Fed up with spending all night waiting to get into a club, three lads have made their own app to gauge wait times. Nick Ainsworth, Anthony Maher and Dan Preston developed the free NightGuy app so punters could submit the length of lines at clubs. It uses crowdsourcing to build an accurate picture. Other users…

Testing times AUSTRALIANS make much of their strength of character. That strength is being tested more stringently than at any time I can remember. These are interesting times. Australians are always swept up in the rhetoric of sports journalists. We are cheerfully blinded by nationalistic fervour. Aussies, and Aussie teams, are always expected to win—just…

STEPHEN SMITH will not re-contest the seat of Perth and lawyer Tim Hammond is emerging as a likely replacement. Mr Hammond, a Mount Lawley local, is a barrister at Francis Burt Chambers. We put it to him that he was next in line of succession after Mr Smith. “I don’t know about next in line…

BAYSWATER city council is considering a $175 million redevelopment of its Mertome aged care village. The concept plan includes four options, ranging from 257 to 396 apartments, over five or seven storeys. It includes parking and community facilities such a clubhouse, and the option of a residential care facility. At a briefing last month councillors…

HISTORY and technology mingle in a new innovative artwork on Perth’s King Street. Media artist Sohan Ariel Hayes has created “6D” shifting projections that appear in a shopfront along the glitzy shopping strip. Hayes says his work was inspired by a fleeting moment in nearby Wolfe Lane. “I was working in an artists’ studio off…

TRADERS and residents along Beaufort Street are not waiting on Vincent city council to find a solution to the street’s ongoing exodus of independent retailers. While the council negotiates with developers (see story, right) the Beaufort Street Network is drawing up its own action plan for recovery. In recent months six independent retailers have shut…

IN an attempt to stem the tide of pubs taking over retail centres, Vincent city council is asking developers to build smaller shops. Mayor Alannah MacTiernan hopes smaller rents will be attractive to independent retailers with smaller budgets. Along with being zoned retail, they’ll also be too small to be easily transformed into dollar-raking booze…

DOCUMENTARY maker Justin Hunt says society is sitting on a time bomb—a generation of youngsters who’ll struggle into adulthood because their fathers bailed. Hunt says it’s a modern dilemma, as previous generations usually had extended families and close-knit communities to fill the gap left by absent fathers. “You show me a person that is angry,…

A MOVE to slash the number of courts at Maylands Tennis Club from 17 to nine could put an end to fundraisers for groups like the WA cancer council, says club president John Hogben. Bayswater council staff recommend leaving the club with three acrylic and six grass courts, saving the council around $58,000 a year…

AN Oxford Street shop owner has been warned to behave in the public gallery at Vincent city council meetings or risk, “action [being] taken against you”. Council CEO John Giorgi issued the written warning to Debbie Saunders, owner of 50ml cafe, last week. It follows a similar warning he’d sent in March. Ms Saunders and…