We’ve had pareidolia, everyday apophenia, schizotypal
thought processes, visual anthropomorphism.
Oh yes, we’ve all had them, any of us with even the most modest
imagination.
We’ve seen faces in the fire and elephants or fluffy poodles
in the evening sky. The luckier ones amongst us may have seen Jesus in the
jamjar, the Messiah in the Marmite, the Great Bear in the sky, and the future
in the tea leaves, or heard symphonies in the air conditioning, or listened to spooky
messages in the hum of the fridge on a quiet night.
Some people have observed or even owned cats that look like
Hitler (so-called kitlers). Not that a cat will ever admit to being owned;
quite the reverse. Then there’s a house in Swansea that looks like Hitler, and
there are websites devoted to objects that look like Hitler.
But the full realisation of the insidious extent of this kind of thing caught me unawares the other afternoon, a trick of the sunlight maybe, while passing a postbox that I’ve passed dozens of times previously, without seeing … it. Or rather, him. It’s in Brookthorpe Way, Silverdale, Nottingham. I had to go back next day with my camera. I can’t decide whether it’s more convincing in colour or black and white.
