Morning:
8°c
Unlike J Alfred Prufrock I have measured out my life not in coffee spoons, but in spectacles.
We in the bespectacled fraternity can remember all our glasses perdus (and we have perdued quite a few over the years). Detested pink NHS ones at primary school: teasing included. John Lennon round specs for student years, foray into tortoiseshell librarian look for first job. Armani ones bought on honeymoon. Resort to sensible budget ones after the toddlers wreaked revenge on a string of designer frames.
I crossed an ocular Rubicon this week when it became clear (or rather not) that the sight in one eye had reached such blurry proportions that my three-year-old was shouting "You're reading it all wrong!" during a story. One blonde colleague looked like another if I shut my right eye.
Eye tests are pure nostalgia largely unaltered down the years. "Do the black spots look sharper to you with this smeared lens - or that fingerprinted one?" I never escape the feeling that I can get the answer wrong. "Does that make sense?" I ask the optometrist, "Oh everyone gives contradictory replies," she says.
How do we ever get the right lenses then? Best not dwell on it.
And have you seen the state of frames these days? Designers have decided that we must all relish hefty oblong geometrics. They look good on edgy architects and sexy Italian women. The rest of us look like Ronnie Barker.
In despair, I consult a style guru who tells me that the in place for people who care how they look in their specs is tucked away in the upper reaches of Selfridges fourth floor.
Their David Clulow boutique is a secret haven for the blurry among us. This, I realise, is my first "grown up" spectacles consultation. I hanker for outsized Chanels that make me look like a giant fly.
"Do you like wearing spectacles?" asks their consultant. Of course I don't. I'd rather resign than have them on in a byline picture. So we head for rimless, which I have previously broken because you can't see them, especially without your glasses on.
The rimless geeks de jour are Lindbergs which the adviser treats with reverence as a thing of beauty. They are. Fine glass, wings in delicate colours, almost otherwordly. More than £300 just for the frames but hard to resist. Divide price by each time you wear them - advanced femaleomics.
Need back up though. So add a sturdy acetate pair at about half the price. Cat woman stares back at me. Frames slanting jauntily upwards. "The cat look is very in for '09."
A whole new world of design, style and wild expense opens up. I can see clearly now, not to say dearly, but I have the vision thing.
