PIKACHU FRENZY: Is there a regional newspaper in the land that hasn’t found an angle on the Pokemon card craze?

“Schools bans card craze” has become commonplace. This week, the Hull Daily Mail revealed that two youngsters were threatened with a knife after demanding the return of a card taken from their collection by older boys, while the Liverpool Echo told how a trading cards swap shop attracted 5,000 people.

In Portsmouth, The News reported, an eight-year-old Portsmouth boy was so desperate to get his hands on a rare holographic Vaporeon card that he phoned a radio station and offered his toys, his pocket money, his last Easter egg and even his baby sister in exchange.

TROUBLE ON A PLATE: A porcelain company dropped a clanger when it advertised commemorative plates for the Herefordshire town of Moreton-in-Lugg.

Leaflets showing the six limited-edition plates claimed that Decor Art Creations had spent many hours searching for the most beautiful places in the Herefordshire town. Among local landmarks depicted were a school, a pub and a war memorial – but Moreton-in-Lugg does not have any. The truth, said the Gloucestershire Echo, was that the firm had mixed up the town with the Cotswolds village of Moreton-in-Marsh.

The paper’s headline summed it up: “It might as well be China”.

GOING CHEEP: A family of robins has been found nesting in crates at the Spode pottery factory in Stoke.

The Sentinel reported that workers were going around on tiptoes and putting down bird food after four chicks hatched.

A company spokeswoman said: “It’s really nice because our big, hefty kiln workers have suddenly become ardent conservationists.”

KEITH ROLLS OUT THE BANGER: Businessman Keith Phillips splashed out £5,000 on a Rolls Royce to take banger racing.

He gutted the elegant interior of the 1978 Silver Shadow 2, ripped out its leather seats, fitted roll bars and covered the metallic blue piant with black and a lime green roof, the Sheffield Star reported.

Keith told the paper: “All my mates think I’m mad but a Rolls-Royce is the ultimate car to race.”

WORKMEN MESS UP SIGNS: Residents fed-up with dogs fouling their streets were delighted when Cheltenham Borough Council decided to erect signs warning that owners could be fined up to £500.

But they were less pleased, reported the Gloucestershire Echo, to find that one sign was at ground-level – the right height for a Chihuahua to read – and another one was about six feet in the air.

FEED BIN INSPIRES APOLLO 13: A replica Apollo 13 command module sits proudly outside a Lincolnshire cafe after its creator was inspired by a galvanised steel chicken feed bin.

Charles Massey told the Lincolnshire Echo: “Every time I saw it in the grounds of a local farm I thought it looked like a rocket, so I used it as the base for the replica.”

The model, now being used as a plaything for children, cost a few hundred pounds and includes old car seats and 17 baked bean cans for a back burner.

A BRIDE IDEA: Bride Marie Edgar spent hours choosing her wedding dress, the cake, the flowers and all the other details that make for a perfect day. But when it came to her transport only one thing would do … the number 84 First Great Western bus.

The bus stops right outside Marie’s house and she catches it all the time, but family were amazed when she said she wanted to use it on the day she married Michael Carr at Tavistock register office, the Plymouth Evening Herald reported.

Marie’s family decorated the bus with white ribbons ready for Marie, in her full-length white wedding gown to ride into town with her bridesmaids.

RUGBY HERO TACKLES NEW LINE: Exeter’s Express & Echo has run a profile of former county schoolboy John Scott who became a rugby hero playing for Cardiff and as captain of England. He helped to win the historic 1980 Grand Slam, but now enjoys life out of the limelight – running an embroidery business.

NUTTY SLACK DASH: A crowd of 2,000 watched as 27 men and five women dashed through a Yorkshire village with sacks of coal on their backs.

The annual World Coal Carrying Championships in Gawthorpe, Wakefield, drew contestants from as far away as Scotland, the Yorkshire Evening Post reported.

John Hunter retained his title in the men’s race, completing the 1,012-metre course with a 50kg load of nutty slack in four minutes, 25 seconds, while women’s champ Julia Knight reached the line with her 25kg cargo in five minutes, eight seconds.

MOVE OVER, CHARLIE DIMMOCK: Grandmother Edna Hughes left behind a wilderness when she went into hospital – and came out to a dream garden.

Edna’s five children and 11 grandchildren leapt out to surprise her with a garden transformed in the style of TV’s Ground Force when she returned to her home in Erdington, West Midlands, after a knee operation.

“I could not believe my eyes,” the 79-year-old told the Birmingham Evening Mail. “I have always been saying how my garden needs a make-over and they just decided to do it.”

TOYTOWN TOUCHDOWN: A life-sized Dalek is among attractions at Lincoln’s Incredibly Fantastic Old Toy Show.

Toys from the space age have been added to the annual show at ther city’s Westgate museum to mark the new Millennium. The Lincolnshire Echo reported that a Meccano robot and 17th-century wooden toys from Germany were also among the exhibits by curator Ross Hutchinson, who has been collecting toys since childhood.

BOG OFF! IS THAT ART?: From the pages of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle comes the news that the toilets in five city centre pubs are the settings for a bizarre new art exhibition.

Organisers from Newcastle University are keen to promote artists and take art out of galleries and to a wider audience. They decided pub toilets were an obvious venue: “because everybody will see them”. Nine British artists have submitted exhibits, paintings and murals for the show which runs until May 1.

PEEVED PEACOCK GETS THE BIRD: Nelson the peacock has been given the cold shoulder by his mate Emma since the two bird brains made a dash for freedom from an East Devon animal sanctuary, the Express & Echo in Exeter has revealed.

The pair were all lovey-dovey before their escape and subsequent capture. Emma was returned to Little Farm, near Honiton after a few days on the run, but Nelson was at large for more than 10 days. Since the lovebirds were reunited, Emma has refused to have anything to do with Nelson despite a lot of bold strutting about in full plumage by him in a bid to win her back. A worker at the sanctuary said: “We think Emma was so upset at losing her partner for so long that she has called off the love affair….we hope love will conquer all in the end.”

ON YOUR TRIKE: Parish councillors in the beautiful Cotswold village of Lower Slaughter have tried to stop the Trike Ice Company selling ice cream cones on the banks of the River Eye because the tricycle is not “picturesque”.

The Gloucestershire Echo, which reported the story, reminded its readers that this is the same parish council which banned village visitors from having barbeques because of the smell.

The tricycle-riding ice cream sellers, who have worked in the village – and nearby Bourton-on-the-Water and Cheltenham – for 10 years have had their trading licence renewed by the Cotswold District Council despite the objections.

PARTY TIME IN MANCHESTER: It was not surprising that the Easter Monday edition of the Manchester Evening News splashed on the celebrations in and around Old Trafford when Manchester United took the premiership title for the sixth time in eight incredible years.

But amid the pages of words, pictures and comment there was a reminder, on page two, that Manchester City is also on the verge of thrilling times. Twelve-year-old Chris Grimshaw was pictured after he led his heroes in blue out on to the
pitch as their mascot. Chris won the honour in an Evening News competition. He saw city beat Tranmere 2-0 to keep alive their hopes of automatic promotion to the Premier League.

MAD TO LIVE THERE: The bizarre former home of a millionaire with links to the Raving Loony Party is on the market.

But would-be occupiers of 49 George Street, Hastings, will be expected to live there without changing the decor, which includes fur-lined walls and a foyer painted entirely in black.

The “labyrinth of palatial splendour” that lurks behind the innocuous-looking front door was laid bare in a Brighton Argus feature on the home of the late health food tycoon Lord Tiverton – a friend of Screaming Lord Sutch and Cynthia Payne – who was renowned for his wild parties. The house includes an Arabian Nights-style bedroom, a first-floor swimming pool and a gold-trimmed glass lift.

BETTER LATE:A drug dealer has been brought to justice – 11 years after his arrest.

The Liverpool Echo reported that the 43-year-old man had been caught supplying cannabis in 1989 but failed to attend court in 1991 and then moved to Leeds where he “buried his head in the sand about the offence”. He finally appeared at Liverpool Crown Court and was fined £400.

BACON BUTTY GRILLING: Computer programmer Adam Huselbee was left with egg on his face when airport security staff forced him to open a mystery package in his briefcase.

Adam (24) was stopped at Birmingham Airport while on a business trip to Holland and asked to reveal what was in a foil-wrapped pack which had shown up on an X-ray machine.

He said there was only paperwork in his briefcase – but he’d reckoned without his mum, the Shropshire Star reported. She had made him his favourite bacon, egg and brown sauce sandwiches for a snack and had slipped them into his case as he sped out of their house in Halesowen.

NO DUCKING THE ISSUE: Council leader Robert Chambers made the pages of the Cambridge Evening News when he raised the problem of homes…for ducks.

He appealed to News readers to take in ducks which live on the overcrowded Swan Meadow car park pond in Saffron Walden. “There are so many of them that they are getting run over by cars. There are also double the number of drakes to ducks and drakes tend to kill the ducklings because they get jealous,” said Councillor Chambers, leader of Uttlesford District Council.

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