Tuesday, November 11, 2008

More memories

Well, now that I'm officially free to write about something other than memory, let's talk about memory. Am I going to win next year? I'm on a bit of a roll at the moment, I won everything I entered last year (which would have been more impressive if I hadn't skipped the German championship) and although I haven't done any training bar an online memory challenge since the WMC ended, I'm still feeling motivated. I think I'll do some serious practice this coming weekend.

Also, I was in too much of a hurry yesterday to mention that at the prizegiving ceremony, while trying to escape the hordes of people who wanted their picture taken with me for a minute or two so the cheesy grin wouldn't get permanently stuck on my face, I bumped into a guy called Phillip Holt (or something like that - I'm still rubbish with names), who was one of the people giving lectures at the Festival of the Mind, but more interestingly once worked for Peter Pan Playthings while they were the distributors of othello. And it turns out he designed their database for keeping track of othello competitions, back in the days when more than six people turned up for the average regional. I love these little small-world moments.

What else could I mention? How about a little advance advertising for next year's Cambridge Championship? I want to make it a big and special thing in 2009, so clear a space in your calendars for next May! Come on, let's have a lot of great memorisers and a lot of enthusiastic beginners!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I will be there Ben so count me in. I have also ben asked by someone else who is dead keen on coming.

Dai

Anonymous said...

Let me know 3 or 4 weeks before hand and I might be able to drum up some extra helpers for you this year.

Anonymous said...

In fact, slight afterthought - the group of people I might get some volunteers from, you never know - I might also get some of them to sign on as beginners. Will your next tv appearance explain what is involved in the competitions or just how the techniques work? If you can send me some wording once you start recruiting that explains it simply to someone who's never even heard of the concept of memory events, I'll send it round to the arts and cultural events group I'm involved with in Cambridge