My Favourite Film of 1935.

Film Perhaps it's my age but I always have tremendous difficulty remember Abbie Oakley star Barbara Stanwyck's name.

It's an affliction which has festered for a few years now. I've sat looking at the spine label for Lady of Burlesque, seeing her face but unable to actually usher forth her name. Minutes have gone by until I've reached for an iProduct for a quick search.

I've always been someone who's good with faces rather than names. In the past I've shared small talk with people who clearly know me well enough to be able to ask specific questions about me and I haven't a clue who they are immediately.

Conversational busking has become a key part of my skill set, asking generic questions until they reveal something which jogs my memory and they usually do. But there have been occasions when I've reached the end of a conversation, said my best wishes and then remember who they were half an hour later.

Which obviously also leads me to admit that there are times when I've never remembered.

Working in customer service situations doesn't help. Serving dozens if not hundreds of people a day means that faces lodge themselves in there. I'm entirely certain I've had conversations with people I only otherwise know because I've sold them something or imparted information.

There is a recognised disorder called Face Blindness. Here's a piece from CBS's 60 Minutes about it include an interview with portrait painter Chuck Close.




But it's not that or at least not as acute. I remember the people I should remember or my brain knows it's important to remember.

I also have a problem immediately knowing the difference between left and right. Apparently I'm not alone in that.

But of all the actors, why do I blank on Barbara Stanwyck's name so much I just had to check the top of this post to remind myself of who I was writing about?

No idea.  None.  If anything it's distinctive enough that it should lodge in my brain.

I'm sorry, who are you?