When I first saw this story about a young man being shot for a pair of Cartier sunglasses I thought it had to be a one off. Think again.
This story about a lad shot for rusfusing to hand over his sunglasses while leaving a night club is truly shocking, unless you live in Detroit where between 15 and 20 people have been shot for their sunglasses in the last year alone.
My first week back from the Alpe d'Huez triathlon was a bit of a blur. Everyone seems to be on hopliday at the moment ( as was I) which makes life harder for those of us left at home.
As my second week started I had a few of interesting telephone calls.
The first was Radio Scotland asking for Optician to field someone to be interviewed about the phenomenon of Lady Gaga contact lenses. Youngsters are buying oversized lenses online and wearing them without any aftercare advice apparently. The other call was to alerted Optician to a radio Four You and Yours piece on more transparency for the eye test. We also had news that over the weekend the Eyecare Trust had appeared to say that buying online could be an OK thing to do if you have a simple prescription.
I wonder if any of the above could be connected?
Hot on the heels of the news that burglars are using social media networking site like Facebook and Twitter to target housholds.
It seems that posting the wrong thing online could also hamper your chances of landing a job. A report from the US found that a massive seven out of ten employers had rejected candidates on the strength of something a candidate had posted online.
Be warned. LOL
I've nearly always worked on weekly magazines so publishing a book is a bit of a culture shock.
But that is excatly what Optician has done. I now have in my hand a lovely little book on Glaucoma based on the recent series and featuring all of the latest advice from NICE.
As a weekly journalist the lead times do take a bit of getting used to. The book has been over a year in the making. Even the foreword took about a month to secure.
Seeing it in the flesh, so to speak, is still satisfying.
All I need to do now is decide on the topic for the next one.
Copies are available for £30 + £3.95 P&P from Optician.
I used to know a really good European joke about what if the French cooked and made love like they drive. It ran through all the nationalities and as ever the UK was the butt of the joke.
These days of course we are all European so it's only fitting that the heads of all of the European optical manufacturers' trade bodies met in Brussels for lunch recently to discuss. Driving and eye sight.
The Italians revealed that 59% of road accidents have a visual causal link while of France's 40 million drivers 8 million have a under or uncorrected visual problem. With eyesight like that I don't think either nationality could find the kitchen or the bedroom for that matter.
It may be the economic situation or it may just be a coincidence but there appears to be a lot of optical crime going on at the moment. One practitioner I recently spoke to said she understood the opportunist sunglass theif but what about the opticals?
These thefts look increasingly ochestrated with theives going for the good stuff and leaving everything else alone. If the frames are being stolen to order there must be a practice somewhere that is recieving the stolen frames and having them glazed and selling them at proper prices.
There was much scratching of heads in the Optician office as the Chancellor was delivering the budget speech but it appeared that our readers knew something we didn't.
On the morning of budget Tuesday two different people phoned to place advertisements for practices for sale. What do they know ??
If they were looking to beat the capital gains tax deadlines they will have been sorely disapppointed.
Transitions and Vision Express took to the streets, well parks, of London this week for the latest bit of marketing. One of the great things about this sort of marketing is that it brings the optical industry directly in contact with the public. I noticed this thread on a cycling forum and it throws up some real gems about what the public have been told or think.
Great fun but hugely frustrating for the companies involved.
What I want to know is if opticians really say these things to patients or whether they are mis hearings or comments that have morphed over time.
It's interesting that varifocals have been cited as a cause of falls among the elderly. Optician has long been an advocate of linking eyesight and falls but it seems to be a topic that the care and health professions are powerless to address.
The logic is simple: Providing proper eyecare for the elderly is relatively cheap and simple, it provides older people with independence, keeps them in their own homes and happy.
Once an old person has fallen it often causes and injury which is both negatively life-changing, or ending for them, results in a long hospital stay and costs the NHS a lot of money.
Why there can't be joined up thinking in this area is a source of massive frustration to those who camapign on behalf of the elderly and a source of regret for those old people who fall because they can't see obstacles in their way.
It could be argued that those who have got as far as varifocals are being looked after while those who have yet to enjoy any eyecare at all are the ones really at risk.
