Counting sheep

I've just been playing the 'face memory' test here at the 'sleep' section of the BBC website (thanks to the Mule for the link to the general area). I got a below average score on the number of faces remembered, but above average on identifying whether they came in the first batch or the second. I really need to practice names and faces more. Or at all.

I'm not really interested in the connection between memory and sleep, although it would be interesting to analyse what difference it made at the 2003 world championship when I didn't wake up until five minutes after the final day's competition was supposed to start. I did the same kind of thing this morning - I vaguely remember my alarm going off, but I didn't do anything about it and went back to sleep. Woke up again critically analysing some cartoon I'd been watching in a dream (which I remember nothing about now except my waking thought that it was pretty good and, at 23 minutes in length, not too long). Looked at the clock to see what time it was, expecting something like 23 minutes after it went off, and found it had actually been 40, and I had to leave the house in five minutes to catch the train. I made it on time, too - I'm quite an expert at racing around in the morning when I need to.

I got the 5:20 train home tonight, rather than the 5:43, because it was about 35 minutes late. Nothing too unusual there, but the excuse was one I hadn't heard before - a medical emergency on the train earlier on. I think they've issued a new book of reasons for delays to the station staff. A couple of weeks ago the poor guy who works there was updating passengers on the delays to two trains, with three different reasons, and could never keep straight what each one was delayed for.