This is what it's all about

I couldn't help feeling during the recall for 30-minute cards "it really doesn't get any better than this..."

I do like memory competitions. Especially the cards events - the lack of practice doesn't really affect them as much as the other disciplines, for whatever reason. After a day of mediocre performances in everything else, but knowing I've done 12 decks with consummate ease the last couple of times I've tried it, I decided I had to go for 15 this time, and see what would happen. And I finished the recall with a luxurious ten minutes to spare, although I've probably made a couple of mistakes here and there in the order of images.

We've got sixteen competitors from nine European countries, with the usual nice mix of new and old, and a first-rate organising team headed by Idriz and Daniel, using the all-new online recall system (which can also be used by people at home to keep track of the competition scores and/or do some training yourselves). It's mostly working great, I'm sure it's saved the arbiters a lot of hassle, and the fact that the championship ran a couple of hours late as usual really wasn't very much down to the technology so much as the much-loved memory-competition traditions.

Will Simon hold off the fierce challenge of Sylvain to claim a third European Championship? We'll see, tomorrow.

How very European

I'm in the competition room at the IAM European Memory Championship, in a very nice room in the Skovlunde library in Copenhagen. Competitors whose faces I should recognise by now but don't: Sylvain, Norbert, Konsti, Yves, Tobiasz, various others. People who I do recognise without needing to look at the name on their table: Simon. Also, Idriz, who's running the show, and I'll definitely know Lars when he arrives.

I might be a millionaire - I've got one of those "news about your ticket" emails from last night's Euromillions, but the national lottery website won't let you log on from a foreign country, so I'll just have to wait till I get home on Monday to know whether I'm fabulously rich or the lucky winner of £2.70 from my £2.50 ticket. I'll buy a top hat, monocle and cigar, just in case.

I haven't done any training, or particularly thought about memory, since the last competition I went to (which, off the top of my head, I think was in Germany or something). This is probably a good omen, and I'm sure the whole thing will be a great success.

Big numbers

This is, apparently, my 2700th post on this blog! Which, considering I don't post more than once a day, is pretty good going, isn't it? Of course, the really important number to commemorate in some way is 2704, being the number of images in my memory system, so I'll have to write something really spectacular and memorable for that!

Since I'm going to Copenhagen at the weekend, that should provide something memory-related to write about...