who runs Element, a cafe which kicks arse in every way, in there for his morning coffee, and that is probably the best advertisement a place can get in my book. He’s so cool he’s got a girlfriend (named Bonnie?) from the Cook Islands, or at least he did, and his cafe doesn’t have a phone, or at least it didn’t, and as far as I know, still does, and still doesn’t.

I had known of it for a long time but the premises had such an unhappy past (Ruby Red) that historical prejudice had blinkered me, for years. They’re open for lunch on weekdays, for dinner from 5.30 p.m. Monday to Saturday and they have a tiny beer garden and a happy hour, and a bottle shop, open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Their gnocchi al ragu, at $13.50 for a perfectly filling entree size, was bloody fantastic, and a $16.50 entree sized linguini marinara was equally good. I was delighted when they bought me a glass of champagne when I asked for a Cooper’s Sparkling and then invited me to drink the error on the house, promptly bringing me a bottle of — oh well, I said — Cooper’s Pale.  There’s something not-quite-there-yet about the place: weird location, unhappy past not-quite-yet-erased, no bread on the table, too much space, and slightly amateur waiters, but the food is really good, the ambience pleasant, the prices good value, and they are prepared to deliver for just $2.50. Despite the size, the place was almost so busy on a Friday night that we could not get in without a booking at 7 p.m., and people were enjoying themselves.

Yesterday my curiosity about this place prompted me to detour from my otherwise rigidly fixed route to work on my bike, in my suit. It doesn’t exactly leap out at you when driving past as the missing breakfastry of Abbotsford, and even after peering through this window last Sunday when it was closed, its true nature did not reveal itself, but Bomb Cafe & Bar, as I have discovered it is known (229 Johnston St, not far from the corner of Hoddle St, 9486 0699) is a great spot. Like so many long thin places on Johnston St, a small front section gives onto a middle room and then a magnificent back yard graced by a large peppercorn tree. The hot breakfast menu looked promising, the people behind the coffee machines engaging, but I had a pastry with custard and raspberries with my coffee. Steak, red wine, and salad followed by cheese and walnuts at Vue de Monde didn’t really help at lunch.

Nor did beers after work at Ilk Bar. A trip to Jim’s Greek Tavern did not eventuate when we discovered that pizza could be ordered and delivered to the skanky back courtyard where we were enjoying the unseasonably warm evening. Undoubtedly the other option, the local Thai restaurant, would have been better, because Fresca’s pizzas aren’t up to much, particularly when compared with their substantial cost.

I turned up at Ilk Bar at 6 p.m., definitely not a cool thing to do, and it did not start filling up until about 9. They don’t take plastic. One of the three owners is a florist. There was a most retro flower arrangement sitting on the bar. I said I wanted a beer. The man started reeling off the choices. Helpfully, I asked whether the beers that were available might be the ones displayed behind him. Somewhat hesitantly, he said, yes, except for the Asahi. I asked for a Peroni. It was hot and bright outside, but dim dim dim inside. He got out his little torch and peered into the depths of the fridges for a while. I said I would have a Coopers. He told me that Ilk Bar had changed hands amongst friends. It was not quite what I expected. I had only poked my head in before, but the bling had definitely been there. There were film nights. Now there are plans to revive the film nights. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe a bad thing. At least you can hear yourself speak now. Apparently a lot of people have parties there.

After a few hours of listening to music like popped up gymnopedies and drinking Coopers we wandered along Johnston St, ending up at Kooshi where we sat in the front window, though we could have sat in the middle or back room, or in the long thin back yard which is a pleasant place to have breakfast on the weekend. It’s a diverse and good place, the third long thin Johnston St establishment with an inviting back yard I visited yesterday, equally at home serving breakfasts, doing dinners off a small menu (I had a great meal there last time) and being a bar late at night.

We passed the Bendigo Hotel and in the interests of investigative journalism, I poked my head in. There were lots of Greeks, and Greek music up on the stage. It is a phenomenon every Friday night. It was quite a surprise.

Having never previously meandered along Johnston St by Shank’s pony, I had thought it to be one of the world’s most ugly thoroughfares. I found the details I spotted on foot charming. It has other things going for it once it arrives in the ‘wood too: Ilk Bar, which used to be a milk bar and the emblem of which is an elk, and Kooshi (formerly Good Morning Captain). Back in Abbotsford proper is this nameless place, which I think must be the one that the Abbotsford psychiatrist I met at a party the other day swore was a perfect but overlooked place to have weekend breakfasts. Some other photos from the walk are here.