Chances are, you know someone who, like me, is colour-blind, but you may not appreciate the daily difficulties we face. This is what happened yesterday. Although the dawn woke me up, the wonderful hues of a splendid sunrise were lost on me. It just looked light but uninteresting. Never mind, I sprang out of bed, put on the clothes my wife had chosen for me, and went downstairs for a cup of tea and some cereal. I like skimmed milk in a hot drink, but semi-skimmed on my bran so I took the two bottles from the fridge and poured. Annoyingly, I got them the wrong way around (again). Why hasnt someone found a way of distinguishing the bottles, say, by using different coloured tops? My condition is red-green colour deficiency, or deuteranopia, which affects about 8 per cent of the male population, but hardly any women. Its passed down through the female line, which seems very unfair. Its the most common form of colour-blindness and, because red and green are two of the three primary colours, it distorts the way I see almost every shade. Yesterday I needed to buy the ingredients for our evening meal. I normally shop locally; not because its near, the produce is fresh or its cheap. The lady at the till knows me well – and thats the attraction. After an hour hunting round for everything on my list, I went to pay. She patiently returned all the unripe tomatoes which I had spent ages choosing, replacing them with good ones, politely asked if I meant to buy a pink grapefruit (a pink grapefruit; whatever next?), and exchanged my green olives for black ones, which she knows I prefer. Driving home, I was quite happy until I remembered it was refuse-collection day. Since the introduction of recycling, the simple task of putting the bins out has become a nightmare for anyone whos colour-blind. Now, let me see if I got it right. The normal household waste is collected fortnightly, and goes in a green wheelie bin. Recycling, which everyone calls green waste, goes in a brown wheelie bin, for collection on alternate weeks, together with two boxes, a red one for glass and a green one for plastic. Great, except that I cant tell them apart. Newspapers and magazines are the only things to go in a bag – whoopee for that. So, the green waste goes in a brown bin, which just looks dark to me, while the normal waste, which clearly isnt green, goes in the green bin, which looks the same as the brown bin. OK? At least both boxes go out on the same day, although the plastic and glass are all mixed up. Now then, which week were we in? I looked at the chart the council sent us… Its colour-coded. Aaaargh! Luckily, my wife put me straight. I shouldnt complain, though. Some people have achromatopsia, one effect of which is an inability to see any colour at all. Basically their world is black and white, or perhaps more accurately, grey and grey. This is called monochromatism and its very rare. It probably affects less than 2,000 people in the whole UK, so you should feel quite honoured if you know one, and very special if you are one. After lunch I decided I would cut the hedges, but the trimmer needed petrol. We have a lot of garden equipment, some of which takes unleaded fuel, whilst other run on two-stroke. I keep supplies of both ready in the shed, one in a green can and the other in a red one. I didnt buy them because Im a masochist; its just that those were the only options available. Theyre different colours so you can tell them apart, said the cheery storeman. I just growled. Eventually it was time to prepare dinner, which was a new pasta recipe. I got the ingredients out, and read the first instruction: Fry the meat until its brown. Oh no!!!! I gave up and had a glass of wine instead. I think it was red.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 20:45:04 +0000
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