Time looks up for Barnett government in WA

Labor's Mark McGowan will be elected Western Australia's premier on Saturday if the polls are right.

But the prize will be arguably the nation's worst performing economy, inarguably its highest unemployment rate, plus a record debt and deficit.

Colin Barnett has led the most stable government in the nation since 2008 but there appears to be a mood in WA for change, with many locals having had enough of him.

West Australians became rich on the back of the mining boom as property prices soared to levels behind only Sydney and the price of a coffee was the most expensive in the nation.

Much of the money is gone but you wouldn't have known it, as it was thrown around like confetti during the electionThere's a fictional quality to the closeted environment of the Edinburgh International Book festival. For two weeks, Charlotte Square is fortified with a circle of portable buildings and Spiegeltents, creating a safe space for a fantasy of literary culture to flourish without undue interference from the outside world. It's a fantasy taking place in the daydreams of a seventysomething retired English lecturer, and The Book is its key signifier. The Book as object, as specks of ink splattered on decaying vegetable matter, tenaciously clinging to the bookshop shelf as the internet gushes forth its infinite flood of blogposts, status updates and indie-published ebooks.

The science-fiction track within the EIBF programme came marked with the now standard disclaimers … it's not all rubbish, some of it actually has quite a