Walsall Wonderland

I was on the BBC News site earlier today, and noticed an intriguing article about the UK Open Memory Championships in London.

Now, I’ve got an okay memory. Actually, I’ve got a good and a bad memory. I can remember long number strings, like my credit card number, IP addresses, and phone numbers easily, and can repeat back sequences I’ve recently heard fairly well. This even works in determining how man gunshots occurred in a TV show I’m watching, I like to figure out whose got how many shots left. I play the sounds back in my mind, and count the shots. I also have a good memory for random facts, especially about animals. I also have a good memory for voices, and sounds in general, but not faces nor names.

That’s all well and good, but I actually have a pretty poor memory when it comes to remembering conversations and scenes from books and so on. So, good short term, and numerical, and fact like data, memory, but bad long term, abstract memory.

I was thinking about this article, somewhere in there it says that there are many real world applications to having a good memory, and that is so true. Think about how often people see something in the street, like someone smacking into another person’s car in a parking lot and driving off, and if you could memorise the number plate, then you wouldn’t have to go and talk to the shopping centre to get the CCTV footage from the cameras, or whatever, no, you could ignore all that crap and go straight to the police and tell them what you saw, and the licence plate of the driver. I like the thought of CCTV systems, but they don’t seem to be helping the country all that much, sadly.

I find the idea of improving my memory to be exciting, I really do. Canny Minds have a website, with some fun free stuff on it, including a cross word puzzle which has the best online implementation of cross word puzzles that I’ve seen, right on!

Okay now for today’s knitting pattern… hmmm, it has to be something memory related, though all knitting has that to one extent or another. Fun fact, because these I remember, but not to take out the garbage , doing a difficult knitting pattern releases the same brain chemicals as a brain teaser, and leaves you feeling happier. Speaking of which, here’s today’s knitting pattern, it’s complicated, and has the word ‘Memories’ in the title. Works for me!