Cool! Whoever may have been the inspiration, the first time I saw the above plaque I read the name as bat•man, not bat•mun. But then, I have tendency to refer to the historical figure as bat•man as well; if only to even out the effect of my Dad, who persists in pronouncing the superhero as bat•mun, though I've corrected him many times.
And imagine getting to start your commute each morning from Batman Station! For a lucky group of commuters in North Coburg, that's exactly what they do.
Cool! Sure, the station itself is no Grand Central Station, but as long as a train can roll through it it doesn't need to be. And the gangs of suspicious youths loitering around only add to the mystique. You actually half expect Batman to swoop down at any moment to sort them all out and demand to know where the Joker's lair is located. I'll tell you where it definitely won't be: Batman Park, Northcote, that's where.
Cool! Although maybe the Joker should set himself up there. It's the one place the cops would never think to look!
And just imagine one of the proposed names for Melbourne, Batmania, (à la Tasmania), had actually made the final cut! Should have. I mean, what's Lord Melbourne really done for the world? Batman on the other hand, well, how many times does a man need to save the world to get a city named after him? Keep up the good fight, Bats. If there's any justice in the world, you'll get the recognition you deserve one day. Until then, hopefully having an avenue named in your honour will do. :)
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What has Lord Melbourne done for the world?
ReplyDeleteYou've obviously forgotten about the 1834/5 Constitutional Crisis caused by King William IV's dismissal of Melbourne's government and the subsequent election; which cemented the principle in the Westminster system that the Sovereign must assent to the advice of their Premier in the selection of the Cabinet.
You're right. I had forgotten that. But did Lord Melbourne ever defeat Superman in combat?
ReplyDeleteI could point out that he did even better than that: in the 1835 General Election he defeated Sir Robert Peel - later the founder of the Metropolitan Police Force and therefore an even greater symbol of Truth, Justice and the Ameri^WAnglospheric Way.
ReplyDeleteBut to do would be to Labour the joke, which would be inappropriate since Melbourne was a Whig and Peel a Tory.
Oh, and thanks for the education. I had always assumed that Batman station was located in a suburb called Batman and am somewhat disappointed (but enlightened) to learn that no, it's just a shabby little railway station with an arbitrary historical name; previously having been named something much more sensible. (Bell Park, according to Wikipedia.)
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me of another railway station in Melbourne... which gives me an idea.
Switch the name of the station with that of the station located in Spencer Street. Imagine the tourists flocking to the vaulted roof of Batman Station! (A few touches to the giant bird statue nearby and we might even have a close replica of our Founding Father's DC Comics namesake.)
And that station is actually quite close to the old Batman Hill...
I LIKE THE WAY YOU THINK! Even though I like the name Southern Cross Station, I'd dump it in a heartbeat if a switch to Batman Station was on the cards. Swap the current Batman Station back to Bell Park, and as compensation for messing the residents of North Coburg around (Hurgh, what's our station called today?), we can rename their whole freakin' suburb Batman! Win/win. I'd move there in a flash!
ReplyDelete