When I was the late Ian MacDonald’s registrar in London in the 1970s I can well remember him teaching me how to use a red pin to assess the visual fields at the bedside (For some time I had sported the pin in my lapel without really having much idea what it was for). So I am rather pleased that Sarah Cooper and Richard Metcalfe are still recommending this rather old fashioned—but simple and effective—test in their article on the visual fields (page 324). The waggling finger is hopeless, and it is simply not practicable to wait on someone …