‘Needing eyes in the back of your head …’
There was never a parent who raised any sort of a child, who didn’t declare at some point; ‘you would need eyes in the back of your head to watch them.’ Then as soon as the child settles into school, he or she would discover to their cost that it was the teacher who had eyes in the back of the head!
A certain lady I know, who shall be nameless here, has proven time after time to have that uncanny power of having eyes in the back of her head. As I may have mentioned previously, she first of all has a nose that would get her a job as a sniffer with the drugs squad at Dublin Airport. ‘Who did you have in the car?’ … and this a day after I gave some poor ‘scrut’ a lift to a match. But it’s these extra eyes we are looking at here. ‘Stop picking’ … just as I see her with her back turned and I decide to sample some tasty morsel sitting on the stove. (Could be related to the teacher thingy perhaps) I did respond once … but only the once, I hasten to add, by wondering why this gift doesn’t apply to reversing a car!
We can be sitting in a restaurant, an airport or at a concert, when I’m asked; ‘Did you ever get the feeling that somebody was watching you?’ ‘Not since you told your father we were getting engaged’, I replied. But without fail, ‘four-eyes’ will turn around and be able to tell me the name of the person favouring us with a gaze.
Of course there is no visible proof of being able to see out of the back of our heads. It is just that peculiar instinct, a sense telling us that there is something behind us we should be aware of. It is possible that sometimes the brain hits on an analytical power that incorporates ‘gaze detections’ to let us know we are the focus of a pair of eyes we cannot see. I remember once hearing some footballer being interviewed on radio; a speedy forward and one who always seemed to have time on the ball. The player told the interviewer that he could always tell how close the player was behind him without ever having to look. It has been recorded, rare instances of humans born with their eyes so widely apart and so large that they had the peripheral vision to see most of what went on behind them.
You can purchase sunglasses with mirror-type reflectors to allow you to see people behind you. I know that I promised the Lads not to let on to the Gorls about this – but honest reporting is more important than ever these days!
Rabbits (of which I know a thing or two about) and parrots can see behind them without turning their heads. Their eyes are positioned on the sides of their head, granting them 360-degree panoramic vision. This allows them to cover all approaches from predators and dangers from all directions at once.
As well as rabbits, cows are another animal I know a thing or two about; having farmed both. Believe me; the cow can see behind her as good as any rabbit. With round bulging eyes on the side of her head, your moody old cow can land the perfectly placed kick straight into your bal … ba …b … bucket, without ever turning her head!
I know all about ‘kickidy’ cows, but I have no understanding of what I am about to tell you next. Please do not stop me on the street to discuss, because the truth is that what I write next is being copied from a piece of paper I tore out of a magazine last week. This snippet inspired the above thoughts – but this is where the comparison stops.
In 2002, at the University of Louvain, Mr (probably a professor, but it doesn’t say) Claude Veraart invented a pair of eyes for the back of your head … any head. Here is the bit I don’t want you to ever quiz me on. ‘A microsystem – based visual prosthesis is a spiral cuff electrode around the optic nerves at the back of the eye. This is connected to a stimulator in a small depression in the skull.’ Got that …? In other words it is known as having eyes in the back of your head.
I don’t like those bits about playing around with ‘optic nerves’ or a ‘small depression in the skull’. Personally I am prepared to stick with the two eyes I have in front – and trust Specsavers to do the rest!
Don’t Forget
This retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I wake up in the morning with nothing to do and going to bed that night I realise I only got half of it done.