The opticians or optometrists (is there a difference?) had done their bit. The two of us awaited the dispensing arm of the business to step in and sell us her latest expensive but trendy frames and lenses.

A self-satisfied expression spread across my fellow patient's ruddy face. He was preparing to gloat.

"I read the third line with just my left eye - my weak one - without help or hesitation. Not bad for 62, eh?" he boasted.

My mind was still occupied by the aftermath from the glaucoma-detecting machine that earlier had inflicted sudden and uncomfortable puffs of air on unguarded pupils, puffs that to the unwary seem capable of blasting them off the stool. I was only half-listening.

"The third line," he repeated, emphasising the number, as if expecting applause. "With my right eye, it was 100 per cent on all four lines - and without a pause."

Muted congratulations were a mistake. A blow-by-blow report of other tests and chart readings followed, the Almighty's gift of sight viewed as a personal triumph, with each achievement deserving of a gold medal in the Oculists' Olympics.

"What about you?" he asked.

These results fell short of his perceived - and perceiving - standards, indicated by tut-tuts' and hollow sighs. An eye test had turned into a struggle for supremacy. He was beginning to get on my optic nerves. Then silence fell. After a couple of minutes, he spoke again, much quieter than before.

"The bit I don't like is that puff of air from that dreadful machine. It takes you by surprise."

"Really?" I replied loftily, homing in on his Achilles heel. "It's quite harmless. It's a question of preparation and self-control."

Just then the dispenser beckoned, saving me from worse sins.

After carrying out what is unquestionably the worst and briefest research into duck behaviour, I have come to the conclusion the male mallard is a wimp.

The evidence centres on the reaction of five drakes, each accompanied by a female swimming upstream towards Osney Lock against the strong flow of the Thames on Tuesday morning. They were not in one squadron, but in pairs, several yards and several minutes apart. In each case, the female swam ahead while the drake paddled closely in her wake, enjoying the benefits of the slipstream.

No matter how much the duck fought against the strong flow, the drake remained astern, not prepared to take either the initiative or the lead.

Later, I mentioned this to a chum, who boasts of being an angler, wildfowler and man o' the river, when we ran into each other in a Covered Market café. He was unimpressed and sarcastically warned against submitting such flimsy findings to the RSPB.

Everyone knew mallards were lazy blighters, he said - only he didn't use the word blighters. I said I didn't. His condemnation was more in the glance than the words.

A friend of mine was driving along a country road near Bicester when a dog fox ran into the road - and sat down.

Naturally, she braked only to find herself jolted into movement again when a second car ran into the rear of hers. The fox ran off.

Insurance details were exchanged and my friend duly reported the incident to her insurance broker who, in turn, referred it to an agent who warned her that she was to blame for the collision.

"But I was in front," she pleaded.

"Yes, but you should have run over the fox. It isn't a domestic animal," was the reply.

Somehow this doesn't make sense. If someone runs into your rear, surely it is a matter of driving to closely? Mind you, the company will probably magnify some small print to prove its argument.

Had the non-domestic' animal been a muntjac, or bigger still, a red stag, complete with antlers, should she have ploughed into the beast? Heaven knows what state the car - and possibly the driver - would have been in if she had