Spectacle

The football started well. The sun shone, there was peace on earth, and we were all getting some welcome exercise. Then cruncher-John crashed into one the lads and things got a little heated. We warned him that it was unacceptable, but he wouldn't have it that what he had done was against the rules. Things settle;ed down. The first goal was conceded, but it was still pretty even. Cruncher-John stepped in again. Another bad tackle that he claimed was perfectly fair. The temperature rose, but again settled down after a bit of shouting. We were into the last few minutes when Cruncher-John decided to tackle Krakatoa-Jack. It was a bad tackle (again) - but Jack isn't known for his tolerance and things escalated very quickly. (As the ash cloud formed overhead, planes were diverted and a tsunami warning was issued for Goring-on-Sea). The Gorse Fox stepped in between them and held them apart, and in a classic "leave him, Darren, he's not worf it" moment we dragged them to different parts of the pitch and gave them a stern talking to. That ended the game. Nobody had the will to carry on after such a childish display and unedifying spectacle. The Gorse Fox can see that the team may actually have to ban Cruncher-John if he doesn't ameliorate his play.

Come the afternoon, the Gorse Fox had an appointment with the optician. It was about three years since the last one, so was a little overdue. Eye-pressure, digital retina photography, eye-measurements, peripheral vision checks and so forth.

The Gorse Fox was amused with the peripheral vision check. with each eye separately yo stare at a red dot and randomly some white lights flash on. You have to say how many. After the right eye was checked the Gorse Fox could see a slight frown on the technician's face. He thought he'd check -

"I have been counting the white lights. Is that right?". The technician confirmed that was correct.

"That does include the whit light that's on all the time in the bottom right of the screen?" He looked worried. The Gorse Fox pointed out that there were some pixels missing and there was a white light at the extreme bottom right-hand edge of the display. The technician checked.

"I must get someone to look at that. That's not right" he said. "Nobody has pointed that out before".

"Let's retake the test" suggested the Gorse Fox. This time it went through without incident and he scored full marks.

The appointment lasted, in all, about 75 minutes and was immensely thorough. Whilst his prescription has changed slightly, his eyes got a clean bill of healthy, which was a great relief.