ICMYI: Read all our weekly columns here

This week Donald Combe gets hooked on House M.D., Penny Coles tells us The Local is looking for members for our new advisory board, Owen Bjorgan asks why we can't put efforts into creating more urban jungles in the region, Ben Foster is back in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and tennis inspires this week's Ricky Rap.

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A Niagara Falls underpass on a bike path, with good examples of woodsy areas along it, despite being surrounded by suburbs and industrial lands. Owen Bjorgan

Each week we collect the contributions from our regular columnist as they appeared on notllocal.com and bring them to you in this post, just in case you missed them.

What would happen if we turned our urban areas into urban jungles?

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Owen Bjorgan takes an urban bike ride and ponders the many areas of land that fall into an awkward in-between label of doing something, yet nothing useful, not housing people or growing food, its habitat quality barely a discussion. Why not start turning some of these places into urban jungles. It wouldn't take much to plant native vegetation and attract wildlife back to a livable habitat. READ OWEN'S SUGGESTIONS HERE

NOTL Local needs advice from our readers

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We love to do our job, bringing you the news and events happening in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and we would really appreciate your help. We are forming an advisory council to provide our editorial staff with some suggestions as to what they would like to see on notllocal.com. With September marking a "new beginning" for many, perhaps you would consider acting as our sounding board. FIND OUT MORE HERE

View from the Couch: A review of House M.D.

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It's one of the most-watched television series of all-time, and it introduced the multi-talented UK native (check out his 2011 album Let Them Talk on Spotify) Hugh Laurie to many in North America. House M.D. is worth watching again and again to take in Laurie's prickly, objectionable, brutally honest manner as the title character, says Donald Combe. READ HIS REVIEW HERE

Where's Ben? He is back home from his visit to the UK this week

The Local received a number guesses as to Ben's whereabouts while watching a soccer game in the UK. It was a tough one, as he was actually watching the Bromley FC, known as The Clarets. Now that he's back home, he has taken some time from his study of Economics at Brock University to start travelling around NOTL once more. Tell us where you think Ben is this week. GO TO WHERE'S BEN HERE

Ricky Rap: Is it the end of summer or the start of the next journey?

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In the sports world, events such as golf tournaments, the Grey Cup, the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup final and others can mark the end of a season and a new beginning. For NOTL's Rick Mills, one of those events is the U.S. Open Tennis tournament. Find out how that tournament and a former competitor in it inspired THIS WEEK'S RICKY RAP.