It was back in the mid-nineties that I discovered I was short-sighted. It was when I was at a Star Trek convention with my cousin Samantha.

That’s right, you read correctly, a Star Trek convention.

I discovered that I had poor vision when we were sat in a hot, sweaty conference room with a few hundred fellow Trekkies at the Leicester Holiday Inn. We were sat listening to various luminaries giving entertaining talks about their time in the Star Trek universe. The charming George ‘Mr. Sulu’ Takei was present, as was the rather witty Max Grodénchik (Deep Space Nine’s half-wit Ferengi ‘Rom’) who had managed to win the audience’s adulation with a comedic re-enactment of Ferengi mating rituals.

At least that’s what I think happened, I couldn’t really make out what he was doing because I had difficulty seeing any great distance in front of me; the people sat in the rows of seats behind me had no problem interpreting Grodénchik’s spasmodic movements but I was clueless, seeing only what I could interpret as a short blurry human-shaped mass strutting across the stage making painful squealing noises. Not wishing to miss any other opportunities to witness minor celebrities make complete fools of themselves, I ensured that we sat near the front for the rest of the convention.

George Takei is very short in real life.

A week or so after the convention, an eye examination revealed that I was indeed short-sighted. I was forced to purchase a rather expensive pair of plain-looking spectacles and endure the sudden, yet predictable jibes from my friends and colleagues.

“Hey, four-eyes!”

“You speccy twat!”

Oh how we laughed!

Over a decade later my eyesight has not improved and the price of glasses has sky-rocketed. Those wrap-round Oakley reactive glasses may have looked the part, but with the frames costing £150 and the special lenses coming in at twice that amount some serious money had to be spent before 20-20 vision could be achieved. As I write this, I am having lunch in my favourite Swindon café (how bohemian) waiting for my new overpriced prescription spectacles to be made by the lovely people at Vision Express. As my prescription now features a ’0.50 prism’ on each eye, I need special lenses that are going to cost just shy of £200!

I think this’ll be the last time I’ll be able to eat at a café for a long while.

Or will it? Last year a colleague of mine introduced me to the concept of ordering glasses online. He’d purchased some specs from Glasses Direct for the princely some of £30. Sure, they weren’t a high-fashion pair with tinted lenses and infra-red night-vision, but they were very nice for the price. As someone who regularly breaks his glasses, either through the rough and tumble one receives working as a heating engineer or through the pain of slamming one’s face onto a quaint, cobbled Dublin street, £30 for a pair of throwaway glasses is a steal! So from now on I’m going to buy my extra specs online.

Oh, and as I now have a prism on each eye, does that mean you can shine a torch in my face an recreate the album cover to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon?

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