The story below demonstrates why regional newspapers are so important and why I love reading them so much.
The Yorkshire Post has a lovely tale of an amateur photographer who produced some inspiring images of Earth from space using a standard camera and duct tape.
It has all the elements of a great story – a wacky inventor who beats the odds to come up with something great on a tiny budget.
Robert Harrison, 38, used his creativity and a collection of cheap parts costing £500 to take the spectacular shots using a Canon camera that he launched to 35km above the planet's surface on a weather balloon.
The views can usually only be seen from a rocket or weather balloon. No aircraft can fly so high.
The 38-year-old IT director from Highburton, Huddersfield, has launched 12 high altitude balloons since beginning his hobby two years ago. Before that, he says, he had never even picked up so much as a soldering iron.
It all began when he tried to take aerial photos of his house using a remote controlled helicopter. It didn't work. So he looked into weather balloons.
His first balloon, Icarus I, launched in October 2008 and took shots of of more than 1,000 miles of the Earth's surface. So successful was this attempt that the American space agency Nasa contacted him.
"Nasa had heard what was happening and wanted to know how I'd done it so cheaply," he said. "People think this is something that costs millions but it doesn't. You just need a bit of technical know-how. I know nothing about electronics and what I do know, I learned from the internet. My family and friends thought I was a bit mad a first but they were suitably impressed with the results."
His wife, Helen, a 45-year-old web consultant, thought he had lost touch with reality when he told her of his intentions.
To monitor the path taken by the balloon he used a standard GPS, similar to an in-car satnav, and linked it to a radio transmitter, which allowed him to monitor the balloon's height to within 10 metres and made it easy to find once it landed.
He linked his standard digital camera to computer software on the ground and wrapped both the camera and the GPS device in loft insulation from a local DIY store. The entire contraption weighs just 1kg (2.2lb).
The heat produced from these devices, together with the insulation, which costs £3 a sheet, helps keep it functioning.
The balloon rises through the atmosphere and the higher it goes the more the air pressure decreases, causing the balloon to expand until it parachutes back down to earth.
Harrison is one of 40 people in the world and four in the UK using such equipment for fun. He has spent £4,000 in total sending his lo-tech balloons into space.
Luckily he has got each one back, although sometimes he has to travel up to 50 miles to retrieve them and can only launch when weather conditions are ideal.
Blackpool bounces back
In Blackpool, traders and residents are looking forward to the start of the tourist season now their sea view has been restored.
Work to repair an underground pipe damaged when the ill-fated ferry Riverdance beached in January 2008 left the beach blighted by the view of diggers and work cabins.
United Utilities contractors had to repair 18.5m of piping that takes rainwater away from Blackpool into the sea to prevent flooding.
A cofferdam, an oil rig-like construction dubbed "Son of Riverdance", was erected to give engineers access to the site without being affected by the tides.
The hulking structure has now been taken away.
The removal of the equipment comes as the finishing touches are made to the third section of Cleveleys Promenade.
It is hoped the end of two years of a beach filled with either a wrecked ship being broken up and then the cofferdam will help bring tourists to the promenade.
Martin Hunns, chairman of Cleveleys Traders Association and owner of the Carousel cafe on Victoria Road West, said: "We've been waiting for a long time for this. It's been hard work for everybody.
"They've moved everything where they've been working on the pipe.
"For Easter we're going to be free from diggers and Kiddies Corner is back which is great for the town. There are good things on the horizon."
Homes for the wounded first
Injured soldiers will be able to jump ahead of the waiting list for council houses in Manchester under radical new reforms.
The city council is the first in the country to give priority to community champions as well as servicemen and women who are injured on the frontline.
Town hall officials have drawn up the new housing allocation policy and it will come into force at the end of this year.
Tenants will be placed in six bands and members of the armed forces who need to move into adapted accommodation due to injury, disability or a condition sustained as a result of service will be given preference.
It also says any community workers and volunteers who help make their neighbourhoods a "good place to live, work and play" will be moved up a band, allowing them to be rehoused faster.
Working households and the owners of businesses in the city will also win priority in recognition of the contribution they are making to the local economy as they are "the backbone" of their community.
Paul Beardmore, director of housing, said it was a modernised approach to housing allocations, which will promote balanced and sustainable neighbourhoods.
Those with exceptional and urgent need to move – for example due to illness, domestic abuse, or releasing an adapted property – go into band one.
People with "reduced priority" – due to arrears, breach of a tenancy agreement or refusing three reasonable offers of a home – will be placed bottom of the list, in band six.
Manchester is ranked 215 out of 323 councils in England for meeting affordable housing needs.
The homeless charity Shelter published the housing league this week. It said an average of 317 new affordable homes have been built in Manchester in each of the past three years, despite a housing waiting list of around 20,000 which will take five years to clear.
Beardmore said Shelter had failed to recognise the work being done to underpin the housing sector and assist with the delivery of new homes as the city emerges from the recession.
He added: "Despite the difficult economic conditions of the last few years, Manchester city council has secured significant investment for new housing stock and has made other major improvements. None of this has been reflected in Shelter's league table."
Order of Lennon events
John Lennon will be remembered in a tribute season of music, film and verse in his home city.
The two-month cultural programme of events will be launched on 9 October – on what would have been the former Beatle's 70th birthday. A memorial concert, John Lennon Remembered, will be held at the Echo Arena Liverpool, 30 years and one day since his murder.
The John Lennon Tribute Season is being organised by the Beatles Story, Cavern City Tours, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Mersey Partnership, Liverpool One and Liverpool City Council.
It includes a Lennon-inspired international poetry competition, film festival, lecture programme and visual art exhibitions at Liverpool John Moores University. Meanwhile, White Feather: Spirit of Lennon, an exhibition about life with John Lennon by his son Julian and former wife Cynthia at the Beatles Story on the Pier Head, has been extended.
The venues will join host a series of live music, film, poetry and art events that it is hoped will bring tens of thousands of tourists to the city – particularly from the US and Australia.
Dig deep
In Preston, a decade-long wait for allotments has led to two sites being closed off to new applications.
There are 326 people waiting for an allotment in the city, which has 505 plots. Some names are thought to appear on more than one list.
The local authority has responded by controversially putting up fees and sub-dividing plots.
Preston council has also excluded residents from outside Preston's administrative area from applying – even though one site run by the authority actually lies in the neighbouring South Ribble borough.
The numbers have been revealed in response to a freedom of information request.
It shows the council brought no new sites into use in 2009 while allotments in Haslam and Sharoe Green, where waiting times have exceeded 10 years, are being closed off to new users.
The council says the overall waiting time for an allotment is approximately three years. Jim Melrose, who has an allotment at the Penwortham Holme West site, said: "They are subdividing plots to create two allotments from one space and still charging a full rate.
"I applaud the council for responding to demand but I feel they are taking the easy option instead of looking for land elsewhere to develop as allotments."
A Preston Council spokesman said: "We have had a problem with waiting lists for allotments for some time so we are trying to increase the number of allotments and also increase the fees.
"We are increasing the fees to reflect the demand that's in place for allotments and the service they provide for the community.
"They are important for people growing their own food and are becoming more popular."
The cost of renting a plot is £30 each year with a 50%
reduction for senior citizens, disabled people and some benefit recipients. The cost for the larger plots is £45.
PR award that was disastrous for police
The family of a young woman who was killed by a speeding police car have reacted with anger after it emerged the force nominated itself and won an award for the way it handled the case.
The smash two years ago killed Hayley Nicholson and led to an officer being jailed. Northumbria police then put themselves forward for a public relations award.
Hayley's mother Yvonne, of Fenham, Newcastle, branded it "sick".
Police officers have since visited the family and apologised, saying the nomination was never intended to cause offence.
After a five-day trial at Newcastle crown court, PC John Dougal was jailed for three years after being convicted of driving at 94mph moments before he ploughed into Hayley on 19 May 2008.
His flashing blue lights and siren were switched off as he followed a car he thought was stolen.
Mark Smith recommends
Write Now, the Liverpool International One-Act Play Festival, opens at the city's Actors Studio tomorrow and runs until 3 April. There are eight plays, all around an hour long, and two rehearsed readings, which are being performed on several different dates over the eight-day programme. Who knows, could there be a new Willy Russell, Jonathan Harvey or Heidi Thomas lurking among the participants?
A brilliant blog written by northerner Lisa Lynch, now living in London. It is about being diagnosed with cancer at 28 and it has been turned into a book.
