Boxing Day sales are always going to be popular with those who like to be thrifty and get more for their Christmas money, but the scenes at Manchester’s Trafford Centre and the Arndale Centre were quite chaotic to say the least.

Some people had queued up overnight to be first in line for the bargains, and the video on the Manchester Evening News website shows how thousands of people rushed to get into stores like Next, Selfridges and Topshop once the shops finally opened up.

If you are looking to get good value, it may now be safe to venture out again. While you may not be able to get the heavily-discounted products that were first available when the sales started, at least you can have your sanity intact instead!

I recently read about Manchester being rated quite highly in a global survey to find the best place to live.

The rankings by the Economist Intelligence Unit put Manchester in 42nd place out of 140 of the world’s major cities.

As someone who has lived in the area all my life I am quite proud that it is well thought of as a city, but in some ways I wonder how it got to be placed above the likes of New York City, London and Rome.

It is certainly better than a lot of other cities, but as a place for tourists to come and visit, I’m not sure it has all that to offer.