Yep, New York is still a cool place to be. And just like every time I go to America, the weather has been lovely, warm and sunny all day, even though the city's still blanketed in snow! In many, many ways I'm the exact opposite of the Selfish Giant - spring follows me around everywhere I go (except in Britain)!
Just briefly dropping by internet land to see if any of the people I've arranged to meet up with over the next couple of days have sent me a last-minute message. They haven't, so you get a quick bonus blog before my net-cafe time runs out. Itinerary for the weekend: tomorrow morning, meet scary internet acquaintance I've never met in real life before, who's bringing along an equally scary-sounding friend too. Afternoon, meet a different but also scary internet acquaintance I've never met in real life before. If I'm still alive at that point, evening dinner with a memory man I have met before and who isn't scary at all (accompanied by a 'memory researcher' who probably is a bit scary). Saturday, hang out with numerous non-scary (mostly) American memory championship competitors, and hopefully a meet-up with another "internet acquaintance" who I've known for the best part of ten years now and have almost stopped being scared of - funnily enough, Crispy's in New York right now too.
Sunday morning, back home. Monday, work. I'm going to be asleep at my desk.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Miscellaneous babblings
My GOD, Excel 2007 is rubbish! Who the heck invented it? I've got it on my new laptop, and I'm going to have to download 2003, or better yet whichever version it was before that. Have you tried drawing a graph with 2007? It's the stupidest system I've ever seen!
Still, to compensate for that annoyance, I have got an old-style 10p coin, courtesy of Roel Hobo at the weekend (I swapped it for a legal-tender new-style one). It was minted in 1968, one of the first batch that were made as 10p rather than two shillings. I've added it to my collection of vaguely interesting coins!
Andre who posted a question as a comment to my blog entry of a few days ago: Yes, my memory system is the same as the one described here. And I've never used photos to keep track of my mental images. That seems to me like it would be very limiting - the images in my head have changed and developed as I've got used to them, and I don't think that would have worked so well if there'd been a real picture in my head rather than a vague idea.
New York! Getting the train down to London tomorrow evening after work, flying out early on Thursday morning. Woohoo!
And before I go, you could listen to Radio Nottingham tomorrow morning, at nine o'clockish. It probably won't be the worst thing in the world if you miss it, but they're interviewing me. Record it and play it in the evenings for the next few days, it'll make up for not having my blog to read!
Still, to compensate for that annoyance, I have got an old-style 10p coin, courtesy of Roel Hobo at the weekend (I swapped it for a legal-tender new-style one). It was minted in 1968, one of the first batch that were made as 10p rather than two shillings. I've added it to my collection of vaguely interesting coins!
Andre who posted a question as a comment to my blog entry of a few days ago: Yes, my memory system is the same as the one described here. And I've never used photos to keep track of my mental images. That seems to me like it would be very limiting - the images in my head have changed and developed as I've got used to them, and I don't think that would have worked so well if there'd been a real picture in my head rather than a vague idea.
New York! Getting the train down to London tomorrow evening after work, flying out early on Thursday morning. Woohoo!
And before I go, you could listen to Radio Nottingham tomorrow morning, at nine o'clockish. It probably won't be the worst thing in the world if you miss it, but they're interviewing me. Record it and play it in the evenings for the next few days, it'll make up for not having my blog to read!
Monday, March 02, 2009
A few more things that happened at the weekend
It's a bit more difficult to get to Cambridge from Beeston than it is from Derby. And even Derby was somewhat difficult - Cambridge boasts about its frequent and fast service to and from London, but tries to discourage northerners from being able to reach the city. They set the wrong tone, you know. Nonetheless, I was able to work out how to get there and wasn't delayed too much by a train breaking down in Nottingham station. However, it was while getting off that train and on to a new one that I noticed someone wearing a nice T-shirt, and idly thought to myself "Which T-shirts did I bring with me for the weekend? Oh, drat, I forgot to bring any. The only things I packed were my pyjamas and a change of pants and socks."
This still left me with at least options for the othello championship - go there dressed in the clothes I'd travelled down to Cambridge in (my work trousers and shirt, which look horribly like the kind of thing an accountant would wear and were also somewhat sweaty from cycling); go there dressed in my pyjamas, which are stylish but uncoordinated (it's the trousers from one pair and the top from another, so as to maximise the amount of remaining buttons on the ones I'm wearing); go there dressed only in my underwear and hat (it was a bit cold, unfortunately); or buy some cheap and stylish clothes from a charity shop.
I went for option four, and got myself a very groovy shirt with lots of pink on it. It got a fair few comments. As for the competition itself, I mostly played very badly, as I said yesterday. Bintsa Andriani played staggeringly well, beating everybody in the eleven rounds of swiss only to lose to David Hand on disc count in the final when they drew the last game. Epic stuff. Despite not achieving very much of note beyond losing to Kali Turner (who's 15 now, so it's entirely acceptable to lose to her), I was able to retain my 100% win record against Takuji Kashiwabara, which dates all the way back to 2003. I beat him that year and have always avoided playing him again ever since.
It's Oadby in two weeks - clearly I'm never going to have a free weekend to practice memory, but never mind. I'd love to mount a serious challenge for the BGP this year, but I don't think I'm going to without a lot more preparation. And I just don't seem to have the time to do anything these days, what with having to go to New York for a fun sightseeing and friend-hanging-out-with holiday and everything...
This still left me with at least options for the othello championship - go there dressed in the clothes I'd travelled down to Cambridge in (my work trousers and shirt, which look horribly like the kind of thing an accountant would wear and were also somewhat sweaty from cycling); go there dressed in my pyjamas, which are stylish but uncoordinated (it's the trousers from one pair and the top from another, so as to maximise the amount of remaining buttons on the ones I'm wearing); go there dressed only in my underwear and hat (it was a bit cold, unfortunately); or buy some cheap and stylish clothes from a charity shop.
I went for option four, and got myself a very groovy shirt with lots of pink on it. It got a fair few comments. As for the competition itself, I mostly played very badly, as I said yesterday. Bintsa Andriani played staggeringly well, beating everybody in the eleven rounds of swiss only to lose to David Hand on disc count in the final when they drew the last game. Epic stuff. Despite not achieving very much of note beyond losing to Kali Turner (who's 15 now, so it's entirely acceptable to lose to her), I was able to retain my 100% win record against Takuji Kashiwabara, which dates all the way back to 2003. I beat him that year and have always avoided playing him again ever since.
It's Oadby in two weeks - clearly I'm never going to have a free weekend to practice memory, but never mind. I'd love to mount a serious challenge for the BGP this year, but I don't think I'm going to without a lot more preparation. And I just don't seem to have the time to do anything these days, what with having to go to New York for a fun sightseeing and friend-hanging-out-with holiday and everything...
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Ol' hotel
CityRoomz, formerly known as Sleeperz, is a really nice little hotel right next to the train station in Cambridge. I always stay there for othello tournaments, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who might want to come to an othello tournament or any of the other things that happen in Cambridge.
Anyway, fun weekend. As I predicted, I played pretty terribly, apart from a quite nice win over Phil. I did develop a new theory about othello games, though, which I'll write in more detail if I really can't think of anything else to talk about tomorrow.
Anyway, fun weekend. As I predicted, I played pretty terribly, apart from a quite nice win over Phil. I did develop a new theory about othello games, though, which I'll write in more detail if I really can't think of anything else to talk about tomorrow.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Weekends
It occurs to me that I'm going to have no time to get into any kind of practice routine for memory competitions for the next couple of weeks. Othelloing in Cambridge this weekend (so no blogging for the next couple of days, Zoomettes*), then New York the following weekend-and-a-bit (so again no blogs, most likely, from Wednesday to Sunday, Zoom-fans** - try not to forget about me).
*I've decided that followers of this blog should be called "Zoomettes"
**I've subsequently decided that "Zoomettes" sounds a bit silly and decided to phase it out of use
I really really need to do some long-discipline training, too. It's been a very, very long time, and I know I'm going to be rubbish when I finally sit down to do it. Almost as bad as I'm going to be at othello this weekend! I haven't played that, or thought about it, or found my clock, or anything for ages and ages.
*I've decided that followers of this blog should be called "Zoomettes"
**I've subsequently decided that "Zoomettes" sounds a bit silly and decided to phase it out of use
I really really need to do some long-discipline training, too. It's been a very, very long time, and I know I'm going to be rubbish when I finally sit down to do it. Almost as bad as I'm going to be at othello this weekend! I haven't played that, or thought about it, or found my clock, or anything for ages and ages.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
DVD people are stupid
I can just about understand them releasing Thundercats DVDs with the episodes all in the wrong order - there are lots of episodes, there's rarely any direct continuity from one episode to the next, and it is just a 1980s cartoon that very few people are obsessive about to the extent that I am. But there's no excuse at all for the people who made the DVD of Police Squad and got the sequence of episodes wrong. There's only six of them, for crying out loud, and the end of each episode explicitly lists all the previous ones, and they still couldn't get it right!
I repeat, DVD people are stupid. Bring back videos.
I repeat, DVD people are stupid. Bring back videos.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Go team!
I do like watching Champions League football. I've turned into a bit of a Man Utd fan these last few years, especially in Europe, in an attempt to discourage Chelsea from winning things. It's working, too. Perhaps if I devoted myself more determinedly to supporting Boston Utd, maybe they'd win something one of these days...
Monday, February 23, 2009
A little bit of memory
One thing people often say to me when I'm explaining my system for turning three-digit numbers into images is "Surely it makes more sense to have 999 be a policeman [or 112 or 911 or whatever the number for the emergency services is in the asker's country] and so on?" I know Dominic does recommend diverging from his system if the number itself suggests an image to you, but I disapprove.
The 'Ben system' and any other system for turning numbers into words and thus images is best compared to learning another language. If you've got it working properly in your head, you don't see the numbers as such, you read '999' as 'b-oh-b' and think of Bobo (Mr Burns's teddy bear) or whatever your favourite word starting with that sound is (I recommend the cartoon series Bobobobs, or the German children's book series 'Bobo Siebenschläfer', but I'm just weird like that). Reading it as a number in some cases and a word in others is just confusing.
Look at it this way - if you speak French and read the word 'pain' in a French text, you don't automatically think 'ouch', because you're mentally pronouncing it differently and taking it in context. That's how it works with reading a story in a 2000-digit number too.
The 'Ben system' and any other system for turning numbers into words and thus images is best compared to learning another language. If you've got it working properly in your head, you don't see the numbers as such, you read '999' as 'b-oh-b' and think of Bobo (Mr Burns's teddy bear) or whatever your favourite word starting with that sound is (I recommend the cartoon series Bobobobs, or the German children's book series 'Bobo Siebenschläfer', but I'm just weird like that). Reading it as a number in some cases and a word in others is just confusing.
Look at it this way - if you speak French and read the word 'pain' in a French text, you don't automatically think 'ouch', because you're mentally pronouncing it differently and taking it in context. That's how it works with reading a story in a 2000-digit number too.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Coronation Stone
I hadn't been to Kingston for a relatively young donkey's years, and it's funny how much the place has changed. First glance on emerging from the train station suggests that it hasn't been a change for the better - Books, Bits & Bobs, the cool little shop that sold comics, costumes and party gimmicks is standing derelict and waiting to be demolished along with that whole block of buildings, but judging by the snazzy new cinema just over the road, it's going to be replaced by something shiny and modern.
And most of the city centre has gone all 21st-century too. I don't know what it is, exactly, but there's something smoother and shinier about shop-fronts these days. A few little redecorations and a place becomes unrecognisable. And with the Bentalls centre I had the usual fun of visiting a place from one of my memory journeys and realising how very different it looks in real life - my journeys tend to stylise the layout of a place like that, shrinking the parts in between locations and subtly changing the positions of significant places. Doesn't help that they've turned the fountain into some kind of weird plant-display, either.
Still, at least the combined ice-cream-and-burgers van is still in the same place it's always been, just outside Woolworth's, despite the shop itself being all closed down and empty.
And most of the city centre has gone all 21st-century too. I don't know what it is, exactly, but there's something smoother and shinier about shop-fronts these days. A few little redecorations and a place becomes unrecognisable. And with the Bentalls centre I had the usual fun of visiting a place from one of my memory journeys and realising how very different it looks in real life - my journeys tend to stylise the layout of a place like that, shrinking the parts in between locations and subtly changing the positions of significant places. Doesn't help that they've turned the fountain into some kind of weird plant-display, either.
Still, at least the combined ice-cream-and-burgers van is still in the same place it's always been, just outside Woolworth's, despite the shop itself being all closed down and empty.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
What a beautiful day!
Oooh, it's been like summer! I did get a nice short summery haircut, and went down to London (and also Kingston on Thames) to see the sights and bask in the comparative warmth and sunshine, and I've only just got back in. Now to rest my weary feet and watch Match Of The Day for the highlights of the few games whose result I didn't overhear in other people's conversations or see on randomly-placed TV screens over the course of the day. Why can't people maintain football-related silence on Saturdays for the benefit of people who like to watch MOTD in the evenings?
Friday, February 20, 2009
Hair piece
I need a haircut. My remaining hairs don't grow all that fast, but they've already got to the length where it's starting to look silly, and this weekend's the last chance to get it done for weeks - Cambridge othelloing next weekend and New Yorking the week after. However, I was thinking of going to London tomorrow, and I distrust southern hairdressers. I'm almost certain that they all charge you a hundred pounds and give you a perm whether you want one or not.
I'll just have to find a barber around here that opens reasonably early in the morning, get my hair cut and then get the train down south. I could always not go to London, since my only reason for going is that I quite feel like it and I haven't been there for ages, but I believe in doing what your heart tells you to do, and then rambling on about some insignificant technicality on your blog the night before.
I suppose I could cut my own hair. I did that once, years ago, and nobody noticed. Or shave it all off like a cool person.
I'll just have to find a barber around here that opens reasonably early in the morning, get my hair cut and then get the train down south. I could always not go to London, since my only reason for going is that I quite feel like it and I haven't been there for ages, but I believe in doing what your heart tells you to do, and then rambling on about some insignificant technicality on your blog the night before.
I suppose I could cut my own hair. I did that once, years ago, and nobody noticed. Or shave it all off like a cool person.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Fingerbobs
I've trimmed the fingernails on my left hand and not the right, out of an understanding that that's what ukulele players do. Well, 'trimmed' makes it sound like I've given myself a caring manicure. I bite my nails off, rather than using nail-clippers or scissors or suchlike. Anyway, I'm still having fun with the ukulele, and I wanted appropriate fingernails.
However, it's got me thinking about whether it will get in the way of the other things I do with my fingers. What's the optimum length for othello-disc-flipping fingernails, for example? I flip with my right hand and I think that you need medium-length nails for perfect flippery - no nails at all and it's hard to pick up the disc, big long nails and it's hard to hold on to it. This is probably why very few othello players have long fingernails. That or the fact that 99% of othello players are men.
As for memorising, I think, although I haven't really tested out the theory, that long or short fingernails shouldn't make a difference with the way I look through packs of cards now. Very long nails might get in the way, but I'm not planning to grow them to excessive lengths.
And what if I learn to make Fingermouse-style finger-puppets? That's on my list of things to do, and I think long nails would definitely get in the way there. It's a complicated business, being a polymath. The kind of polymath who's not particularly good at anything, of course.
In other, less finger-related news, Prince Charles is coming to my workplace tomorrow. Just a flying visit - according to his website he's also got other appointments in Nottingham and Mansfield in the course of the day, and I doubt he'll have the time in his schedule to find my desk and tell me he's a big fan of my TV appearances. In fact, he's scheduled to be in my building for ten minutes, according to the announcement on the company intranet, in which time he'll come in the main reception, be shown the 'heritage area' and leave by the exit on the far end of the big head office. He'll have to run. And the tour of the company heritage will have to be limited to one of the less overweight directors gasping "That's a bust of Jesse Boot! Right, come on, let's go!" as they run along after him.
Call me a socialist radical if you like, but I don't really see the point of Royal Visits.
However, it's got me thinking about whether it will get in the way of the other things I do with my fingers. What's the optimum length for othello-disc-flipping fingernails, for example? I flip with my right hand and I think that you need medium-length nails for perfect flippery - no nails at all and it's hard to pick up the disc, big long nails and it's hard to hold on to it. This is probably why very few othello players have long fingernails. That or the fact that 99% of othello players are men.
As for memorising, I think, although I haven't really tested out the theory, that long or short fingernails shouldn't make a difference with the way I look through packs of cards now. Very long nails might get in the way, but I'm not planning to grow them to excessive lengths.
And what if I learn to make Fingermouse-style finger-puppets? That's on my list of things to do, and I think long nails would definitely get in the way there. It's a complicated business, being a polymath. The kind of polymath who's not particularly good at anything, of course.
In other, less finger-related news, Prince Charles is coming to my workplace tomorrow. Just a flying visit - according to his website he's also got other appointments in Nottingham and Mansfield in the course of the day, and I doubt he'll have the time in his schedule to find my desk and tell me he's a big fan of my TV appearances. In fact, he's scheduled to be in my building for ten minutes, according to the announcement on the company intranet, in which time he'll come in the main reception, be shown the 'heritage area' and leave by the exit on the far end of the big head office. He'll have to run. And the tour of the company heritage will have to be limited to one of the less overweight directors gasping "That's a bust of Jesse Boot! Right, come on, let's go!" as they run along after him.
Call me a socialist radical if you like, but I don't really see the point of Royal Visits.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Sluggish brain
I have to confess, it's a very, very long time since I did any serious memory-training. Tonight I did something that is part of my regular practice routine when I'm practicing regularly, but which I don't think I've done at all since the WMC last October - memorised 1500 binary digits in as quick a time as possible. When my brain's up to speed, I can do it in a bit under 8 minutes with a passable level of accuracy in the recall (four or five lines out of the fifty with mistakes, that kind of area). Tonight it took me 10:42.88.
This is horrible, but it's not unexpected. I know I'll snap back into my usual form when I've done it a couple more times, but when I haven't practiced for a while, my thought processes just slow down - it's not that I find it more difficult to remember what the image for 1110010111 is or that I struggle to make a mental picture out of it, it's just that my mind wanders and starts going off on tangents, and I have to drag myself back down to the mental story I'm supposed to be telling. It's nice to be confident that my times are going to increase by leaps and bounds the next few times I try this exercise, but it's frustrating that I'll have to work hard to get back to the level I was at last year before I can keep going and improve my personal best.
But it's nearly the start of the memory season! New York and Cardiff will put me back in the mood, I'm sure, and then I'll be back into training nearly nightly, exchanging memory-technique ideas with other memorisers with much more enthusiasm than I am at the moment, catching up on the latest buzz from the world of competitions, finding out what rule-changes Gunther has been lobbying for all winter and objecting to them, all the joys of memory!
It really is a LOT harder to motivate myself while I'm the world champion, but I'm pleased to report I'm much more in the zone right now, out of practice though I am, than I was back in 2005. Who knows, if I keep it up I might stand half a chance this year...
This is horrible, but it's not unexpected. I know I'll snap back into my usual form when I've done it a couple more times, but when I haven't practiced for a while, my thought processes just slow down - it's not that I find it more difficult to remember what the image for 1110010111 is or that I struggle to make a mental picture out of it, it's just that my mind wanders and starts going off on tangents, and I have to drag myself back down to the mental story I'm supposed to be telling. It's nice to be confident that my times are going to increase by leaps and bounds the next few times I try this exercise, but it's frustrating that I'll have to work hard to get back to the level I was at last year before I can keep going and improve my personal best.
But it's nearly the start of the memory season! New York and Cardiff will put me back in the mood, I'm sure, and then I'll be back into training nearly nightly, exchanging memory-technique ideas with other memorisers with much more enthusiasm than I am at the moment, catching up on the latest buzz from the world of competitions, finding out what rule-changes Gunther has been lobbying for all winter and objecting to them, all the joys of memory!
It really is a LOT harder to motivate myself while I'm the world champion, but I'm pleased to report I'm much more in the zone right now, out of practice though I am, than I was back in 2005. Who knows, if I keep it up I might stand half a chance this year...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Correspondence course
I was going to write a blog tonight about feeling proud of myself for getting up-to-date with my emails, but then I remembered one from a few days ago that I hadn't replied to, went back to my inbox to respond to it and found a whole virtual pile of other messages that I need to get back to as well. It's not like I'm even a big email-exchanger, it's just that sometimes I seem to get swamped by the things! So if you're waiting for an email from me still, I assure you it's nothing personal.
Monday, February 16, 2009
New York!
I've got a really quite big apple in my fridge right now, which just serves to remind me how much I'm looking forward to my trip to New York in a couple of weeks. It's ages since I had some time off work - what with starting there in the middle of July I only had 17½ days' holiday, and I used up most of those with various memory championships (and a certain amount of staying at home rather than going to the Memoriad because I was too worn out by the WMC), so I've been working five days a week, every week, for much too long now.
Also, I like long plane journeys every now and then. There's usually cartoons, films and video games, and what more could anyone want? And then there's all the fun people I'm arranging to hang out with when I actually get to the city! Gee, it's gonna be swell!
Also, I like long plane journeys every now and then. There's usually cartoons, films and video games, and what more could anyone want? And then there's all the fun people I'm arranging to hang out with when I actually get to the city! Gee, it's gonna be swell!
Sunday, February 15, 2009
One of those "sorry, it's late at night and I can't think of anything to blog about" posts
Sorry, it's late at night and I can't think of anything to blog about
Saturday, February 14, 2009
This is where I get it from
Grandma, reminiscing about her days working in the payroll department of British Jeffrey Diamond 65 years ago: "Old Sammy Wainwright, 7505 his number was..." Seriously, her recall of every detail of her life is uncanny, and the way she tells it is captivating. I'm going to have to get myself a video camera and capture some of her stories on film.
The occasion for the four-hour non-stop recounting of Grandma's life story I enjoyed today was of course those 1911 census returns featuring her parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. It's great to hear the stories of the people behind that snapshot of households on April 2nd 1911 - how Grandma's Uncle Ronald did well for himself (or at any rate had a good job and bought his own house, which was good work in the Depression), while Uncle Colin spent some time in the nick (but we don't talk about that). Uncle Jack, four years old in 1911, grew up to be quaite refained and wore a bowler hat, but the best part was that mystery 'boarder' I mentioned in my post here.
It turns out that nine-month-old Ethel Gough, living in my great-great-grandparents' household, was the result of an indiscretion between my great-great-granddad and another woman, and ended up coming to live with him rather than her unmarried mother, and having the subject of her parentage resolutely ignored by the family from that moment on. Not that Grandma found out about this until long after the fact, of course - she recalled "I came home one day and told my mam 'Auntie Ethel looks just like me!'... And she hit me."
I can just imagine the difficult decision process of how to record little Ethel's "relationship to head of family" on the census form. The instructions say to 'State whether "Head," or "Wife," "Son," "Daughter," or other Relative, "Visitor," "Boarder," or "Servant."' and they went for "Boarder" in the end.
All shame and scandal in the family is long gone and forgotten now, of course. It's the kind of thing that makes you think - all these names on the census were real people at one point, before they became names on a page and half-remembered stories. Poor great-great-granddad on the Batty branch of the family died in a coal-mine accident only a few years after filling in his census form. There need to be more books, documentaries, websites, whatevers about the ordinary people of history. I should make one...
The occasion for the four-hour non-stop recounting of Grandma's life story I enjoyed today was of course those 1911 census returns featuring her parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. It's great to hear the stories of the people behind that snapshot of households on April 2nd 1911 - how Grandma's Uncle Ronald did well for himself (or at any rate had a good job and bought his own house, which was good work in the Depression), while Uncle Colin spent some time in the nick (but we don't talk about that). Uncle Jack, four years old in 1911, grew up to be quaite refained and wore a bowler hat, but the best part was that mystery 'boarder' I mentioned in my post here.
It turns out that nine-month-old Ethel Gough, living in my great-great-grandparents' household, was the result of an indiscretion between my great-great-granddad and another woman, and ended up coming to live with him rather than her unmarried mother, and having the subject of her parentage resolutely ignored by the family from that moment on. Not that Grandma found out about this until long after the fact, of course - she recalled "I came home one day and told my mam 'Auntie Ethel looks just like me!'... And she hit me."
I can just imagine the difficult decision process of how to record little Ethel's "relationship to head of family" on the census form. The instructions say to 'State whether "Head," or "Wife," "Son," "Daughter," or other Relative, "Visitor," "Boarder," or "Servant."' and they went for "Boarder" in the end.
All shame and scandal in the family is long gone and forgotten now, of course. It's the kind of thing that makes you think - all these names on the census were real people at one point, before they became names on a page and half-remembered stories. Poor great-great-granddad on the Batty branch of the family died in a coal-mine accident only a few years after filling in his census form. There need to be more books, documentaries, websites, whatevers about the ordinary people of history. I should make one...
Friday, February 13, 2009
Mensa - a table; Mensa - O table
The Mensa people want me to do my memory thing at their Annual Gathering in October, as a warmup act for the Brain of Mensa finals. I'm not sure whether or not to take them up on the offer - on the one hand, it's always great when people want me to perform in front of an audience (it still doesn't happen all that much), but on the other hand Mensa members are the worst possible audience for any kind of brain-related showing-off. They'll just respond with "Hmm, well, I could have done that just as well, of course" or "Hmm, well, it's an amusing trick, but it's not real intelligence, is it?"
Having been a member myself for many years, I know what a bunch of snobs Mensans can be. If I really want to stroke my ego, I should go to a stupid-people convention. They'll genuinely believe that I'm really, really clever and not suggest that I might be an entirely average person who can do a party trick with cards. On the other hand, I'll get a free meal out of Mensa and maybe even some intelligent conversation. So I'll probably do it. I'm bad at saying no to people, after all.
Incidentally, I'm seeing a lot of people writing it as "MENSA" just lately. It's not an acronym, people. It's the Latin word for "table", indicating a round-table kind of society, and a play on words with "mens", meaning "mind".
Having been a member myself for many years, I know what a bunch of snobs Mensans can be. If I really want to stroke my ego, I should go to a stupid-people convention. They'll genuinely believe that I'm really, really clever and not suggest that I might be an entirely average person who can do a party trick with cards. On the other hand, I'll get a free meal out of Mensa and maybe even some intelligent conversation. So I'll probably do it. I'm bad at saying no to people, after all.
Incidentally, I'm seeing a lot of people writing it as "MENSA" just lately. It's not an acronym, people. It's the Latin word for "table", indicating a round-table kind of society, and a play on words with "mens", meaning "mind".
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Happy Charles Darwin/Abraham Lincoln day!
It's their joint 200th birthday today, you know. And while some might say Darwin is better than Lincoln because he appears on the £10 note, worth roughly three times as much as Lincoln's puny $5 bill, others might argue that Lincoln is better because he's probably going to be on those unimaginative Americans' money forever, while Darwin's about due to be replaced by some other notable dead person.
Anyway, this gives me an idea. I could secure my legacy as a famous person forever by simply sharing my birthdate with someone more famous! That way, whenever his birthday is celebrated with a BBC2 evening of programmes, there'll always be a passing mention of "funnily enough, world memory champion Ben Pridmore was born on the very same day!" That's the only reason anyone's ever heard of John Major, you know - Eric Idle tribute programmes.
Trouble is, nobody who shares my birthday has yet achieved any real degree of fame. The best that 14/10/76 currently has to offer is Henry Mateo, Dominican minor-league baseball player whose wikipedia article is even more skimpy than mine and can't even decide whether he's a shortstop or a second-baseman. I suppose it's still possible he could become the next Joe DiMaggio, but I think we should pin our hopes on some currently obscure 32-year-old suddenly achieving superstardom. Come on, all you Zoomy-birthday people out there, get famous! And quick!
Anyway, this gives me an idea. I could secure my legacy as a famous person forever by simply sharing my birthdate with someone more famous! That way, whenever his birthday is celebrated with a BBC2 evening of programmes, there'll always be a passing mention of "funnily enough, world memory champion Ben Pridmore was born on the very same day!" That's the only reason anyone's ever heard of John Major, you know - Eric Idle tribute programmes.
Trouble is, nobody who shares my birthday has yet achieved any real degree of fame. The best that 14/10/76 currently has to offer is Henry Mateo, Dominican minor-league baseball player whose wikipedia article is even more skimpy than mine and can't even decide whether he's a shortstop or a second-baseman. I suppose it's still possible he could become the next Joe DiMaggio, but I think we should pin our hopes on some currently obscure 32-year-old suddenly achieving superstardom. Come on, all you Zoomy-birthday people out there, get famous! And quick!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
You might not think of me as a shining example of male health...
... But nonetheless, I've just been interviewed for Men's Health magazine. It'll be on the shelves in April or May if you want to check it out - part of an article about "superhumans". I wish people would stop calling me that. Or, even better, I wish people would find some way to give me superhuman powers (faster than a speeding bullet, that kind of thing) so as to justify the title.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)