According to the latest census there are 58,789,194 people in the UK. It never fails to amaze me when, out of the blue, I recognise one of them. The human brain has an uncanny ability to distinguish facial features and put a name to them, even when it's someone you've not seen for years or never seen in the flesh before.
I was getting off the tube the other evening when voices in my subconscious brain latched onto one of the men on the platform, waiting to board the carriage.
"Isn't that, you know, him, thingy, whatshisname?"
"Erm, he has a sort-of familiar look about him. I must try to put a name to the face."
"Could it be, hang on while I dredge his name out of my the dark recesses of my visual memory, him?"
"No, it can't be, he looks too old, and he looked taller than that on the telly, and I'm sure he never used to be that full-faced."
"It is him though isn't it? Cos last time I remember seeing him in the news he was about five or ten years younger, and he does look exactly how he ought to look today doesn't he?"
"Hmmm, I guess what I'm seeing now is how he'd really look without the help of on-screen make-up, and with what's left of his hair uncombed and flapping lankly."
"He certainly looks like a man who's taken full advantage of all the high life, good-living and junket-attending you get when you're one of the UK's top European Commissioners."
"Well maybe he only looks like a top politician. Maybe it isn't him at all, but merely a lookalike? Try to come up with some convincing evidence."
"The train's just pulling into Westminster tube station."
"OK, so I am convinced, it is him. Blimey, it's the Neil Kinnock." All that happened inside my head in less than two seconds, synaptic recognition just in time for me to walk straight past the bloke as he boarded the train. Not the most exciting celebrity to spot, admittedly, but there's still a certain frisson in identifying a well-known face wandering through my everyday world.
I've spied quite a high number of famous people randomly walking the streets of London (rather more than Suffolk, obviously). Every time I notice a famous face in an everyday situation there's a sudden spark of inner recognition as I struggle to place them before they've passed me by, and I usually manage. I saw the legendary Una Stubbs crossing Piccadilly outside Fortnum and Mason once, smiling her way through life. I saw Peter Stringfellow striding round Covent Garden with an entourage, and he's even more orange in real life than I was expecting. I spotted Jeremy Bowen off Breakfast News walking past my restaurant once, though that was only mildly thrilling. I saw Philip Franks (Countdown favourite, and Catherine Zeta's Darling Buds of May love interest) sitting in a window of Starbucks in Oxford Street slurping latte. I saw film star Rupert Everett in LA3 last year looking very tall, very bored, very haggard and very alone (which cheered me up no end). Most excitingly, I spotted the goddess Judi Dench standing in the queue behind me buying Christmas cards last year, and somehow resisted the urge her to ask her to autograph all sixty cards I was buying at the time.
The distant recesses of my brain have also helped me to spot a few of my old school friends wandering around London, despite the fact they must be a good twenty years older than when I last remember sitting next to them in double geography. I seem to bump into my best mate from secondary school in the most unexpected places about once every seven years, recover from the shock of him being *there* and then say hello. He never recognises me though, which I take to be a good thing. Oddly, none of the celebrities I meet recognise me either. Maybe one day...
