From the Smithsonian online magazine:
It's his real name. His father was an archaeologist.
I had a slight visual disturbance (again) which is a normal ageing thing but I wanted it checked, and got an appointment at Specsavers. They gave me those drops that make your pupils huge.
Like most myopic people, when I look at any lights without my specs, they're not sharp but fuzzy little snowflakes. When I came out of Specsavers it was dusk and the Christmas lights were all shining. I happened to take off my specs.
The lights were now huge, shimmering, mingling hazes. Christmas lights, headlights, lights in windows, street lights, were pulsing portals into another dimension of light. I walked round town and the Museum Gardens (where the paths were lined with lights, and were now tunnels of gold), bumping into people and probably with my mouth hanging open.
No one else could see this massive silent firework display.
I nearly missed my train to Leeds because there was a tall Christmas tree on the station concourse which was now a conical avalanche. The wonder lasted for another hour and faded away in Leeds ...
