Saturday 22 June 2024

Keep Ya Shades On

Whisper it but all the weather people are saying that Summer may finally have arrived with temperatures of 28C soon to be seen along with the UV readings and the warning to make sure you smother on the sun-block and as someone with skin so white it is almost transparent, it is advice i generally take although you can guarantee that at least once before September i will be caught out and end up with a face and shoulders as red as Santa's outfit but as painful as a red forehead can be,  it isn't the worst place to get sunburnt.
That is the eyes, or to be more scientific, photokeratitis, which is a sunburn not on your eyelids but on your actual eyeballs.
The advice is to wear eye protection, and by that, they don’t mean rubbing sunscreen into your eyes but decent sunglasses that offer 100% UV protection and are polarized to reduce glare as well as looking as cool as hell.
Though sunglasses might usually be mentally paired with poolside summer days, they originally were worn to block out snow glare by prehistoric Inuits so were originally snowglasses but the first proper sunglasses with tinted lenses were invented by an English optician due to the idea of 18th Century safe sex was to make sure a heavy desk was dragged in front of the bedroom door first which stopped anyone walking in but did nothing to stop syphilis.
As STD's were as common as pushing kids up chimneys in those days and one of the symptoms of syphilis was sensitivity to light, Optician James Ayscough came up with glasses with yellow tints to allow infected people to walk around outside in the sunshine and as 18th Century medical practise was to stick a leech on things and ask if you felt better,it was quite an achievement.
So, what started with Inuits preventing snowblindness through a medical aide for anyone with crutch rot to enjoy the summer, sunglasses are now an essential part of summer fashion and now you have read this, if you see anyone wearing a pair with a yellow tint then you know not to accept that invite back to their place after that beach barbecue, especially if they are walking a bit gingerly.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Another one of your comments removed by blogger? Not on their watch list you say?