A professional reveals the most effective tricks of the trade, from a little bit of empathy to hi-tech cameras
I’ve run into volatile thieves for years – from opportunistic phone snatchers to people ripping computers off desks and biofuel bandits trying to steal vats of used cooking oil – and every time I file an incident report, I try to make a recommendation for preventive measures.
It’s safer to try to avoid a situation where things get physical with a suspected criminal. I don’t want to let my employers down, but I also don’t want anyone to have to go to hospital – myself included.
Social media-driven craze puts ‘squishies’ up there with evergreen favourites such as Lego and Barbie, Hamleys says
A cartoonish banana so addictively squidgy that it is “really difficult to put down” is tipped to be among the must-have toys this Christmas, according to expert buyers at Hamleys.
The £10 “slow-rise, squeezable, sensory” fruit taps into the “squishies” craze that is fuelling a high street boom in toy sales. In the coming weeks, Hamleys expects to sell thousands of the Big Squij toys, which come in a variety of food and animal shapes filled with a flour-based compound.
From ‘has flat buttocks’ to ‘likes brunettes with muscles’, the retailer’s About You pages offer some remarkable insights into customers’ lives and tastes. Naturally, I rushed to check out mine …
By their fruits shall ye know them, if by “fruits” you mean compression socks, shapewear, cat carriers and self-help guides. Obviously, this is bad, but it’s a well-deserved kind of bad – we’ve sacrificed privacy for convenience and this is the result. It’s also bleakly funny, so just as obviously, I was over there like a ferret up a trouser leg to find out what the stuff Amazon has delivered here over the years has caused it to deduce about my household. The results were disappointing. You don’t need a particularly sophisticated algorithm to deduce “likely lives in York”; “feeds wild birds consistently” (not in summer! I follow RSPB guidance!) and “cycles recreationally” (absolutely not, but I live with a multi-bike-owning MAMNILYBOROD – that’s “middle-aged man not in Lycra yet because of risk of divorce”).
Welcome to Halloweenmas, weeks of themed fun and gifts – from costume parties to decorating trees – without the stress, rules or cost of Christmas
The tree is up, the wreath is hanging on the front door and you’ve just opened your advent calendar. All told, it’s beginning to feel a lot like … Halloween.
If it sounds like the stuff of nightmares then that’s the point: Britons are increasingly decorating their homes with ghoulish versions of Christmas traditions. Think of it as Halloweenmas.
Service to be tested in Spain and Portugal this year, with a UK rollout if successful, as pre-loved markets boom
Ikea is to test an online version of its buy-back service where the retailer offers vouchers for unwanted secondhand furniture.
The service will be tested in Spain and Portugal before the end of December and will be launched in the UK if it proves successful. Ikea already offers buy-back in stores, including in the UK. The online version will extend it to a much wider audience, with Ikea predicting pre-owned goods are likely to grab 16% of the UK homewares market by next year
Shares in fashion company fall nearly 10% after its app systems are accessed by ‘unidentified third party’
Asos is investigating unauthorised access to its app system after shoppers received a notification claiming hackers had “fully compromised” its data.
The online fashion retailer said basic personal information including name and contact details might have been accessed by an unidentified third party but it did not believe payment card records or passwords had been compromised.
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