My moment of madness in the opticians

Foolishly I chose new specs in the village optician’s after a long lunch: a rather outré design that I might not have chosen had I been completely sober. For the past decade I’ve worn a retro design I’d first admired in David Bailey’s striking black and white photographs of Ron Kray. Thinking it might be time for a change of style to reflect my invalid passivity, and the hairless dome of my surprisingly small skull, I’d gone in a moment of madness for a pair of John Lennon’s hippie silver circles.

Three weeks later, I returned to the shop to try them on with the new prescription lenses fitted. It was only then, studying my face and new glasses in the mirror, that I realised that my eyebrows and eyelashes had also gone. And my eyes were grotesquely puffy, like Henry Cooper’s used to be after only a couple of rounds.