My eyes are dim, I cannot see

[ewt]

Left my A-Z at nou's, oops. Oh well. I guess I have an excuse to go back and rescue it.

My hair is becoming distinctly un-purple. I must change this soon. Registration is on Monday and going with my hair like this would be a bit of a let-down really.

Home and clean and wearing pinhole glasses. This has meant putting all my font sizes up to about 16pt, but it does make my head hurt less. My eyes get tired quickly this way but my head doesn't hurt. I think I'll be alternating between the pinhole glasses and the b0rked conventional specs. I need to find the bit in Windoze where I can make the cursor and mouse pointer bigger, I keep losing them.

Spoke to Specsavers on the phone. They said it sounds like a manufacturer's defect and they can replace the frames for me but they may have to send off for them. The earliest I can start this process is Tuesday, because they are shut Sunday and the technician doesn't come in on Mondays.

Unhappy. It's only Saturday. Things are going to be either blurry or hurty for the next three days at least and possibly longer. The only way around this is to spend a lot of money elsewhere to have an eye test, and even then I would still probably only get new glasses by Wednesday-ish even if I could get a walk-in appointment somewhere. I may as well wait.

I am so glad I have the pinhole glasses.

The lenses are scratched all to heck anyway, despite fairly careful treatment of them on my part (or at least no worse than I've treated any other glasses). Because of this, and because I think it is probably not a bad idea to keep a spare pair anyway, I'm thinking I'll buy a second, cheap pair of glasses from somewhere that is not Specsavers. Depending which I like better, I'll either wear the new glasses everyday and use the scratched old Specsavers ones as spares, or wear the Specsavers ones (I really like the frames I have in terms of shape) mostof the time and keep the new ones for spares, or just alternate the two every day-ish, perhaps depending on what I'm wearing.

Have any of you had experience with Glasses Direct? Are they rip-off merchants or genuine? I mean, it would be nice to try things on before buying them if I'm going to wear them every day, but I really don't want to pay a lot right now, and it's hard to argue with £15 for lenses and frames.

I suspect they might be a really good option for prescription sunglasses.

Comments

[bob]

im sure ive read about them in the guardian. So they cant be that dodgy.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

The FT had an article about them too, and the Times... All the broadsheets printed up the press pack from the company. That doesn't mean they are a bad company, just because they manipulate the press (that's what the press are for) but it does mean that you're better off relying on a word-of-moth recommendation that the printed word.

[rillaith.livejournal.com]

Friend has used them and was happy. I [plan to use them nxt time I need them.

[silverfiligree.livejournal.com]

I can highly recommend Optilabs (http://www.optilabs.com/sportsmainpage/sportsframset.html) in South Croydon. I'm not sure if they can beat £15 but they are far cheaper than the high street. You'll need to take your prescription with you because IIRC they don't do eye tests.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendation - I'll bear it in mind when the time comes to buy sunglasses.

[ksta.livejournal.com]

£15 for lenses and frames?! BLIMEY! I spend £100 a year on new lenses, EVERY f*cking year. I manage to only buy frames every few years - the last frames broke in two places.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Well, quite. I don't know whether the frame designs are any good but I figure for a spare pair it is a very good price and if I like them then next time I need a new prescription I'll buy from there again.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Pinhole glasses? I suppose it makes optical sense, but I've never heard of such things before. Are we talking about handmade with a couple of sheets of cardboard here, or something proper?

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Mine are from Trayner Pinhole Glasses (http://www.trayner.co.uk). I got them a few years ago, they were slightly cheaper then.

I think that were I to try to make my own I would buy cheap sunglasses, paint them with black nail varnish, and find a way of poking holes in them (a heated needle, perhaps?).

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I think if I'm ever in a situation leaving me without either of my pairs of glasses, I'll improvise with a piece of cardboard and a needle. :o) But thanks for making me aware of the possibility.

Yeah.

[lynnyn.livejournal.com]

whassa pinhole glasses?
The province in which you were born turned 100 today. It was great.

Re: Yeah.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

http://www.pinhole-glasses.com

Pinhole glasses

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Mmm... I'm not entirely convinced by their science. "The pinholes [...] allow only direct and coherent light rays to pass through into the eye." Coherent light rays? Unless you're looking at laser light, that would turn your glasses into panic-sensitive sunglasses^*! :o)

Re: Pinhole glasses

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

They work, they just aren't explained very well. I've not attempted to use them for vision improvement; I have them because if something happens to my glasses the pinholes are a LOT better than nothing.

There's a better explanation here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_glasses).