IN-Focus

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact A NATIONAL CARRIER PIDGEON network (NCPN) is planning to give the Abbott government's National Broadband Network a run for its money. Using a team of nearly a thousand homing birds, the NCPN says it will provide a more reliable and cheaper communications service which will be available to Australians much sooner than the proposed fibre-to-node plan. "At...

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact Newcastle bartender, Mike Lillee has seen it all. From the pre-lock out violence that once rocked the Hunter, to the post-Newcastle Knights premiership benders. But nothing winds him up more than the self-importance of drunk businessmen who feel that their networking skills extend into the front bar of the General Post Hotel, a venue that he...

26 August, 2015. 16:25 ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact WHENEVER FRANK SINATRA threw a party at his Florida mansion, there wasn't a glass of wine or cold beer to be found. He'd gather his guests around while he propped himself up against his baby grand piano, with a Scotch in his hand. Frank would sing for hours while he grew...

26 August, 2015. 10:10 CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact TOORAK MOTHER OF THREE, Diane Williamson, spoke to The Betoota Advocate in December about the amazing turnaround she had seen in her oldest son's behaviour, after the 16-year-old began skateboarding and playing rock music. "Tardiness, foul language, bad attitude... It was all the things that a mother worries about," says the 48-year-old divorcee. As...

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact FOR OVER 20 YEARS, The Foo Fighters have been the rock and roll tyrants of emotion. Their ballads which follow the themes of loss, alienation and rejection have struck a cord within millions around the planet - especially the tradesmen of Australia. "The Fooeys" as our hi-vis wearing brothers and sisters call them, have been a...

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT The world's biggest fun run kicked off this morning with more than 80,000 sober competitors spent their Sunday running the entire 14-kilometre course runs from Hyde Park in the CBD to Bondi Beach. Competitors say that the sunny ocean backdrop served as the perfect backdrop for group selfies. "It was amazing," said 30-year-old Sarah Greenman. "The sky was so blue and the ocean...

July 14, 2015. 10:10 CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact Local man, Nick Mallet, has landed himself in the uncomfortable position of having to remain in a platonic friendship with a female acquaintance that he very much wants to have sex with. "I really stuffed up, I pulled the 'Netflix and chill' card too early" says the 26-year-old, who hasn't had intimate...

  July 13, 2015. 15:00 CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact Charlie Pickering wants government to go further than gay marriage pushing for equal rights who people who want to marry themselves. Charlie Pickering's need to lecture the world has been unquenchable since his successful Wednesday night show 'The Weekly' began on the ABC earlier this year, generating popular online content with his week-by-week synopsis of already...

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact Ed Tuxworth's days of 24-hour gym memberships are over. "I'll never go back" says the 29-year old mechanic, after finding himself involved in a nearby mixed-martial arts (MMA) club. "No more waiting around for the bench press or the squat rack, nowadays I just do Muay Thai and Brazilian kickboxing classes," As someone who says he was never a...

July 14, 2015. 10:40 CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact   Not long ago, Jai Waterman local made some "pretty stupid decisions". A wild night of reckless drink driving landed the Maroubra local in handcuffs, after crashing his mum's Tarago into the shopfront of a local post office. He was sentenced to three-months in the infamous Silverwater Correction Centre, and as the 19-year-old explains, prison his gave him a lot...