As one who supplied his first pair of Varilux lenses for spectacles in 1959, I consider myself to be at least as competent as the next chap at taking the necessarily very exact measurements to produce the varifocal glasses which will meet the patient's requirements of visual acuity and comfort.

This can only be achieved by having the patient face to face, ideally with the desired glasses frame or fitting frame to hand and the good old faithful marker pen. Now, (to the patient) "look at my pen,"(holding tip of the pen just below the left eye)," over here" (swiftly moving the tip of the pen to just below the right eye) "aaaand over her, once again, over here, aaaand over here". OK note that down PD 64. mark lenses at ½ PD's 32/32 and do another "over here, aaand over here" and make any necessary adjustments to the markings on the lenses, at the same time putting the markings 3mm above datum. the basic standard height of varifocals just like bifocal height of 2 or 3 below datum. Now we are ready for probably the final "over here aaand over here".

Excellent job, pride in the job well done, confidence that the outcome of perfectly situated spectacles will be successful.

And then these online glasses WEBSITE http://www.spex4less.com/ Johnnies invited me to have a look at their operation. I started by checking their finished work before it was to be dispatched to the customers, anticipating my embarrassment at having to reject a high proportion of the jobs for various reasons. To my immense disappointment, I found no grounds for rejecting any of the work which I examined. Probably due to the latest hi-tech sophisticated equipment which they have, I mused. Obviously, no varifocal jobs, not possible to do the procedure outlined above over the internet!

Then they showed me how they measure customers for varifocal lenses in their glasses. WHAT !!! I don't think I want to hear this! They send the chosen glasses frame to the customer, with a "sticker" of known measurement on one of the lenses and provide explicit instructions to the customer as to how to take a photograph of him or herself wearing the frame with the aforementioned sticker on and return it. Then they measure the image of the sticker on the photograph and calculate the factor required to convert the measurements of the face in the photograph to the measurements of actual face of the customer. Could this procedure possibly produce information as accurate as that found in the laborious process described above. Well, er... possibly ......perhaps........ maybe. I'll take a few stickers with me and do some further research.

Apropos of nothing in the above, of course, I would like to hear from any reader who might have a second hand Polaroid camera for sale