Monday 22 December 2008

An odd and apparently separate part of the brain

Imagine you're a police officer, and you're attempting to establish whether there have been witnesses to a crime. We've all seen Identikit pictures of suspects on the news, and they look nothing like a real person. Often they look like a Muppet. And when the suspect is black or Asian, often the different parts of their Identikit face are slightly different colours, adding insult to injury. However - apparently there has been extensive research into how people recognise a face in a picture, and the quickest and easiest way to jog their memory is to show them a picture of somebody famous who resembles the suspect, and ask them if they saw a man who looked like, for instance, Tommy Lee Jones (a scary prospect in itself). Without going into too much scientific detail, it's mainly because our memory of a face is as a whole, and breaking it down feature by feature is far harder to do. Fascinating, no? And something I've been doing as far back as I can remember. Whenever someone tells me about a new boy/girlfriend my first question is always "Who would play them in a film?" - obviously you have to make allowances for the fact that leurve can vastly improve the looks of a potential suitor but if they say "Ooh maybe Hugh Jackman...?" I can assume it's some man who is tall, smiley, and quite good-looking (and possibly Australian). One of the best drunken dinner-party conversations I've ever had was when we were all deciding who would play us in the films that would inevitably be made of our lives - Philip Seymour Hoffman loomed large (not playing me, obviously, but as my friend Marky Mark), although my friend Steak and I nearly came to blows over who got Laura Linney. I fobbed her off with Mena Suvari (well, Steak does look about 15). Everyone tried to make Mr Fishwife feel better about his comprehensively (and prematurely) grey hair by saying "Well, obviously George Clooney". And all at once I was reminded, depressingly, of the colleague I once had (who, himself, looked like Hugh Grant in About A Boy) who considered the idea for a while and then finally decided I looked most like Axl Rose.


No, seriously, which one would you prefer if you were me????

8 comments:

Rol said...

Yeah, but have you seen Axl Rose these days? He looks like a teabag with dreadlocks.

Lucy Fishwife said...

... which in itself is enough to put me off ever getting my hair dreadlocked on holiday, in the unlikely event that I was drunk enough to even consider it. I think he now looks like Bo Derek would have done, had she not had extensive plastic surgery in the 1980s...

Steve said...

If you recall the kid's TV show Rentaghost... Mr Claypole bears an uncanny resemblance to yours truly. As does Gerry Adams. I know which of the two I'd prefer.

Lucy Fishwife said...

Fantastic! Do you also have a jester's outfit? Or a small carbomb? The odd link between the two is that Martin McGuinness looks like a homicidal clown so could hang out with either of your two incarnations...

Titian red said...

Celia Imrie or Mrs Pogle depending upon state of mind, wardrobe, and sheer bloody mindedness !
Had the most wonderful time running round Paris - highlights include FREE Champagne in Tiffanys, no, no purchase required, playing in Caron admiring the Baccarat crystal flacon and stroking swansdown, going to Etat Libre d'Orange (WOW !!) and eating in the same restaurant as M and Mme Sarkozy - yes he is tiny and she is beautiful, best of all I didnt pay, just ate ! Hope Mr Fishwifes hair gets better soon, and Christmas is not too snotty

ScentScelf said...

Well, this seems to be pretty easy, as Laura Linney could play Axl Rose any d@%! time she wanted to.

Rol said...

I'd pay to see the remake of '10' with Axl running down a beach in his swimsuit.

I must be sick.

The Poet Laura-eate said...

Well I know Julianne Moore is probably knocking on a bit now, but what about Julianne Moore ten years ago?

Merry Christmas Lucy!

Lx