http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34709004
On the BBC News page today is another article about Prosopagnosia, about which I wrote in last years blog on November 13th – if you’ve a mind to look it up. http://carriecohen.co.uk/blog/page/3/
If you can’t be bothered to follow the links, prosopagnosia is faceblindness – the inability to recognise faces.
It’s horrid but not life-threatening unless, I suppose, I ignore someone with violent tendencies but in my social world that mostly consists of showbusiness and bridge playing friends that is unlikely to happen; unless the “witch” is reading this, which she won’t be because she’s far too self-obsessed to be on any form of social media.
But I digress.
Faceblindess struck me again at a matinée today of “The Father” which, as it was a play about an old man’s dementia and his muddling of people’s faces was somewhat ironic. In the play two actors of similar height and facial hair play his daughter’s partners. I was as confused as he, until I realised that one chap had a Scottish accent and the other actor could not stand up straight. However the two actresses playing his daughter had different coloured hair so it didn’t matter that they were the same height.
After the show I had no problem in accosting a theatre director I knew to be in the audience because I was looking for him and had some sort of visual memory as to his appearance but I was flummoxed when an actor I had worked with a couple of months ago started chatting to me.
The trouble with having had faceblindness for my whole life (see previous article) is that when I do get really old (in my 90’s) no being able to recognise people will not be much of marker as to my brain’s efficiency.