August 2008 Archives

Another staple optical debate to be tackled by the Optician office in the wake of going to print is the listing of famous monocle wearers.

Immediately obvious are Sir Patrick Moore and former boxer Chris Eubank.

Another monocled celebrity is Lord Bath who gained fame through turning his family seat into a safari park, popularised by the BBC television series Animal Park.

Another boxer to sport a monocle was Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter whose wrongful imprisonment became a cause celebre thanks to Bob Dylan's protest song The Hurricane.

The King of Tuvalu is also reputed to be a wearer.

Fictional characters memorable for their monocles include Batman's nemesis The Penguin and Colonel Clink of Hogan's Heroes.

On one occasion Sergeant Wilson in Dad's Army became a monocle-wearer by operating a slide projector while sporting one.

Afterwards in private, Captain Mainwaring threatened to stop Wilson wearing the monocle, but Wilson responded by threatening to tell everyone that Mainwaring wore arch supports for his feet.

Despite being sure that Allo Allo featured a few monocled cast members, we discovered that neither General von Klinkerhoffen or Herr Otto Flick wore a monocle.

Forgive me if this entry is a bit brief but I have already created it once and it disappeared into cyberspace so I'm not best pleased.

Anyway with all this Olympic hysteria going on and British people winning medals willy nilly it seems opticians are joining in.

Since the Optician Ironman foray the team members (pictured) don't seem to be able to stop.

Since the original event there have been fell races, triathlons, dragon boat racing and all sorts of things.

To round the season off I have asked some of the South East based members of the team to join me in the Crawley Late Summer Triathlon. This will please VAO's. Jeremy Jalie. Crawley is local to him so he won't have to do all of the travelling supporting the team has so far involved. with his help the team raised £7,500 for VAO. If you haven't donated you can here . If you are in the Crawley area come along to K2 on September 21st and cheer us on.

Olympic fever in the Optician office has moved to broader sporting conversation and an attempt to recall sportsmen who wear glasses while playing their sport.

Our list so far stands at New Zealand cricket captain, Daniel Vettori

Former Ajax, Juventus, Milan, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Tottenham and Holland midfield pitbull, Edgar Davids.

Horace Grant, a forward in the legendary Chicago Bulls team that included Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman.

And that's as far as we got aside from the rather predictable inclusions of former world snooker champion Dennis Taylor and former GB Olympic ski jumper Eddie the Eagle Edwards.

Still on the subject of photography, even opticians practices can provide plenty of photo opportunities, as demonstrated by the pictures below.

Any interesting photos of your own practice? Please email them to alex.thomas@rbi.co.uk

During my time working for Optician, I have spoken to a fair few practitioners for whom a passion for optometry has broadened to encompass another area of optics, photography.

It is these people who may find the following photoshop tutorial about how to design a contact lens of interest or may even find some practical application for it.