It is all in a look.

No matter how many colours I use in the painting of this face it is always recognised instantly by all who see it. I painted a version of this a year or so ago but looked at it again and once more felt it could be improved. I am still not sure I have got it right but I am sure he will be instantly known.

The human brain has a tremendous capacity to remember faces and often the names that are attached to them. But this marvellous capacity also brings a side effect that can be dangerous. The very same brain can often be fooled by first impressions. It can often see what it want to see and is therefore fooled.

Throughout my life I have always taken people at what we call, "Face value," and it has on more than once led me to future pain and being deceived by people less trusty than they would have you believe.

When architect Christopher Wren designed the interior of Windsor Town Hall near London in 1689, he built a ceiling supported by pillars. After city fathers had inspected the finished building, they decided the ceiling would not stay up and ordered Wren to put in some more pillars. 

England's greatest architect didn't think the ceiling needed any more support, so he pulled a fast one. He added four pillars that did not do anything -- they don't even reach the ceiling. The optical illusion fooled the municipal authorities, and today the four sham pillars amuse many a tourist. 

Those so-called experts had been fooled and they all saw what they wanted to see.

During one of his political campaigns, a delegation called on Theodore Roosevelt at his home in Oyster Bay, Long Island. The President met them with his coat off and his sleeves rolled up. "Ah, gentlemen," he said, "come down to the barn and we will talk while I do some work." 

At the barn, Roosevelt picked up a pitchfork and looked around for the hay. Then he called out, "John, where's all the hay?"

"Sorry, sir," John called down from the hayloft. "I ain't have time to toss it back down again after you pitched it up while the Iowa folks were here."  

He wanted those who were going to vote for him to see him as a hardworking man. The hardest working man was the one who was not seen at all, John.

Politicians have an often clever knack of making you see what you want to see and even hear what they want you to hear. Frequently this art leads to people being fooled into making unwise choices. On this, I will say no more and leave you to ponder.

But let me conclude on a note of laughter. 

I heard this tale many years ago, the old ones are always the best.

A Texas rancher driving through Vermont had to stop to let a farmer's cow cross the road. As the farmer passed in front of the Cadillac convertible, the rancher called out to him, "How much land you got, partner?" 

"Well," the farmer said, "my land runs all the way down there to them alders along the brook. On the meadow side, over there, it goes clean up to those larches on the hill."  

"You know," said the rancher, "I got a spread in Texas and I can get in my pickup and drive all day without reaching any of my boundary lines." 

"That so?" said the farmer. "I had a truck like that once." 

Things are not always what they seem to be and the brain must be alert. Who was it that said, "Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing,"?

Have a marvellous day.