A week of news - from Stretford to Melbourne

It has been a busy few days on the Optician news desk as stories flowed in from different sides of the globe. Even the closure of Sunday tabloid the News of the World managed to find the news pages.

Developments spanned from the fallout of optical practices in TJ Hughes department stores, to Australia's government dropping optometry down the pecking order of skilled occupations the country needs to import.

Each of these tales will become clearer in Friday's edition, but it was the collapse of department store TJ Hughes that demanded most care and attention.

Having gone into administration last month along with a number of other well-known high street names, the fate of the retailer's Specialeyes optical practices was a concern to this news desk.