Playing the Ball

Words James Hutton, Publisher

Welcome to the April 2023 edition of The Beast, the monthly magazine for Sydney’s diverse beaches of the east. WorldPride brought an awesome vibe to our area in March, and I’m sure it must have provided a bloody good boost to the local economy too.

A big thanks to Bronte artist James Robinson for this month’s cover piece. I’ve known Robbo for a while now and he’s one of the nicest blokes you’ll ever meet, a very generous and highly respected bloke around these parts. I should add that he’s also pretty handy on a surfboard, where he spends the bulk of his free time! You can see more of his work by visiting boundbysea.com.au.

Local footy kicks off in April, and the Beasties from Easts Rugby will be starting their season with a big home game against Eastwood at Woollahra Oval on Saturday, April 1. The club is pro- moting the upcoming season of home games as events for all ages and they’ve gone all out and hired a jumping castle and professional face painter so the kids can run riot. For more information, and to purchase tickets, please visit eastsrugby.com.au.

As per usual, we’ve got a bumper edition packed full of letters to the editor, local news articles, the musings of our regular columnists and all the rest. We received a large volume of letters this month, and Jez (Headnoise) and Nat (The Unreliable Guide) have kindly given up their spots for a month so I could fit them all in.

As expected, the bulk of the letters to the editor this month relate to the upcoming state election on March 25, by which time this edition of The Beast will have been delivered, just. For the record, in the interest of objectivity I published every letter that we received relating to the election, rather than pick and choose which ones to include.

There is some very interesting political discourse contained therein. Promisingly, the general focus is on policy issues rather than personal attacks on the candidates. Politicians are easy targets when things don’t fall our way, but we are very fortunate here to have accomplished, ethical and highly qualified people vying for the various roles. Needless to say, this one is going to be very interesting so be sure to make your vote count.

Cheers, James

The Beast

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