Voice photographer Matthew Dwyer snapped this pic of a curiously 3D-seeming bus in the alley behind La Cholita. The perspective mural is the work of local artist Drew Straker, who’s been drawing on walls for about 15 years. ADORABLE hounds prowled the CBD streets this week sniffing out change for Guide Dogs WA. They have…

ANOTHER increase in fees is on the way for motorists parking in the City of Perth. Don’t blame us, the council says: blame Colin Barnett. Parking charges are now getting so high the PCC is reporting a drop in patronage but that’s not stopping it from wanting to push through more hikes. If the plan…

A CYCLIST has found a postcard, written by a Fremantle WWI digger who’d died from battle wounds, stuck on a fence on Graham Farmer Freeway. Milton Mavrick had been on his weekly leisure ride to the city when the black-and-white postcard blown against a fence caught his eye near East Parade. The North Perth man…

FOUR Bayswater organisations are locked in a battle to secure council funding for two 2015/16 street festivals. The city has allocated $30,000 for two street festivals and received five submissions: • Noranda Village Christmas or Easter Street Festival (Community Connect) • Maylands Street Festival (Maylands Business Association) • Maylands Street Festival (Local Arts and Community…

SPUDSHED is set to open a massive new superstore in the ailing Coventry Village in Morley. The potato giant has submitted a development application with Bayswater city council for a 3519sqm outlet. The plan involves amalgamating seven existing shops and a children’s playground into one store. According to council officers, Spudshed owner Tony Galati “intends”…

THE curtain’s coming down on the Bakery, with the last-ever event planned for May 9 at the James Street venue that’s been home to big international acts and worthy local startups. http://www.nowbaking.com.au has tickets and info for the 20-act show. Local musos, producers and fans are currently trying to set up a new mid-size gig…

BEAUFORT STREET’S legendary Planet empire receded further this week, with the video rental section of the shop closing up. Proprietor Haydn Robinson cites “technology” as a big factor. The rentals part of the business has been running at a loss for 12 months but the recent arrival of internet-streamed movies via Netflix is “the straw…

PERTH teachers and cultural communities are fighting to save an Italian language program from being cut back. More than 6000 people have signed a petition calling for the program, run for 37 years by the Italo-Australian Welfare and Culture Centre, to continue receiving about $1 million state funding, with the government adament it wants to…

SEVERAL mature trees used by endangered black cockatoos are to be felled, to make way for an upgrade of the Reid Highway/Malaga Drive interchange in Bayswater. The marri trees on Malaga Drive, just outside Lightning Park, are used by the native cockatoos for feeding and form part of their rapidly diminishing WA flight corridor. When…

THE closing of the North Perth KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken for the old-timers) sparked an unofficial rave in the carpark to see off the grease hut with a few chicken dances. Organisers Get Weird, an incomprehensible organisation hosting quasi-monthly parties “for cool kids and people that like to rave in bathrooms,” sent the word out…