Readers will no doubt be familiar with the popular and usually smutty internet pastime of 'photoshop challenge', but may not realise that this sort of visual trickery is not restricted to the digital world.

In Union Street, Ryde, the Ranger has recently spotted a remarkable example of this, in the form of an extraordinary hermetic globe outside the newly refurbished premises of Messrs Greaves & Thomas, Globemakers. This striking object has been placed in the street to mark their workshops at Bravinger's Arcade. If you're wondering why the Ranger is going on about globes, rest assured there's a nature connection coming along.

Bravinger's Arcade, Ryde

It looks pretty intriguing on first sight, but the really cunning twist is that this globe is not, as it appears to be, a reflective ball. It is a series of photographs of the streetscape distorted appropriately and fixed to a globe - a hermetic globe.

Look more closely - who is that, waving to us from the base of the sphere?

Sir Patrick Moore

It's popular astronomer and accomplished xylophone player Sir Patrick Moore! Sadly, Sir Patrick is too elderly to get out much these days, so it seems likely that this image, too, was subject to a certain amount of manipulation.

If you are wondering about the nature connection, well, you've already seen it. Perhaps the globe stunned you so much you didn't notice it. Look again at the first picture above and you will see a huge, golden grasshopper, complete and very realistically crafted. It even has little spines on its legs. If that had appeared overnight by itself, there would have been a sensation. As it is, the globe and the image of Sir Patrick have drawn people's attention. So, to redress the balance, the Ranger finishes here with a picture of that splendid grasshopper.

A great golden grasshopper