Remember remember the 25th of September

There are three memory competitions in the next month and a half, that hopefully I'll be going to if I've got enough money.

The UK Championship happens on August 25 and 26 in London. I just tried to look up the schedule, but all it says on the website is that it "will follow the same timetable as last year", so obviously I've failed the first memory test. Still, there are important principles at stake here. There have been four previous UK Memory Championships, and I've won them all. Gunther won seven consecutive German Championships, back in the dark ages, so I'm already half-way to one-upping him! By the way, this is also an invitation to other UK memorisers to get off their backsides and try to beat me, please.

The German Championship, nowadays not quite as Gunther-dominated as it used to be, although he did finish a strong second last year, takes place on 16 and 17 September, in Heilbronn. I'm certainly hoping to improve on my miserable performance last year. And as always, Germany is the place to go if you want to compete against all the best (non-Chinese) memory folk in the world! It'll be a classic, they always are.

And the Swedish Championship, which I also failed to win last year (although apparently a Swedish news article has recently announced to the world that I'm the reigning champion - it was actually Simon Reinhard, for avoidance of doubt, and I've never claimed otherwise) will take place on 24 and 25 September, in Gothenburg. People will come from all over the world to watch us memorising, because once again it's part of a busy book fair, and possibly in a giant glass cube just like last year. It's the place to be seen!

So pack your bags, everyone, and do some memory globe-trotting! I guarantee fun and frolics!