I've never claimed to be spectacular, but today I am completely unspectacled. Fatigue has finally overcome the frame of one of my lenses, which now has a tendency to dangle uselessly (I know how it feels).

Ah well, they had a good innings, and a new sight test was long overdue; but although my prescription hasn't changed much, it still involves varifocal lenses that will take a time to produce. Christmas will be viewed through more of a sentimental haze than usual.

Fortunately, I seem to have become a little more longsighted, which means managing without glasses isn't a great problem for immediate survival, reading or using the computer. However, once out of the house, I'm struck every now and again by a momentary panic, as my brain registers that something is missing, and that not everything in my field of vision is immediately comprehensible. Is this what old age will be like?

What's more, watching TV without my glasses is less than satisfactory, so in the comfort and privacy of home I shall be looking like a refugee from the 1940s, with the lenses held in approximate relationship to each other by an elaborate but precarious arrangement of sticky tape. Don't all laugh.