A week of news - so much for Twitter

Since last week's high street riots the news desk has been setting out to find out exactly how the profession was impacted.

A number of tweets later information was still sparse. The GOC expressed its sympathy for those affected, ABDO and Citizens Advice both issued security advice and Tesco Opticians said it was business as usual.

It was only through an old fashioned telephone call that we really got to the heart of the matter.

Optometrist Gurdeep Dhinsa left an answer machine message here saying his Birmingham city centre practice Montague Canin had been completely gutted during last week's mayhem.

Looters got away with frames, ophthalmoscopes and retinoscopes during a mindless raid of his practice, causing an estimated