IN-Focus

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact In a shock to party goers and regulars alike, a local DJ ended the night last at the Betoota Hotel around 2am this morning with Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer - rather than the traditional Khe Sahn the regional has come to expect. Conor Walter, an audio engineering student at South Betoota Polytechnical College, decided...

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT Lil has always understood that Tuesday is the worst, but final, day of a bender come down. After a Flume concert at the Gold Coast in 2011, she said her trip back home bearable, it was her first day back at work on the Tuesday. "Terrible Tuesdays we used to call it" she says. After Mardi Gras 2015, when she joined...

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has today declared the catastrophic damage being caused to the Great Barrier Reef by coal mining is nothing compared to the damage being caused to Brisbane's trendy inner-city suburbs by street artists. "If you think coral bleaching was bad, you need to take a look at The Valley nowadays. The inner-city street art is a...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Though Kevin Daniels is currently in his salad days, that doesn't apply to his culinary preferences. The husky 28-year-old landscaper is having a choice group of friends coming around to West Betoota Queenslander of Durham Avenue this Saturday and he's asking them to bring their own beer and meat - and to leave the salad...

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT A bloke who is obviously waiting for someone to meet him at the pub is half-heartedly blowing a fair bit of coin on a poker machine that he isn't overly interested in, it has been confirmed. While wearing relatively informal clothing, the bloke is also imitating the sounds of bombs dropping with his mouth. "beeeeeewwww boooomm!!" he mumbles as he hits...

INGRID DOULTON | Lady Writer | Contact Viewer beware! The rumours are true. Author of the popular book-series-come-popular-television-series George R. R. Martin confirmed today that he gets his man cans, as he calls them, out in an episode toward the end of this season. But that's not all, the 68-year-old also revealed juicy details of his sex scene cameo that he allegedly wrote into the book...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact A popular local builder has been mocked and humiliated by an uppity barista at a trendy cafe in Betoota's French Quarter this afternoon for ordering an 'expresso'. Gregory Murchison, the self-described 'coffeeologist' at Le Pisse Dans Ma Poche, said he enjoys it when someone wearing hi-vis comes into his trendy French-inspired eatery and ignorantly orders something by mangling...

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT A Betoota woman has today realised that the only two gay men that she knows would be a great match. Holly's close work friend, Ben, has today been told he doesn't need to worry at all about being single for much longer because Holly knows another gay guy who could be boyfriends with. During an afternoon lunch, Holly was heard...

DENISE COLEMAN | Local News | Contact The John Oxley Pool Hall in West Betoota attracts the brightest lights in the amateur pool circuit that's grown slowly in the wider Diamantina community for generations. Not many are brighter than Preston Haggard, manager of a popular one-stop music shop on Betoota's Latin Quarter. Yesterday evening around 8 o'clock, the 29-year-old confidently strode into...

WENDELL HUSSEY | Cadet | CONTACT Local electrician Ben Simpson has just purchased a packet of cigarettes, resigning himself to what will occur tonight. “Yeah I only smoke when I drink to be honest mate, but it’s a Saturday arvo and I’m going for a few beers…" "So I may as well face the inevitable and get em now rather than having to run off 6 or...