There is a well-worn joke about the distinguished visitor to a nursing home, saying, ‘Do you know who I am?’ ‘No dear, but if you go to the office, I’m sure matron will tell you.’
I also like the current joke about Jack Straw – ‘how dare he show his face round here?’
We are programmed generally – in evolutionary selection this must always have been a good skill to have – to be very good at recognising faces. In early childhood we lose the capacity to distinguish the faces of animals with the same clarity, but continue to build up a lifetime library of human mug shots – ‘I know the face.’ And then sometimes we don’t.