Hello and welcome to todays Levy Letter for Thursday. I hope youre having a good week. Its good to be back on Look North after a couple of days off. I hope you can join me for the programme tonight at half past six on BBC One. Well be asking if smokers should be prevented from having operations and medical procedures. We'll have the story of a young father of two from Lincolnshire who says he's been refused surgery because he can't kick the habit.
A staggering seventy two per cent of adults in Hull don't even have the most basic literacy qualification. We'll have the story of a woman from the city who finally learnt to read when she was over 40. On World Book Day she'll tell us how becoming a reader has changed her life. The Duchess of York is in our area to do some filming for a documentary where she helps a family on a city estate transform their bad eating habits. We'll have an interview with the Duchess. And Cleethorpes is to get its very own newspaper. Find out more about the launch of the Cleethorpes Chronicle tonight. And well have Paul with the weather forecast as usual. Its not looking too bad from Hull, hopefully well start to see some warmer and brighter days from now on. Thats all coming up on Look North from half past six on BBC One. I hope you can join me then. House Prices According to the UKs biggest mortgage lender, house prices in Britain are continuing to slow down. Prices fell 0.3% in February, with the average house price now resting at £196,649. When I remember back to times that dont seem so long ago, that figure is still astonishing. Apparently the property market in this country has seen a significant decline in activity during the past year, although the big lenders are predicting the market will cool but not plunge through the floor. Thats good news for those who have invested in property, but maybe the housing market isnt the guaranteed money making opportunity we all thought it was. Happiness Well if you read the news, or the Levy Letter regularly youll know that finding medical ways to enhance or explain our happiness levels is something of a modern obsession. Theres some more research in the news this week which claims that our genes have a strong influence in how happy we feel throughout life. A study at Edinburgh University of twins has established that as much as half of the personality traits to do with happiness may be genetic. The other half is down to more obvious things like lifestyle, career, and relationships. The study compared genetically identical twins with non-identical fraternal twins to see what effect genetics had on mood, and discovered some startling results. However, if you think you might be predisposed to unhappiness, dont worry because you can train yourself to be more content. Experts say that although our range of happiness may be affected by genetics, we can still influence our position within that range with psychologically proven techniques. Some of these techniques include writing down your strengths and using them in news ways every day, or keeping a journal where you regularly record three things youre grateful for. So if youre down in the dumps, dont blame it all on genetics and you can start improving your mood by picking up a pen and paper. If you watched the programme from yesterday youll have seen our story on a couple who were treated as a terrorist threat after they tried to take a picture inside the St Stephens shopping centre. We had a huge response to this story with almost everybody coming out on the side of the amateur photographers. Thank you for the messages we had on that. If we get time in the programme tonight I might mention some of them. Dont forget to get in touch with us if you have any comments on our stories, or any new stories you think we could be interested in. You can always reach us on our email address at [EMAIL PROTECTED] And if you dont get to watch the programme live and want to see what all the fuss is about you can always see the latest Look North and the top stories on our website. Visit www.bbc.co.uk/looknorthhull and youll be able to keep up with our local news whenever and wherever you like. Well thats about it from me for today, dont forget to watch Look North if you can at half past six tonight on BBC One. I hope you have a very good day, take care. Bye for now Peter And for the latest news and more where you live, go to: http://bbc.co.uk/humber and http://bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the BBC Look North newsletter, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/looknorthhull/newsletter/newsletter_index.shtml, enter your email address in the unsubscribe box. 1.94.4
