I like to think that the disembodied head that perspires at the top of this column is an artistic interpretation rather than a true likeness of the author. But it is broadly accurate. I am a four-eyed git.
Have been since the age of 15, always will be. Laser surgery holds no attraction. Nor do contact lenses. All that fussing about with solutions late at night and crawling around on the bathroom floor until you find the stupid thing stuck to the side of the lavatory. Anway, after all these years I’d look ridiculous without glasses.
That’s not to say that I don’t also look ridiculous with glasses. In the past few weeks my eye furniture has been, shall we say, distinctive.
Serious punishment was inflicted upon my glasses by my children. My nine-month-old daughter liked to wrench them off. My three-year-old did the same. The latter’s intention was less endearing, born of a desire to defy and aggravate the old man and then make a careful study of his reactions as he groped around on the floor, cursing, trying to find them again. Let us not dwell on that particular battle. The result was that the specs were fixed so often that the threads no longer properly held the screws. The lenses developed a disconcerting habit of popping out of the frames. Sometimes this happened when I was trying to conduct a serious interview or, on one occasion, when I was attempting to deliver a solemn complaint about the food in a restaurant. It is possible that at such times my gravitas was not enhanced.
Eventually I had to bin the battered specs and wear my spares. These caused quite a stir. It is unlikely that such an outsized pair of glasses has been seen since Sunnie Mann, wife of the Beirut hostage Jackie Mann, was on TV in the late 1980s. That doesn’t mean anything to you? OK. Think Damian Edna Everage.
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I lost them. This was, arguably, a blessing, as it forced me to go to the optician. But it also meant I had to wear sunglasses all the time for a few days. The shades are a dozen years old, dating from a (momentary) lapse in taste when I thought it would be great to have tortoiseshell frames. The lenses are also at least two prescriptions too old and so not terribly effective. After dark I looked particularly cool. Soon my eyes were so strained and I was making such a nuisance of myself bumping into people on the Tube that in desperation I wore my original glasses again, bound together with a paper clip. I was sent to interview teenagers about virginity. On top of feeling like the oldest creep in the world as I quizzed them about their sex lives I had to try to ignore the “whoa! what is this dude wearing?” expressions on their faces.
My wife gave me strict instructions not to come back from the optician with anything remotely controversial. She believes that the choices of eyewear I have made in the past have confirmed my short-sightedness. She has a point. I look at our wedding photographs and am genuinely astonished that she agreed to marry a man sporting gear apparently purloined from Jodrell Bank Observatory.
I rejected thick, conspicuous meeja lenses: too Nick Robinson-esque. I ruled out anything without a frame: who wants to look like a new Labour junior minister? I wanted nothing too sleek. Or too big. I played safe with rectangular-ish, gunmetal frames.
When I left the shop the pavement rose up and tried to smack me in the face. I had difficulty negotiating steps. But I gradually adapted to having lenses clear of scratches, fingerprints and baby vomit. It was a small revelation to find that humans can see people on the other side of the road.
So far no one has commented on my new look. I’m assuming that this means my choice of frames was a safe, good one. Or a very, very bad one.
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damian.whitworth@thetimes.co.uk