Friday, March 14, 2008

Pi Day

A few years ago, I was talking with some people on March 14th, and someone mentioned that it's Pi Day, on account of it being 3/14. I said that it shouldn't count as Pi Day in Britain if we have to put the date the American way to make it work, and we should instead celebrate pi on April 31st, to be nice and British about it. Everybody nodded and agreed that that was more sensible, and it wasn't until late that night that it occurred to me that there isn't a 31st of April. I can't remember who I was talking to when I made the April 31st comment - possibly I've been avoiding them ever since, in case they also realised later on what a stupid thing I'd said.

In other memory-related news, I went out to the supermarket in the shopping centre tonight, and in the middle of the centre they had set up a stage with a catwalk where models were parading around and advertising something, presumably. By the time I'd done my shopping and was coming back, the models had been replaced by either hairdressers or makeup artists, who were sprucing up some volunteers from the audience while two guys gave a running commentary and kept the crowd entertained. As I walked past, one of them said, into the microphone, "Hey, I know that guy, he was on TV!" They then introduced me to the crowd gathered around, by name and knowing a frankly scary amount about my memory achievements. Without even mentioning the chimp. Everyone applauded. Am I actually a local celebrity now?

And while it's true, as they announced, that I don't need to make a list when I shop at Sainsbury's, that's largely because I don't decide what I'm going to eat for the next week or so until I get there. If I need to buy something specific, I do invariably forget it.

1 comment:

Ian said...

Ben - you're a star!