Local interest

For decades, The Spectator’s Portrait of the Week has provided a concise record of national and international news. But there are interesting or at least intriguing stories in our local and regional press, too. Here are a dozen:

A 21-year-old cannabis grower from Swavesey, Cambridgeshire, has been sentenced to 80 hours’ community service after he summoned the police during a break-in. According to prosecutors, most of his plants had blight.

A coach driver on a school trip to Ashton Pools, Manchester, has been fined £35 for parking in a lay-by while he ran to give a boy his forgotten swimming kit.

Thirty people were evacuated from a pub in Ockbrook, near Derby, after its lights blew and all its appliances simultaneously began to overheat and smoke; thieves had stripped the copper from an electrical transformer in the field behind it.