What a beautiful day!

The sun's shining! It's warm enough to go out without a coat, just about! You have to chain yourself to the ground so as not to be blown away by the gale-force winds, but it's still starting to feel a bit like spring! Yay!

Meanwhile, an acquaintance last night accused me of calling myself a 'memory athlete' and told me that sounds a bit silly. I of course replied that I never use that expression myself, and think it's a lot silly, but then I looked up the word on that famous source of information-that-might-not-be-true-but-who-cares, Wikipedia, and found that "The word "athlete" is a romanization of the Greek: άθλητὴς, athlētēs, one who participates in a contest; from ἂθλος, áthlos, or ἂθλον, áthlon, a contest or feat."

So it's not necessarily a sporty thing, and we memorisers can quite justifiably call ourselves athletes, and if anyone says we shouldn't, we can just point them to Wikipedia! I'm still not going to call myself a memory athlete, though.

I know that's not nearly as interesting as the genuinely-true fact that 'gymnast' is derived from the Greek word for 'naked', but I thought it was worth mentioning.

How to be French and clever

If you're a French speaker and want to know what "How To Be Clever" by that Ben Pridmore person was all about, can I suggest that you buy the new French edition - "Comment être génial avec votre mémoire", as translated by Max Parcœur?

I can't offer free emailed versions of this, since the translator wants to make money out of it, but I assure you it's worth buying - it has pictures and everything! Oh, and it's available on Amazon, but if you buy it on Lulu, it gives more money to the writers.

I feel all mercenary now.