Thanet Council Cops A Private Eyeful

Yikes! I see our beloved local council features in this week's edition of Private Eye, where it's described in the Rotten Boroughs section as 'supine'. Reaching for my OED, I see it defines the word as 1. 'lying face upwards' and 2. 'failing to act as a result of laziness or lack of courage'.

Just about right on both scores, eh?

Ramsgate Makes A Spectacle Of Itself

My new ophthamologist, Mr R. de Cock, has recommended these little beauties. Wire framed, too, so they're not so prone to spontaneous combustion as the plastic Ben Sherman Margates.

Casting the old glass eye around the doc's reception as I was waiting to see the great man, I spied a filing cabinet labelled 'R. de Cock Letters'. Now I know where all those spam emails promising me a 'lighthouse in an open sea' are coming from!

Eye News

The dreaded appointment with my new opthalmologist, Mr R. De Cock, is less than a week away, so you'll forgive me for being a trifle ocularly obsessed at the moment.

Lunching with my old satirical chum Ian at his mansion in the Kent countryside yesterday, he revealed that he's moved into that age where he requires bifocals, so he's no longer able to pop in the contacts. Hence the debut of the snazzy new goggles on Question Time last week. I expect they'll become a regular feature of the news-gnome's physog during the new series of HIGNFY, which begins again this Friday.

During the chit-chat he revealed that another prominent journo recently encountered similar age-related opthalmic difficulties. Vanity prevented her from donning bifocals, so she opted for laser treatment and now has one eye for close-up work, and the other for long distance vision. Modesty, of course, prevents me from revealing her name.

Meanwhile, Wossie's been chatting to me on Facebook about having his lumps removed over the summer break. I recall Elton pointing out on his show that the nodule under his eyebrow could easily be fixed, and he's confirmed that he had it off over the recess, along with 'a hard thing attached to a vein on my leg'. How us celebrity types suffer for our art, eh?

Still, it's worth it, isn't it? After all, who would guess that Brucie is 103?

Sticking Up For The Visually Impaired

I've been having a spot of bother with the old glass eye. During an important production meeting the other day at Nuts TV it fell out and, to my undying shame, bounced across the table only to become lodged in the ample cleavage of one of the luvverly presenters of Fit and Fearless.

And as I don't get up to town as much as I used to, seeing my Harley Street specialist is proving somewhat of a pain. So I asked him if he could recommend a chap in these parts. Sure enough, I got a letter today from my new Kent consultant, a Mr R. de Cock.

Knowing my usual quack possesses a rather aqueous sense of humour, I imagined he was pulling my plonker. But no, apparently Mr R. de Cock is one of the best minces men in the land. He's even had erudite articles published in Eye, the journal of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists.

Oh well, I'll give him a go I suppose. Let's hope it'll be better than a poke in the proverbial with a, er, sharp stick.

R. de Cock in the Eye