weeladdy;
I fully appreciate your predicament - I am also in a very similar situation. However, I feel it is necessary to infrom you that it is not the CAA who are oposed to following the ICAO recommendations of scrapping limits on refractive errors, it is the decision of the JAA and this decision, I am led to believe, is due to the views of a small number of member states - the CAA not being one of them.
I completely agree with your comments about how it ridiculous that comercial pilots are able to fly N-registered aircraft into JAA airspace with visual standards not able to satisfy JAA requirements.
I am aware that people have managed to improve their eyesight sufficiently to get through the class 1 using Bates methods, and since you are only just outside the requirements it might be worth following tas' and Magoo's recommendation.
Best of luck.
ASI
[This message has been edited by ASI (edited 03 April 2001).]