GLASSES on or glasses off? Either way the screen in front of me was still empty. So this set me thinking about Tony's new specs. Those of us who have been going around for years with vision-aids balanced on our noses might have reason to sniff at the Prime Minister's highly-staged unsheathing of his reading glasses.

We've been there, done that and bought the wrong-sized, unsuitably- coloured T-shirt when we forgot to put on our glasses.

Any among us called William Hague might wish to bang our heads on a dry-stone wall, seeing how Tony's new specs upstaged the news.

They were, though, rather nice specs - Calvin Klein, by all accounts. And they did suit Tony, being all minimalist and trendy.

Now as my own glasses fall into a similar category, I'd better be careful here. This column peeps at the world through glasses that almost aren't there - not quite the rimless variety favoured by the England football manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson, but getting that way.

Tony Blair brought out his new glasses while giving a speech to journalists. In an earlier speech to teachers, he slipped up due to blurred vision, referring to the "chronically poor aspirations and education attainments of so many teachers", when he meant to say "teenagers". So the writing was on the wall, even if Tony couldn't see it. He would have to wear glasses in public.

Politicians can be touchy about this, because they believe that wearing glasses might make them look funny. Which is odd, because they look just as funny without their glasses. John Major always wore his defiantly untrendy glasses, and those heavy-weight specs - with lenses like front-room windows - became as much a hallmark of his premiership as his alleged habit of tucking his shirt into his underpants.

Margaret Thatcher was different, and not just because no one ever speculated about what she tucked into her under-wear. She was vain about glasses and preferred to rely on large print notices. This brings to mind a diverting mental picture of Denis Thatcher crouching at his wife's feet and holding out placards covered in big-print words - "There.. is... no... such... thing... as... society... Got that, Margaret?"

Tony Blair introduced his glasses with a typical tease. "Some things in life you have to accept - it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'a vision for Britain'," he said on Monday, as he dipped into his pocket and pulled out his specs.

How typical of Tony Blair that he can't even put on his new glasses without making a four-course meal of it. I felt like spouting something smart and stinging at the television. You know, four eyes for your two faces - something like that. Sorry, Tony gets me that way sometimes - even though I voted for him last time, and will again, I expect. But in the end, it was clever of Tony Blair to make a spectacle of his spectacles, as the next day's headlines obediently contained the words 'focus', 'vision' and the like.

William Hague, still attempting to contain the race row in his party, was left trying to read the small-print at the opticians. But whichever way he tilted his head, the bottom line still read: "Looks like you're going to lose, matey."

SOMETHING dark and mysterious lurks in our fridge. On Sunday, it tried to escape. This was no deliquescent cucumber or a yoghurt danger-ously beyond its sell-by date. No, as my wife said with a sigh: "Have you looked at your sourdough?"

Bread-making is something of an obsession and sourdough bread requires the keeping of a starter. And mine had just leaked. I cleaned up and opened the sprung lid of the glass jar. The magnificent glop inside winked malevolently and splurged out.

Thankfully, enough remained to carry on the experiment.