The eyesight to brain ratio
Mar. 25th, 2026 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseThere are quite a few reasons why my ex-husband is my ex-husband, but his intelligence was never one of them. The man is bright. He always believed I was brighter than he was, but I'd dispute that; it's true that we were intelligent in slightly different ways, but I'd say overall we came out about even.
He was (and, of course, still is) also completely blind.
He used to joke about this thing he called the "eyesight to brain ratio", which he said most people reckoned was a constant. And I'd laugh, and say, "Seriously, nobody who's spoken to you for five minutes could doubt that you're very bright." Which was true; but, of course, most people who decided he was an idiot hadn't actually taken the trouble to do that. So, for instance, one day there were some road works in the city centre which didn't have proper safety barriers (I wasn't there, so I don't know if there was no barrier at all or just a bit of tape you wouldn't notice if you were striding along at speed with a white cane, but in either case there was not the sort of thing that should have been there), and he fell into a hole.
Along came this very posh woman who said, and I kid you not: "Excuse me. Do you know you've just fallen down a hole in the pavement?"
You know. As if he couldn't possibly have noticed that for himself. I don't remember exactly what his reply was, but I seem to recall it was fairly biting. Knowing him, he probably told her he was doing an experiment to measure the gravitational constant.
Sadly, this was fairly typical. Of course, once they actually started talking to him, they soon realised their mistake; but it was depressing how often this kind of thing happened, especially since we lived in Sheffield, where for quite a long time one of the local MPs was David Blunkett. We knew him, as a matter of fact. I didn't particularly get on with him because I found him intensely boring; he couldn't talk about anything other than politics (indeed, even Richard Caborn, who was our MP and a whole lot of fun, had to tell him off at a party for droning on interminably on the subject). But there was no denying he was both very bright and very determined, and he got things done in his constituency. With that sort of example in the public eye, why should anyone automatically assume a blind person they meet on the street has to be gaga?
And then there was the time it happened to me.
I'm light-sensitive. I've needed photochromic glasses lo these many years. One very bright sunny day, we were in the city centre and I needed to go to the herb shop on St Paul's Parade; so we went in there, him with his white stick, me with my Reactolites, which at this point were completely black from the outside. We walk up to the counter and I say, "Ah, good morning. Do you have any lovage, please?"
"Oh. Yes, we have. Do you know how to use it, dear?"
I blink. "Well... obviously. Why would I be coming in here asking for lovage if I didn't know how to use it?" (Naturally, I am thinking "why on earth am I being asked this question?". As you would.)
So they sell me the lovage, we leave the shop, and the moment we get outside I realise what was going on, tell my husband, and we both laugh so hard they probably heard us in the shop. I mean... yes, it was stupid, it was insulting, they'd never ask a question like that of anyone who could obviously see, it was all wrong, all of that. But at the same time it was still extremely funny.
I never went back there for lovage again. Not because of that incident, but because the lovage developed an impressively Lovecraftian-looking crop of maggots, and that kind of thing does rather put you off. I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere!
He was (and, of course, still is) also completely blind.
He used to joke about this thing he called the "eyesight to brain ratio", which he said most people reckoned was a constant. And I'd laugh, and say, "Seriously, nobody who's spoken to you for five minutes could doubt that you're very bright." Which was true; but, of course, most people who decided he was an idiot hadn't actually taken the trouble to do that. So, for instance, one day there were some road works in the city centre which didn't have proper safety barriers (I wasn't there, so I don't know if there was no barrier at all or just a bit of tape you wouldn't notice if you were striding along at speed with a white cane, but in either case there was not the sort of thing that should have been there), and he fell into a hole.
Along came this very posh woman who said, and I kid you not: "Excuse me. Do you know you've just fallen down a hole in the pavement?"
You know. As if he couldn't possibly have noticed that for himself. I don't remember exactly what his reply was, but I seem to recall it was fairly biting. Knowing him, he probably told her he was doing an experiment to measure the gravitational constant.
Sadly, this was fairly typical. Of course, once they actually started talking to him, they soon realised their mistake; but it was depressing how often this kind of thing happened, especially since we lived in Sheffield, where for quite a long time one of the local MPs was David Blunkett. We knew him, as a matter of fact. I didn't particularly get on with him because I found him intensely boring; he couldn't talk about anything other than politics (indeed, even Richard Caborn, who was our MP and a whole lot of fun, had to tell him off at a party for droning on interminably on the subject). But there was no denying he was both very bright and very determined, and he got things done in his constituency. With that sort of example in the public eye, why should anyone automatically assume a blind person they meet on the street has to be gaga?
And then there was the time it happened to me.
I'm light-sensitive. I've needed photochromic glasses lo these many years. One very bright sunny day, we were in the city centre and I needed to go to the herb shop on St Paul's Parade; so we went in there, him with his white stick, me with my Reactolites, which at this point were completely black from the outside. We walk up to the counter and I say, "Ah, good morning. Do you have any lovage, please?"
"Oh. Yes, we have. Do you know how to use it, dear?"
I blink. "Well... obviously. Why would I be coming in here asking for lovage if I didn't know how to use it?" (Naturally, I am thinking "why on earth am I being asked this question?". As you would.)
So they sell me the lovage, we leave the shop, and the moment we get outside I realise what was going on, tell my husband, and we both laugh so hard they probably heard us in the shop. I mean... yes, it was stupid, it was insulting, they'd never ask a question like that of anyone who could obviously see, it was all wrong, all of that. But at the same time it was still extremely funny.
I never went back there for lovage again. Not because of that incident, but because the lovage developed an impressively Lovecraftian-looking crop of maggots, and that kind of thing does rather put you off. I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere!
