What makes a local story take flight? How do two very separate local papers pick up on the same inconsequential story?
Narrow boat built for mechanic's retirement - Falmouth & Penryn Packet
There was an unusual sight in Carnkie this morning as the 60ft long, 15 tonne narrow boat was craned onto a lorry at R & G Motors before it was transported to the Llangollen canal in Shropshire.
Richard Smalley, 58, of Belle Vue, Penryn, has spent the past four years building the boat in preparation for his retirement from his job as mechanic.
Setting sail on a DIY boat - Shropshire Star
Building a 14-tonne narrowboat from scratch has been no easy feat - but Richard Smalley and Wendy Norledge are determined to set sail on the Whitchurch canal in time for Wendy’s 60th birthday.
The couple, who have spent the last four years building the boat at their Cornwall home, were at Whitchurch Marina today to see their boat Just Do It launched for the first time.
The boat's mysteriously lost a ton since it left Cornwall. But more impressively, in the Shropshire Star story it's gained a good few photographs.
Yet on the surface there's not much to mark out Just Do It from Pickles, Lyra, or a bunch of other self-built boats.
Except that Pickles and Lyra have blogs.
How did Just Do It get press coverage in two separate local newspapers? I'm a PR guy, so I'm curious. Did they try? Did they have a technique, or was it magic?
I'm curious about Richard Smalley too. His namesake was the Nobel Prizewinning discoverer of buckminsterfullerene, which is often found in soot. Which itself, in turn, is often found in narrowboat chimneys.
I'd like to find out more about Just Do It.
They should just do it, they should start a blog, like Pickles and Lyra. And Sanity and Bones and Maffi, and No Problem, and Cosmos, and Blackbird and Epiphany, and a whole bunch of other bloggers. A blog reaches all online boaters.
Which boaters read a local newspaper?
I like it and the background and colors make it easy to readh
Posted by: Maggy | Thursday, 01 January 2009 at 12:18 AM
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