3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds

I'm wondering if I should go to the Speed Memory World Championships. This is a different thing entirely from the World Memory Championships, if you were wondering. We use the word 'memory' to mean something entirely unrelated to what these people are talking about. Memory, of course, is a concept that encompasses a whole lot of things, and to be honest, we really should change the name of the WMC to something a lot more specific - it'd stop me being constantly mistaken for someone who's an expert on teaching people how to remember where they left their car keys.

"Speed Memory" is basically a photographic memory kind of thing - looking at a small handful of numbers or other information for 2 seconds or so and trying to recall them perfectly. It's a discipline that basically is only done by one guy, Ramon Campayo, and he's the one who sets the rules and regulations for this championship - which is organised in an old-fashioned "challengers' tournament to decide who gets to compete against the reigning champion" format. It would be fun to take part and try my hand at it, because I've never done this kind of thing before. On the other hand, it's in Munich, the week before the German Memory Championship in Hamburg, and I can see myself taking a week and a half off work, touring around Germany, and ending up using all my holidays long before the end of March, like I did this time round. And working five days a week, every week for months on end is no fun at all, I tells you.