Yay, look! Helen and I have had twins. No but seriously, our new and joyfully crowded masthead recognises the Northerner's expansion. As you'll have noticed in the last couple of weeks. Sarah Hartley and John Baron are now firmly aboard.
They come from Guardian Local, which has had a cracking two years in Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh, but can't be sustained at the current rate the way that things economic are. They've already made their presence felt here and I hope that together we will make up some of the acknowledged deficit which Leeds Local leaves in the north of England.
Plenty more is planned, including more guest contributors (please let us know on martin.wainwright@guardian.co.uk if you're interested) and picture specials. One of the Guardian's greatest assets up here is Chris Thomond, our photographer, who is in the great Denis Thorpe and Don McPhee tradition. He should also be in the line-up but was the man who took the picture of us instead (at Birch services eastbound on the M62 on Monday during the storms, in case you were around and wondered what was going off on the footbridge).
Sarah and John are also particular aces at the sort of IT magic, involvement and linking which I am still trying to learn. But if you'll excuse me, I must now go an crowdsource some analytics, or should that be optimising..?
