Thursday, November 12
Author: Caitlin Rooney
Caitlin Rooney
Caitlin Rooney has been covering Greater Manchester for the best part of a decade. She started at a local paper in Salford, moved to digital, and spent three years on the housing and planning beat before going independent. She has sat through more council cabinet meetings than she cares to count and still reads the planning portal on her phone. She writes about transport, housing, devolution, policing, and the daily grind of how a city actually runs. She has a particular interest in who benefits from regeneration and who gets moved along by it. Caitlin lives in Chorlton. She thinks the Metrolink is both Manchester's best and worst infrastructure, and does not trust anyone who calls the city centre "town".
The owner of fashion brands Hobbs, Phase Eight and Whistles has been struck by a TFG London cyber attack, with customers receiving warning emails and the company confirming its investigation remains ongoing. Manchester Evening News reported the incident, which affects TFG London, the UK subsidiary of South African retail group The Foschini Group. The Manchester city centre Hobbs store remains open as normal, the company says, though some customers may notice disruption online. What happened and when According to ITPro, a TFG London spokesperson confirmed the incident was identified on 11 October 2026, affecting IT systems across its Phase Eight,…
The Ganni Lululemon dance collection is officially announced, a 22-piece collaboration rooted in ’80s dancing culture and the simple idea that the best workout you can do is one that feels like a night out. It lands on 15 October.The origin story is disarmingly straightforward. Lululemon global creative director Jonathan Cheung says it is standard practice at the brand to ask new team members how they like to move. When conversations with Ganni turned toward a joint project, he put the same question to Ganni creative director Ditte Reffstrup. Her answer: dancing. Everything followed from there.How the Ganni Lululemon Dance…
The Samsung Galaxy Tab A11+ deal currently on Amazon knocks $81.50 off the list price, bringing the 128GB model down to $218.49, 27% off $299.99, with Prime Day winding up. If you have been sitting on the fence, the window is closing.It is not the flashiest tablet on the market, but the Galaxy Tab A11+ has earned solid reviews and the specs are genuinely usable for most of what people actually do on a tablet day to day.What You Get for the MoneyThe centrepiece is an 11-inch display running at a 90Hz refresh rate, which gives scrolling and video a…
When money is tight, ordinary purchasing choices can start to feel unmanageable. Where a budget has barely any slack, an unexpected buy can look instantly pressing, and the household may sense there is no space to stop and think the purchase over before parting with the money. For some families, the result can fuel bouts of panic spending, an endless reliance on credit, and growing difficulty keeping pace with the sums owed, all of which lifts the risk of landing in financial distress. Breaking the habit of panic spending seldom calls for a family’s money arrangements to be redesigned wholesale.…
The Mike Flanagan Carrie series arrives with eight episodes, a Vancouver shoot wrapped between June and October 2025, and the weight of Stephen King’s most enduringly relevant novel behind it. If you want something to watch while you wait, or something to pair with it once it lands, the shows below cover the same bruising terrain (bullying, power, revenge, and the specific misery of being young and powerless) from angles that range from South Korean slow-burn to Jordanian private-school drama to a murderous doll in small-town America.What We Know About the Mike Flanagan Carrie SeriesAccording to Variety, the project was…
The Ring Smart Lock Power Dial is the headline feature of Ring’s first-ever smart lock, due to land in the first quarter of 2027, and its core idea is straightforward enough that you’ll wonder why nobody did it sooner. If the battery dies completely, you turn a built-in dial on the keypad for a few seconds, generate just enough charge to run the electronics, and the door opens. No spare key, no fake rock in the garden, no locksmith at midnight. Ring, owned by Amazon, has spent years making video doorbells a household fixture. Smart locks are a different proposition,…
Amazon’s Samsung Prime Big Deal Days discounts are already live ahead of the sale’s official 6-7 October window, with cuts across Galaxy phones, OLED and Neo QLED televisions, Odyssey gaming monitors, Q-Series soundbars, smartwatches, and earbuds. Some of the steepest reductions take as much as $700 off a TV, while several monitors have dropped to record-low prices, according to price trackers.Worth flagging before diving in: TechTimes reports that the headline phone prices are exclusive to Amazon Prime members. Without a membership, the Galaxy S26 Ultra, for example, lists at $1,299.99 on Amazon, or $1,399.99 at Samsung and Best Buy. Keep…
The Bose QuietComfort Ultra deal worth paying attention to this Prime Day: the second-generation over-ear headphones have dropped to $369 from $449 on Amazon, which price trackers confirm is their lowest price to date. That $80 reduction makes a pair that was already well-regarded a more straightforward call.The timing matters, too. Competition in the premium headphone space has sharpened this year, with models like Sony’s WH-1000XM6 pressing harder than before. An $80 discount on Bose’s flagship does some useful work in that context.What Has Actually Changed in the Second GenerationOn the outside, the differences are subtle. Bose has kept the…
The SimpliSafe 12-piece security kit is down to $159.99 during Amazon’s October Prime Day sale, cut from $339.99, a discount of nearly $180 and, according to price trackers, its lowest recorded price. For a home security starter pack, it covers a reasonable amount of ground straight out of the box.The kit includes a base station, a keypad, five entry sensors, two motion sensors, a key fob, a panic button, and a SimpliCam indoor camera. That’s enough hardware to cover a front door, a back door, and three windows, with the two motion sensors free to watch a hallway and a…
The Xteink X4 Pro pocket e-reader is currently on sale for $89, down $10 from its usual $99, making it one of the cheapest e-readers available right now that comes with both a front light and a touchscreen. The discount is running as part of Prime Big Deal Days, though the X4 Pro does not carry an official Prime Deal tag.It is a niche bit of kit, no question. A screen roughly the size of a credit card is not going to suit every reader. But for anyone who has ever wished their e-reader could disappear into a jacket pocket,…
The Kindle Prime Day deals now running across Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days sale arrive at a moment that makes them more consequential than usual: Amazon recently raised prices on its entire Kindle range, meaning the discounts on offer right now are essentially clawing back increases that many buyers will not even have clocked yet. The sale ends tomorrow night.According to Gizmodo, every one of Amazon’s e-reader models has jumped in price by an average of 28%, driven by what the outlet calls the RAM crisis. The specifics are stark: the standard Kindle (16GB) moved from $110 to $150, the…
A first Bingo win often feels bigger than expected. Numbers land in your favor, your card starts filling up, the required pattern lines up, and the round ends with a result that makes the game seem simple. For beginners exploring bingo games on GameZone, that early success can spark a persuasive idea: maybe it wasn’t just luck, maybe skill is kicking in. That confidence is common, but it can become costly when it pushes players to adjust their spending, extend playtime, or take larger risks than they planned. Why one win can feel like “I’m good at this” A win…
