Many years ago, aware that I had incredible difficulty remembering and associating names and faces, I coined the term ‘Nominal Dysphasia’ jokingly to excuse my predicament.

In 1994 a medical journal published an article on ‘Nominal Asphasia’. Exactly the same problem I had, but a slightly different name to the one I had made up for a laugh.

It turns out to be a real and general problem, not just me being thick or lazy. And at every conference and exhibition it’s always the same — people I have never seen before come up and greet me warmly, and until I see their badge or they give me a card, I have no idea who they are. Oddly enough it doesn’t happen with everyone. I saw an old friend at the London Book Fair last week whom I hadn’t seen since 1979, and I recognised him and remembered his name instantly.

Now here is a peculiar example which happened at fotoFringe, the picture buyers’ fair, yesterday. An attractive woman came up to the table and I greeted her warmly, “Hello! How are you?” (my all-purpose welcome and get-out). I had never seen her before in my life. We were offering blocks of Lindt chocolate in exchange for business cards, and as she didn’t have a card with her (why do so many people come to business trade fairs without cards nowadays? It makes no sense) she wrote down her name.

And as I glanced at her handwriting I immediately knew who she was. She worked for an educational publisher in the south Midlands, and I had met her at last year’s fotoFringe, and we’d had a good long chat. She was really nice.

I didn’t remember her at first sight, but I remembered her handwriting instantly. Is that odd? Or is that very odd? I could recognise and remember handwriting I’d seen for a brief moment twelve months ago, but not a face, a person or a name. It may explain my passion for typefaces and fonts, but it’s rather a lame excuse when you’re shaking the hand of your best man, frantically trying to recall where you’ve seen him before.

So apologies to all my friends, relations, colleagues et al when I sweep past you and cut you dead. It’s not intentional at all. It’s just me. I’m an extremely pleasant, warm and welcoming person, and if you write your name on a little piece of paper I will remember you straight away.

Promise!

I met him at the London Book Fair:

On Saturday a smirking, egotistical, attention-seeking Australian put an oar in the works of one of Britain’s favourite and most venerable annual pageants.

The Boat Race is contested between Oxford and Cambridge Universities along four plus miles of the Thames. This foreigner jumped into the river and impeded the racing boats to “protest” against — against what? Against “elitism in Britain”, of all things. This is not his country, mind you. I wouldn’t dream of going to Australia to protest against the stupidity of some Australians.

This prompted a voice of sadness and sanity from one of the competing rowers, an Oxford student named William Zeng. At his young age he is far more measured and controlled than I could ever hope to be, and all I can do is repeat his consecutive tweets in utter admiration:

“When I missed your head with my blade I knew only that you were a swimmer, and if you say you are a protestor then no matter what you say your cause may be, your action speaks too loudly for me to hear you. I know, with immediate emotion, exactly what you were protesting. You were protesting the right of seventeen young men and one woman to compete fairly and honorably to demonstrate their hard work and desire in a proud tradition. You were protesting their right to devote years of their lives, their friendships and their souls to the fair pursuit of the joys and the hardships of sport. You, who would make a mockery of their dedication and courage, are a mockery of a man.”

On December 15th last year I got an £80 parking ticket in Westminster. I thought it was massively unfair, because I had spent 12 minutes in the dark and drizzle attempting to pay for my parking by phone, and the system simply wouldn’t work.

I blogged about it in fury here. I wasn’t happy at all. I felt it was an unjust, unfair, and heavy-handed penalty, a cynical revenue-raising exercise. So I was determined to fight it.

27 letters and several emails later, I received this morning (Wednesday April 4) a letter from the Parking Appeals and Traffic Service telling me that the City of Westminster will not contest my appeal against the penalty charge notice (a.k.a. parking ticket). “You are not liable for any further charges and any amounts already paid will be refunded by the Enforcement Authority.”

I should think so too. The fact that I tried to pay for my parking, failed in my three attempts by phone, and then offered to pay by cheque has been ignored.

So I got to park for free. But at what a cost.

My celebration was muted when Yvonne told me that on the same day, December 15th:
1) finding we couldn’t turn right into Lisson Grove from Marylebone Road, I had turned left into Wyndham Street, right into York Street, right into Seymour Place and straight on into Lisson Grove. That took us into the Congestion Zone for 45 seconds. Fine: £80.
2) on the way home we paused outside our local Budgens for me to pop in for 2 litres of milk. Von was at the wheel, lights on, engine running; I was gone for three minutes max. Fine: £65.

An expensive hospital visit. Von didn’t tell me about these last two because I was so agitated about the parking fine. She just paid them.

I’m getting fed up with blogging and tweeting about how the fotoLibra site crashed last week and is nearly back up and running now, so I’ll take a quick break to laud a stunning photograph I saw in the paper on Saturday.

I wish I could show it to you here, but because of sensible copyright reasons I can only offer you a link to it: bit.ly/Hct01C

I urge, urge, urge you please to click on the link and look.

It is a portrait of a poor family in Accrington, Lancashire, and in composition, colour, lighting and the clear frank gaze of the sitters (what else can I call them?) it is a portrait worthy of a fine artist, a Dutch master, a Vermeer even. These are not handsome or pretty people. But MacPherson makes them beautiful.

Although I work as a picture librarian, I’m not a photographer and I don’t move in photographic circles, so I don’t know if Colin MacPherson is famous or not. I know from this one photograph that he deserves to be. I must have stared at this image for ten minutes on Saturday morning. It is luminous, and numinous. And somehow, it is much more compelling seen on cheap newsprint than on your top-of-the-range 28″ monitor.

And you know what the photograph really says to me? Look at those little girls. Look at their parents.

In the midst of despair there is always hope.