April 2008 Archives

Readers of Optician will no doubt appreciate the careful blend of features published each issue; a delicate balance of the clinical and the topical, the far-reaching and the fashionable. Such perfection does not come easily and the consistently high standard achieved over the past year or two can be credited to one woman: Shannon McKenzie.

Unfortunately for you, the reader, Shannon has returned to the sunny land down-under, where she is no doubt throwing another shrimp on the barbie, drinking Fosters, wrestling crocs and participating in untold other activities that we insist on stereotyping our antipodeans cousins with. So you are now stuck with me, Mike Hale, the new Features Editor.

Seriously though, I would like to wish Shannon well with her continuing career as a journalist and thank her for leaving the features list packed with interesting and informative pieces for the coming months. I’ll be doing my very best to continue her good work.

Over the next couple of months I’ll be blogging on my thoughts and first impressions of the optical industry, hopefully with the sort of insight exclusive to the naïve and innocent.

At the awards last week I was impressed by the glamorous representatives of the trade (confounding mine and host Ardal O'Hanlon’s preconceptions) and was pleased many of the people I spoke to expressed a genuine affection for my new publication.

If any one has any thoughts or suggestions on the features in the magazine please get in touch via mike.hale@rbi.co.uk and anyone who still misses Shannon may well get the chance to move to Australia in the near future with Specsaver’s planned expansion - more on that in the magazine soon.

Surgeons at Moorfields eye hospital have successfully implanted devices into the eyes of blind patients suffering from the disease the disease retinitis pigmentosa. Click here for full story.

The devices known as Argus II receive a wireless signal transmitted from a camera on a pair of glasses. It is not known whether the devices - implanted into the eyes of two men in their fifties – will help the patients to see better, but they were both recovering well from their operations.

Although the trials continue into bionic eyes are very good news for sufferers of retinitis pigmentosa, news that they are being carried out may come as a disappointment to the scores of computer gamers hungrily scouring the internet in hope of more developments about a very different ‘bionic’ eye. However there is in actual fact nothing bionic about the contact lenses imprinted with circuit boards they hope will revolutionise their computer gaming experience in the non-foreseeable future.

With just minutes before 500 plus Optician Awards guests flood into the Ballroom of the Hilton Hotel Park Lane this is the scene.
The night was a fantastic success which you can read all about online or in next week's Optician. I would like to thank everyone who entered the Awards. When the DVD arrives I'll post it up on You Tube for those who couldn't make the ceremony.

Specsavers has been pretty consistent in its ability to make TV ads that capture the public's attention.
'Should have gone to Specsavers' has become a national catch phrase while the latest Thunderbirds offering ( you can watch the video here) has been getting coverage all over the place.
This is nothing new for the Specsavers' creative team which has recieved positive responses to many of its ads.
Of course there are a few misses. The Guardian can't help mentioning one of the latest Specsavers offerings before careering off down another one of its self indulgent cul de sac ( oh sorry that's French too), the reference is somewhat perjorative.

Lots of Ironman training to do, take Henry for a walk, learn my Optician Awards night speech and get my broad beans in ( yes I know it's late). Last week the plot was under four inches of snow, next weekend it is the Optician Awards, after that more training etc etc.
So how about combining all four. Who says men can't multi-task. I even had time for tea in the greenhouse listneing to the first Cuckoo of Spring.

Our clincial editor is often mistaken for Francis Rossi of status Quo but he has decided to expand his repetoire of looky-likees.

His lastest attemp is to..........

My Ironman training was interrupted at the weekend by the crazy weather.
So, like you do, I went off to the local slopes with my sons and Henry (the dog) for a bit of winter fun.
As the wind swept across the hills I struck up a conversation with a nice chap sporting a pair of ski goggles. Slightly over the top I thought until he informed me that 'the cold can damage the eyes you know'.
If I hadn't have been off duty I might have impressed him with my knowledge of snow ophthalmia. And anyway my youngest needed a push.

I was recently asked to peruse a list of job titles various users of Optician's website had input when registering.
I took delivery of the list thinking that few few people may have strayed from the usual Optometrist, Dispensing Optician, CLO, OMP etc. Throw in a few non-optical folk, account for spelling mistakes and perhaps there might be a list of 30 or even 50 titles to sort.

Go on have a guess........