strange_complex | Entries tagged with glasses

Thanks again to all the very kind people who commented or advised on my predicament with an incorrect glasses prescription yesterday.

The good news is that this morning I went back to the second optician (i.e. the ones who made up the glasses, not the one who issued the incorrect prescription), and when I explained the problem, they quite spontaneously offered to sort it out for me free of charge. I have a new eye test booked for Monday, and then they will replace the incorrect lens with one which will hopefully be correct this time. This means that I can get it all sorted out with minimum inconvenience and zero cost. Hooray!

Obviously I was pleased by their response, but also interested to know why they were so ready to take on the cost of the correction, so I probed into this slightly by saying, "But that's not your liability, though", when they made the offer. They just said that was all right, but I guess it is quite possible that behind the scenes they will do what

diffrentcolours's optician friend reported was their normal practice, and recover the costs from the optician who issued the incorrect prescription. That's up to them I guess.

Anyway, in case anyone else ends up in this situation in the future, it seems it is certainly worth going back to the optician who made up the glasses for you and saying that they aren't correct. It looks like responsible practices do have a standard system for dealing with that after all. That said, I'll still try to avoid the situation in future. Even if it can be dealt with, it still makes you feel rather awkward and silly as a customer, so I'd rather not go there if I can help it.

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Two weeks ago, I had an eye test, and last week, I went to pick up my new specs.

I really like the way they look. But there's a problem: the prescription for the right lens is too weak.

Double trouble: I had the glasses made up by a different optician from the one who did the eye test.

My problem now is that I've been sold something which doesn't meet my needs, but I don't really know what rights or liabilities I have in this situation. The fault clearly lies with the lady who did the original eye test - but I only paid £5 to her for that privilege. Meanwhile, I spent a lot more money than that on having spectacles made up from her prescription, but the opticians who made up those spectacles did so on perfectly good faith, and I have no reason to believe they did anything wrong. Getting the £5 back for the original eye test won't really do much to off-set the cost of having the incorrect lens replaced, but it seems to me that I can hardly expect the second optician to absorb the cost of replacing it either.

Did I accept liability for this situation when I voluntarily chose to go to another optician to have the glasses made up? Or do I have any kind of protection against the consequences of having paid rather a lot of money for an incorrect lens? I surely can't be the only person who's ended up in this situation, but I haven't been able to bring up any very suitable advice by Googling. The best I could find was this, which is someone reporting the same situation - but I'm not at all clear that any of the people advising him(?) have any real expertise in the matter, or indeed whether their comments would apply in the UK.

( Further stuff about it, no longer really relevant to the issue of whose fault this was )

Anyway, if anyone has been in this situation, or knows anything about what my rights are, please do comment. And if not, I guess I've just got more inconvenience and another hefty bill coming up...

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So - yeah. Now that I am over the immediate trauma of breaking my glasses (but not by any means the underlying *grrrrr*), let me tell you about my weekend.

Friday night was very sociable - you could even have accused me of being a bit of a butterfly. First an hour in the Wrens with

nalsa,

maviscruet, their young ladies and assorted other friends, during which we discussed flickr business cards, the top three best-known British monarchs and the fall of the Roman empire. Next, a curry at Hansa's with

hieroglyphe and

johnnydefective, over which we talked about academic job prospects,

johnnydefective's naughty office pranks and filmage in general. Finally, down to the station to meet up with The Sisterly One and her partner (Nicolas), who were coming to stay for the weekend.

We were all kinda knackered after we got back to my flat, since they'd had a whole day of work plus a long train journey, while I'd been cleaning the house all day and then butterflying all evening. But not so knackered we didn't have time to chat for a while and for me to give Charlotte an early birthday present (her actual birthday is today - woo!).

Saturday saw us heading off on a big adventure - to Roundhay Park Tropical World! Yay! It was very hot inside, but we saw lots of extremely cute and interesting animals, such as ring-tailed lemurs, bushbabies, lion-faced golden tamarins, blue macaws, enormous carp, bats, striped grass mice, turtles, snakes and meerkats! (*squee-squee-squee*) They were definitely the best - and come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever seen them in real life before. So that was cool.

After Tropical World, we ate much-needed ice-creams, and took a long walk round the park, seeing people playing cricket, a fake castle and millions and millions of seething tadpoles as we did. Then it was across Leeds by bus to show off my new house and have coffee in Headingley, before heading on down to the Hyde Park Picture House to see Sunshine - more about that in a separate 'films watched 2007' post.

Sunday was quiet and chilled, after a lot of walking around outdoors the previous day But we did find time to simultaneously look at architecture and do some shopping in Leeds city centre. Charlotte got some nice skirts, I got rechargeable batteries for my digital camera and some pretty sandals for the summer, and Nicolas got some good photos of the Edwardian arcades.

Finally, they headed off to catch their train, since Charlotte wanted to be back in London for the day of her actual birthday, and I pootled off home to enjoy the previous evening's Doctor Who. Which seemed solidly back on track after the slight wibble that had been the Dalek two-parter.

So nice all round, really. Just a pity I had to top it off today by breaking my glasses!

Last night, I went out to Intrusion wearing chunky boots and clothes decorated with unnecessary pieces of metalwork, and danced like a fiend amidst flashing lights and smoke machines to loud and rebellious electronically-amplified music.

Tonight, I'm going out to see The Messiah in a theatre designed by Sir Christopher Wren, wearing a Chinese top and an Indian skirt, in the company of several of the same people who were out at Intrusion last night. And still with the chipped black varnish on my finger-nails.

Though I am sufficiently culturally aware to see that these are two very different events, there is no sense of contradiction or even abnormality here. Both are equally valid and rewarding activities in my eyes, both draw on strongly-felt interests and both are relatively common occurrences for me. I'm so glad I have such a wealth of human expression and achievement available for me to play with.

( Intrusion )

( Corrective eyewear and Christmas shopping )

( Iestyn Davies )

Oh, and I have now bought my ticket for B-Movie, so that's my definite plan for New Year's Eve now. Looking forward to seeing those of you who are going!