Framed! Nick Robinson

Those of you who have nothing better to do than watch TV in the evenings might know Nick Robinson as the political editor of BBC News.

What you might also have noticed is that Robinson has some of the best spectacles on TV, if not the planet.

Nick came to semi-famous status as a rather non-descript political correspondent of ITV news. Starting his career at the BBC in the 1980s, he returned in November of last year to replace Andrew Marr.

If you really paid attention, you might know that Nick's previous pair of ITV spectacles looked like they had come from the most irrelevant collection ever conceived, so painstakingly dull that one might be forgiven for thinking he was an accountant.

These last few months Robinson keeps popping up on TV and I often sit there marvelling at the glory of his frames. No they are not one of mine, and as it goes I have no idea who made his frames or where he got them from. I simply sit in quiet admiration for both the frame and the quality of the dispense.

For all my criticism over the months of lazy dispensing, it's a pleasure to see such a trailblazing pair of spectacles on TV.

I tried to get an interview with Nick but unfortunately he's on holiday (skiing or something) so I decided to pretend to interview him and made the following assumptions:

TD: Can I ask what was the deciding factor in purchasing these fine spectacles?

NR: I'm afraid to say that after my children said I looked like a Bavarian sausage man my wife took charge and took me into town to see our optician. I knew that I had to change my image with my new job at the Beeb and these frames just seemed to fit the bill.

TD: Did you ever think you could carry off such a strong frame?

NR: No, never. I actually thought I'd go for a rimless frame.

TD: Would you say that your hairline had anything to do with the purchase of your black bins?

NR: Well, in normal circumstances I would have grown a beard, but as this is only fashionable for hat-wearing teenagers, the black plastic media rims seemed to do the job.

And this is the main point of this month's Framed! Are spectacles the new beard?

What do the follically challenged do to bring balance and harmony to the features if he can no longer do what his father did in the 1960s and 70s?

Nick Robinson took a new job at the cutting edge of his career, he needed an image to project his personality, make a statement and just as importantly, make him look interesting.

I don't think I've ever seen someone choose a better frame to fit the bill. Should I do a top 10 of best spectacle wearers in the world, Robinson would be dangerously close to the top!