The Wash columnist Dave Cannan talks to a Dunedin student with an uncanny resemblance to pop superstar Lorde.
You only have to spend a minute or two on Google for confirmation that history is littered with lookalikes - some famous, some not so, and more than a few wannabes.
I suppose resembling a celebrity or a superstar or even someone infamous could be a mixed blessing.
However, being mistaken for New Zealand's best-known pop singer, Lorde, is a daily reality for Dunedin's Emma Bennet, and if you take a look at the two photographs, I'm sure you can see why.
Emma, who will be 21 later this year (Lorde, born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, will be 18 on November 7), tells me that at least once a day she gets asked either: ''has anyone ever told you you look like Lorde?'' or ''are you Lorde?''
''It's so ridiculous,'' she says with a laugh, ''so I just say `I am Lorde'.''
It's obvious talking to Emma she treats the constant banter with good-natured amusement but she says the similarities with Lorde are just coincidence - ''I've always looked like this,'' she says, adding with another laugh, ''I am the original''.
However, Emma makes no secret of her huge admiration for Lorde and her music, regarding the Kiwi teenage star as ''quite cool and quirky'' and someone she would love to meet.
But, can Emma sing?
''Well, I like to think I can ... (more laughter) ... I appeared in a music video for the River Jesters once,'' she admitted - (NB: I found an excellent clip for the single Pony on YouTube which, I think, features Emma).
But, in ''real life'', Emma is in her last year as a zoology student at Otago University and also does some part-time modelling for Ican model agency, which is based in Queenstown and owned by Tracy Cameron.
If you reckon you've found some lookalikes, email us the photographs or the names and we'll let the readers decide
