Local News

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Teaching middle-class white people to snowboard over winter and shooting dingos for the DPI over the summer, Dennis Willmott has seen his fair share of what life can throw at you. He's seen a lot. He's seen Donald Trump be elected President of The United States. He's seen Britain leave the European Union. He's seen the world change...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Describing herself as a simple woman with simple pleasures, Denise Coleman doesn't like complaining about things out of her control. The popular local warhorse has time and time again called on the government to provide a stable, usable internet connection to her Mankey Valley donga - but has received no answer. Until now. This morning, the 39-year-old grader...

LOUIS BURKE | Culture | Contact Tumblr has been rocked by blogger D’Arcy Sunmarin (27) who has not only set the internet ablaze with her Harry Potter blog (The Half-Blood Queen) but her stance in not identifying with any Hogwarts House. “People say I’m brave for having my stance but that doesn’t make me a Gryffindor, lol.” While many Harry Potter fanatics...

LOUIS BURKE | Culture | Contact In breaking news, Betoota East chef Henry Leonards (34) was immediately terminated from Cafe Eats earlier today, following the revelation that he had been preparing food completely sober. “Unacceptable. How am I meant to trust a chef who turns up to work like that? How do I even know he’s awake?” Cafe Eats owner Wayne Guthrie...

NATHAN GALLAWAY | Street | Contact Cutting through the grounds of Betoota National University this morning, one local student on a walk of shame paused to ask himself what was so shameful about what he was doing. John Greenholm, a third-year philosophy student, went along to see the Turkish Drill Pressers last night at the Dolphin's Club and by all reports...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Once or twice a week, Miles Keith answers an unsolicited knock on the door. Only a handful of times, it's been a salesman. Last week, a Jehovah's Witness dropped by for a cup of tea and an Iced Vovo. Sadly, most of the time the Betoota Grove resident answers the door, it's somebody looking for drugs. "The look on their faces when...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Receiving the homebrewing kit for his birthday in August, one local waterproofer turned brewmaster got to sample his first batch this today after weeks of toil. And the results are in: it's the best beer he's ever tasted. Linden Monk took time out of his busy afternoon to talk to The Advocate about the process, sacrifice and personal hardship that...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact A damning report into the local hospitality industry has outlined a number of shocking shortcomings - including the fact that nobody knows why each licensed premises in the wider Betoota area has a small television playing extreme sports clips on repeat. Peter Godwin, from the Office of Alcohol and Gaming, handed down his findings today to the local shire...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact Once a Gurkha unsheathes his kukri, he must draw blood with it - even if it's his own. The same can be said for a bus driver. Once somebody pushed the stop button and the bus pulls over, somebody must get off. This morning on the D64 Express from Betoota Ponds to the Royal Zoological Park on...

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT A local grandson has been distraught to learn that the blue tub in his nonna's freezer is actually just rock-frozen tomato sauce, not the neapolitan ice cream he was expecting. After being given free licence on his maternal grandmother's fridge, the 7-year-old went straight to the freezer to sauce for frozen treats that nonna sometimes buys after seeing...