Also born 1958, went back to varifocals after a year of muttering "Where did I put my bloody reading glasses?".

Let me be clear, I am a curmudgeon who doesn't give a damn about offending people and will sometimes do so deliberately in order to get their attention. My advice to those who who are habitually offended is "Grow a spine!"

The altering of works of literature in order to avoid offence to people who will probably never read them is as ludicrous as it is horrendous. These books are products of their time and to sanitise them in this way is to rob them of meaning, context and occasionally even sense. What becomes of Moby Dick if, in order not to offend disabled people, we give Captain Ahab his leg back?

It's complete bollocks and a sign of our weakness and decadence that we resort to changing words in books, or to changing the gender and colour of characters in adaptations because it is easier than making real changes in society.