IN-Focus

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Local city worker Darren van der Merwe reportedly consumed a grand total of two schooners of heavy at the Dodo Internet after-work drinks yesterday, and immediately transformed into a walking, talking National Geographic documentary about his adventures back home in his native South Africa. Eyewitness accounts confirm that after only a few sips of his...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Betoota Heights grandmother Maria Rossi, 88, embraced the spotlight at a recent family dinner. The catalyst? Her grandson's casual remark that British chef Jamie Oliver's Pasta alla Norma, plucked from Oliver's "Jamie Cooks Italy," outshone her cherished family recipe. Family members alternated between chuckles and disbelief as Nonna Maria theatrically clutched her chest, emitting a...

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT The once blurred line between Generation X and the youth has today become a gaping laser cut canyon, as one local 'fun uncle' realises that his nephews have absolutely now cultural references to draw on when it comes to the golden age of west coast rap music. While loitering around his sister's home ahead of a family viewing of...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Certain members of our town's living dead are up in arms this week after a new social housing plan was submitted to the Betoota Shire Council Planning Committee. A joint venture between a local superannuation investment fund and the Queensland State Government has put forward plans to build close to 300 private and social domiciles...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact In a modern world often marked by disillusionment and weariness, music has the remarkable power to ignite emotions and kindle connections. For one Betoota Heights 45-year-old manager who has weathered life's storms, the music of TISM has emerged as an unexpected lifeline amidst his general discontent and cynicism. Having endured a divorce and the relentless...

DR CHET SPEVENS | Finance Expert | CONTACTIf you’re a business-owning boss like me then you’re no doubt still reeling in disgust at the fact that the government continues to wrongly crack down on bosses who avoid paying their ungrateful staff their super “entitlements”.  ‘Wage theft’ they have the audacity to call it. Yea right. How can it be wage theft when it’s...

LOUIS BURKE | Culture | CONTACTOnce a suburban house with a scallywag of a home loan, a locally produced car in the driveway, children playing silently in the yard and a wife chained to the stovetop, the classic Australian dream is now something you only hear about if you work in aged care. Gender roles and children that can conceal some rather horrific family...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact A Sky News presenter has taken time in the ad break before a news package on the situation in Niger to remind herself to pronounce the nation properly and not the way she did as a private schoolgirl. "It rhymes with bonjour, it rhymes with conjure. Don't say it, don't say it," said presenter Penelope...

EFFIE BATEMAN | Lifestyle | ContactThe Hangzhou zoo sun bear accused of being a human has found support in the unlikeliest of places, revealing that Bluey’s father Bandit reached out this morning to offer some kind words of advice. ‘Sunny’ told The Advocate that it’d been a rough couple of days for him, admitting that the barrage of accusations and comments on his body...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact In a study conducted by the Institute of Ornithological Social Studies (IOSS), corellas, the iconic parrots that grace Australian skies, have been identified as members of the avian working-class, struggling to make ends meet in an increasingly hostile cockatoo-dominated environment. Previous perceptions of these charismatic birds, often regarded as mere avian troublemakers, have been challenged...