Hardcornea optometry

On Tuesday night over a curry, my sister told me about an amazing invention which I'd never heard of before. Sophie had mentioned to our optician, the inimitable Peter Thomas, that the combination of long days and living in London was making her contact lenses particularly grimy and uncomfortable. Peter Thomas - who has a white beard and emanates silence and calmness like the wisest man who ever lived - told her that his practice was currently in the process of trialing something called orthokeratology, or ortho-k if you're a cool cat.

(By the way, I nearly titled this post "Power to the pupil: back once again with the retina master", but I thought that might have been a bit of a clunky pun, so I went with the above. Damn, optometry really lens itself to some cornea jokes.)

Anyway, orthokeratology has only hit the mainstream in the last few years - America drug regulators the FDA only approved the first design in 2002 - although the idea has been around since the sixties. It involves putting a special type of rigid contact lenses in your eyes before you go to bed at night, which reshape your cornea while you sleep. When you wake up, you take the ortho-k lenses out, and because your corneas have been refracted - and your shortsightedness effectively 'fixed' - your vision is perfect for the day. Hurrah!

I thought about this, and at first I was wowed. Then I considered getting some orthokeratology for myself, and my poor mind was beset with doubts. I mean, the thing's bending a hidden bit of your eye while you sleep! What if your cornea snaps? Why is this any better than contact lenses? What the hell is a cornea anyway? If ortho-k is so good, why haven't I heard of it before? But then a thought comes to me, that is both comforting and unsettling: if you can't trust an optician, who can you trust?

Orthokeratology FAQs

Here, here and here: Tuesday links

It was my birthday on Saturday. I was 25. I am 25. Spent the day drinking like an 18-year-old. Spent the next day shuffling round the house like a 75-year-old. That is all I have to say on the matter.

***

Just before I went away, me and some colleagues went to this big plush website awards ceremony – the site I work for was nominated for, like, best public service website or something. Unexpectedly, we won. We were all genuinely surprised and there was an air of really natural happiness. Even me accidentally ashing on the award later in the evening couldn’t sour the mood. Sorry, but it did look like a big silver ashtray. See the plushness here, see the compere here, and see us all grinning like idiots here

***

My interview with West Ham goalkeeper Shaka Hislop went live while I was away. The stuff about Paolo di Canio – Shaka criticised his ex-friend for doing a Nazi salute to celebrate a goal – sadly got chopped, probably in case of libel. Shame, it was quite interesting. Read the interview here

***

Got profiled for a Goldsmiths previous alumni type website. It's here

The story of Henry and the red shirt

Once upon a time, I was a Bristol University student and one day I was in a busy bar, drinking. I was wearing my new red shirt (pictured), a real bargain, reduced to £5 in the sales.

Halfway through the night, I noticed that a boy called Henry was in the bar – an acquaintance whose name I knew and face I recognised, but who I’d never really spoken to. But this time, I couldn’t ignore him, for he was wearing the exact same red shirt as me. Being a bright and attention-grabbing kind of shirt, I knew he'd soon notice me too. I tried my best to ignore him and returned to my drinking.

Due to the constant movement of people in the bar, it wasn’t long before me and Henry found ourselves standing next to each other. How embarrassing. To try and stop the ridicule already pouring forth from our friends’ mouths, we complimented each other on our excellent taste in clothing and agreed to avoid each other for the rest of the night.

Five years later, it's summer 2005; I’ve moved away from Bristol, and left the student life for the world of work. I’m living in a house in London with four friends I met post-Bristol. I have a hangover. I get out of bed and wander into the lounge. I have no idea how or why, but lying on the floor, with an unidentified redhead next to him, is Henry.

"Hello," I say, surprised. He sits up, blinking away the sleep. He’s wearing the same fucking red shirt.

Last Morocco-related post, I promise

Put some Morocco pics with the posts below, but aside from those, here are my favourite photos from the holiday.

Window again, Tagadirt Hotel, Agadir

Door, Jardin Majorelle, Marrakesh

Carvings, Jardin Majorelle, Marrakesh

Another window, Jardin Majorelle, Marrakesh

Cat, Marrakesh

Almosravid Koubba, Marrakesh

Orange vendor, Fes

Amazing factoid #2

Notoriously uncool crooner Gene Pitney, who died today, played maracas on The Rolling Stones' version of Not Fade Away.

Amazing factoid

You know that annoying incoming text message ring on Nokia mobile phones? The one that goes bip-bip-bip beep-beep bip-bip-bip? It's Morse Code for "SMS". Amazing.

Days 12–16: Marrakesh-Agadir-Manchester-London

Home now. In the final few days, we got the seven-hour train out of Fes, spent a night in Marrakesh and got the bus back to Agadir the next morning, as travelling around was fairly exhausting, time was short, and we needed to return to Angleterre fairly relaxed.


Having spent a few days in Agadir by the pool and on the beach, I am now eerily calm, decently tanned, a master of Sudoku, and more knowledgeable about the nature of organised crime in the UK (thanks to Tony Thompson’s excellent book, Gangs). Which is what you want from a holiday really. I’m predicting that by 11.33 this morning, I’ll be totally stressed again.

Moroccan encounter #94

Me and Sarah have just been for an excellent last night meal, and we walk back to the hotel. In the reception area, there is a chubby middle-aged man onstage in Moroccan dress playing a reedy instrument. It is only after a few seconds that I notice the large black snake upright in front of him. Terrifyingly, he keeps prodding it to make it snap at him. This man is the Moroccan Steve Irwin! And he's in my hotel!

I get back to the room and fall asleep. Suddenly I'm on my feet and a nasty-looking red and black snake is slithering through a hole in my pillowcase. It disappears inside the pillow. I watch, fascinated and horrified. Then I see it coming back out of the pillow through the same hole. Instead of being relieved, crazily and hysterically I start yelling: "What if there was one in there already? What if that's not the snake that just went in?!"

Then I wake up.

Morocco observation #39

It is almost impossible to get the bill in Moroccan restaurants while remaining in your seat. The only way to achieve this goal is to stop trying.

Days 8-11: Fes

Our time in the ancient medieval city that is Fes didn't begin so well; and in fact, until Monday, was peppered with irritating incidents.

First our hotel didn't have a room for us, even though I'd phoned ahead to reserve and phoned again to confirm. Pension Batha, hang your head in shame. Then, desperate for food, we endd up in a typique Moroccain restaurant which served delicious food, but added on some ridiculous surcharges, bumping up the already overexpensive price. Beware the typique Moroccain restaurants! Add to that a few unpleasant run-ins with bumfluffed manchild hustlers - "You don't tell me to go away in my own country!" "Stop following me around then!" etc - and it looked like Fes would be the undoing of us. But thanks to the mostly friendly people, extraordinariness of the city, and metred petit taxis, all turned out good.

Two particular highlights were the Bou Inania Medersa, a truly grand 14th century school / mosque, and the Choura tanneries, where leather has been made for centuries.

The Medersa, built under Sultan Abou Inan, apparently cost a truckload of money to make. It shows. It's hard not to wander round it with your mouth open. The Sultan apparently threw the bills in the river when they arrived, saying, "A thing of beauty is beyond reckoning." I imagine, in reply, the builders said something like, "Yeah. But where's our money?" Abou Inan clearly couldn't get enough when it came to things of beauty: he reportedly fathered around 325 sons in 10 years.

Our visit to the Choura tanneries was a strange but fascinating experience. You can see the dying taking place from nearby rooftops and watch skinny-legged men knee deep in various-coloured pools of dye plunge skins into the liquid. Walk down a filthy alley, with a small river of dirty water running down it and donkeys waiting with piles of pelts tied to their backs and you can see it all - and smell it all from ground level, though you have to grease the palm of the gardien to get in: "Twenty for entrance, twenty for the people." For the people? Yeah, right.

There's an awesome description of all this - and the extreme voyeurism the visit entails - in the Rough Guide. I've included it below, as it's one of those great bits when the guidebook goes both eloquent and profound:

There is a compulsive fascination about the tanneries. Cascades of water pour through holes that were once the windows of houses; hundreds of skins lie spread out to dry on the rooftops; while amid the vats of dye and pigeon dung (used to treat leather) an unbelievably gothic fantasy is enacted.
...
The process can best be seen from surrounding terrace rooftops, where you'll be directed along with other tourists. There is, oddly enough, a kind of sensuous beauty about it - for all the stench and voyeurism involved. Sniffing the mint that you are handed as you enter (to alleviate the nausea) and looking across at the others doing the same, however, there could hardly be a more pointed exercise in the nature of comparative wealth. Like it or not, this is tourism at its most extreme.

Days 1-3: Agadir

Days 4-7: Marrakesh