Records tumble like memorable ninepins

Well, even though I couldn't go to the German Memory Championship (money thing), it remains the competition where everyone gives their best performance. Johannes and Simon have been on fire this weekend, with a new record in 30-minute numbers and top-notch scores in absolutely everything else, with the kind of consistency that's unusual in the big championships. Scores, as always, can be seen and marvelled at on Memocamp.

There's still hope for me, if I get back in practice - my scores in 30-minute cards and binary remain strangely out of reach of everyone else, and I'm now giving serious thought (not for the first time) to a different method of memorising decimal numbers that might help me catch up with my rivals, maybe. But it's been so long since I last did any serious training, I don't think I can get in shape before the world championship in December. It's that bad.

More name issues

I've just looked out of the window and noticed that the nursery place across the road (well, sort of across two or three roads, but it's closer than that makes it sound, trust me, roads around here are a bit weird) has changed its name from Station House Nursery to... Beeston Nursery.

Beeston Nursery? How wildly unoriginal! I mean, this town is called Beeston, and it seems to be chock full of nursery schools, why would anyone want to call their place "Beeston Nursery"? Station House Nursery was a great name, seeing as it's in the old station house and all. Evocative and quaint. Well, I won't be dumping my hypothetical children there if I had any children to dump. I wouldn't have been anyway, of course, since I have a vague recollection of Nick from Boots saying that place wasn't supposed to be very good, and anyway there's another place just down the road called Toddlers' University, with correctly-placed apostrophe and picture of a mortar board on the sign, which is exactly the place for my hypothetical offspring to be dumped.

And while we're on the subject of names, I edited that last post shortly after posting it, since I originally confused Jason David Frank (Tommy on Power Rangers) with Jason Gray-Stanford (Zoom-Zoom on Pocket Dragon Adventures). I then felt bad about editing it, because it makes it look like I'm trying to conceal my stupidity and make people think I can tell my Jasons apart when I can't, but editing it back again would just be silly, so I'm confessing my ignorance here.

What's in a name?

I have trouble with remembering names. At work today, I was talking about someone called Jason, while someone else nearby was talking loudly about someone whose surname is Franks, and I spent the rest of the morning thinking "Jason Franks? I know someone called Jason Franks, don't I? Who is he?"

I was thinking, obviously, of Jason David Frank, that wonderful actor who was Tommy on Power Rangers. That extra S on the end must have confused me. And then I see a news headline about someone called Paul Chambers, and now I find myself thinking "Don't I know a Paul Chambers? Someone I used to work with? I'm sure I'm not just confusing him with Phil Chambers, whom I emailed immediately before seeing that headline, but then again..."

If you're Paul Chambers and you used to work with me, or possibly you're someone I've seen on television, or maybe you just have a similar name that I'm getting mixed up with (but not Phil Chambers, who's someone else entirely), please get in touch and put me out of my misery. Until the next vaguely-familiar name I encounter, anyway...

Bradley Wiggins has nothing on me

I've got a new job since last I talked about dull things like work - in Belper, a town which I previously only knew from the educational BBC Micro game "Derbyshire Runaround". I go there on the train and cycle up to the office (and 'up' is the right word, it's practically vertical), but today since it was so sunny and nice, I decided to bike it all the way back.

The only real problem with that idea is that Derbyshire is nothing but hills. It's more downhill than up going from Belper to Beeston (about 16 miles), but there are still some killer inclines that I ended up being a wimp and walking up instead of pedalling. It took 1 hour 35 minutes by my watch, and I might try it again if the weather stays nice, and see if I can improve on that time when I get more used to it.

On the train journey there, I've taken to bringing along a sheet of numbers and memorising them on the way. Because I haven't been practicing very much at all for the last year or so, and it helps me get in shape mentally. So really, I'm giving myself an all-round work-out as well as getting some much-needed money in the bank! I'm awesome.

Everyone's free (to wear sunscreen)

Ow, my poor bald shiny skull. I never remember to put any sun lotion on it when I'm going out for a long bike ride in this lovely sunny weather without even my hat on. I'm an idiot.