How to Develop a Perfect Memory (16 page)

Liz Taylor

Popping champagne

King of spades

Ronald Reagan

Standing on podium

Jack of hearts

Jason Donovan

Wearing coloured

Queen of hearts

Cindy Crawford

...That's my secret

King of hearts

Paul Newman

Playing pool

THE IMPORTANCE OF PRACTICE

Test yourself to see if you know all the people. There is no point going on to the next stage, the journey, unless you can name the person for each and every card. Deal yourself a pack; ideally, you should be able to call out the name quickly, but this takes a bit of practice. To begin with, try to spend not more than ten seconds per card. Some names will always come easily, others will prove more difficult. Make a note of the ones that aren't sticking and try changing the person. And remember, you
must
think of the relevant action for each person. It will save time later.

THE JOURNEY

The easiest way to teach you how to place these people along a journey is if I show you how I do it. I have listed below the 52 stages of a favourite route of mine around the town of Guildford in Surrey.

5

Bank manager's office

17,

Graveyard

When I originally mapped out this particular journey, I imagined a bird's-eye view of the town and sketched out a rough route from one end to the other. I then pictured myself walking along the route in a logical direction, and wrote down all the familiar places I frequented which I thought would provide

suitable backdrops for my imaginary cast of characters.

I am constantly devising new routes for myself (I had to use 35, each similar to the above, when I memorized 35 packs of cards) and I am surprised at how easy it is to remember every stage. But, then, the surroundings I choose are always familiar. Guildford, for example, is my home town.

When you come to map out your own route, you must do the same. Choose

somewhere you know well. You might want to begin with the ten stages around your house, which you learnt in Chapter 2 and then branch off to work, or to someone's house, or out into the park.

Go around the route roughly to begin with, and then write down all the

places that might be suitable. Once you have 52 stages, learn them by heart.

You too will be surprised at how easy it is to remember them. If any are causing you trouble, change them. Perhaps they are too close together, or not distinctive enough.

Once you are happy with the route, you are in a position to memorize your first pack of cards.

MEMORIZING THE PACK

Before I start on a pack, regardless of whether I am going for a world record or just exercising my brain, I run through the journey in my head with three things in mind:

1. I count each stage to make sure there are 52 in total.

2. I imagine each stage to be empty. There must be no sounds, no people: Guildford, for example, becomes a ghost town. This will ensure that any

previous characters or items you might have memorized are wiped out. You are erasing the video tape in anticipation of new information.

3. I view each stage from exactly the same vantage point in my mind's eye; it's as though I am looking through old snap shots. For example, I am

always standing outside the bookshop peering in through the window. I am always at the foot of the Brasserie stairs looking up, never at the top looking down. This is important for continuity.

THE FIRST CARD

I am now ready to deal the first card. Before I turn it over, I visualize the first stage of the journey, in this case the bookshop. A vague recollection of the premises is sufficient. I then turn the card. Let's assume it is the 5 of hearts, which we know is Edward Heath (5 = E; hearts = H; EH = Edward Heath).

It is not unusual to find him in a bookshop. His action is conducting so I quickly form an image of him facing a shelf of books pretending to conduct an orchestra with a baton in one hand. Location and person must interact for the image to be memorable. This whole process takes me, on average, one second.

Your brain is bound to feel a bit stiff to begin with, but you should aim to do each card in fifteen to twenty seconds. I have been working out every day for the last four years. Remember to use as many of your senses as you can.

Take your time if it is all proving too difficult. Loosen up with some stretching exercises; flex your memory; touch the toes of your imagination with a few fantasies.

THE SECOND CARD

As I turn the second card, I am already looking at the cinema. It is the queen of spades. I imagine Elizabeth Taylor uncorking a bottle of champagne (her

action) in the foyer. (No doubt she is attending the premiere of her latest film.) I am covered in spray and can feel the stickiness on my clothes. It is not just Liz Taylor that I will be remembering later. I always associate her with uncorking a bottle of champagne, which is just as important.

THE THIRD CARD

The third card is the 10 of hearts, which we know is Oliver Hardy. I imagine him trying to get into the tiny telephone kiosk with a large plank of wood on his shoulder. Oliver Hardy's action is fooling around with a plank. Again, the plank is as vital as Hardy.

THE FOURTH CARD

The fourth card is Christopher Dean. I picture him skating (his action) headfirst into the newsagent. The pavement outside the shop is icy and I hear the

scouring sound as the metal skates pass over it. The skating is essential. It might just be that this is all I can recall when you come past the newsagents later on. But it will be sufficient, providing Christopher Dean is the only skater among my cast.

And so on. As you can see from my route, the last three stops anticipate a certain amount of exhaustion on my part. When I am going for a world record, I am charging about the place, so it only seems fair that I should collapse at the end in a bubbling jacuzzi.

THE FINALE

The last card just happens to be the queen of hearts. I can think of worse fates for a man than splashing about in the bubbles with Cindy Crawford. It can all end very differently, of course; I once had Henry Cooper in there with me, throwing aftershave about the place.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TRUST

One of the secrets of remembering cards at speed is trust. You are bound to ask yourself how quickly you can move on to the next stage. But how do you know when a person has sunk in? No light flashes, no bell rings. To be honest, you are never going to know for certain when something is secure in your memory; you have just got to go on trust.

The relationship between people and location is like two velcro patches.

There are hundreds of little idiosyncrasies in each person (and their associated actions or objects); similarly, the stage on your route is full of physical details.

The two usually end up being linked in only a couple of ways, much like the velcro patches that require only one or two linked hooks to stay together.

THE REVIEW

This is the moment of truth and it's always a slightly anxious time for me. It shouldn't be, though. All the hard work has been done and it is time to relax and reflect. Creating images is much more tiring than recollecting them in tranquillity. Sit back and let the images wash over you; they can't be forced.

All you are doing is playing back a video tape. (I should point out that the time taken
recalling
the cards is not recorded by the
Guinness Book of Records.
My world record, 55.62 seconds, is simply the time I took to store the information.

It is a feat of memory, not of oral delivery.)

What's happening in the bookshop? I am looking in (from exactly the same vantage point outside) I can see somebody waving a baton around at some

books, as if they were conducting: Edward Heath, 5 of hearts.

I am now in front of the cinema. I see a flash of dark hair, a bottle of something: Liz Taylor, queen of spades. I sometimes find that the bottle of champagne is sufficient on its own.

The images are now beginning to fly thick and fast: a plank jammed in the kiosk: Oliver Hardy...'another fine mess you've gotten me into', 10 of hearts.

Someone skating into the newsagents, grating on the pavement: Christopher Dean, 3 of diamonds.

Even today, I am still surprised at the speed and fluency with which these images return. As soon as I recall one card, the next two are queuing up ahead, beckoning me. On a good day, I can't deal out the cards fast enough.

When you begin to get quicker at placing the cards (under ten minutes), you should find that you are no longer having to set each scene in such detail. The whole process of creating and recalling images is rather like rushing to catch a train. You run past a noisy market stall, a busker, road works, and a coffee shop. But it's after you have collapsed in the train and are getting your breath back, that you begin to remember the details: the shouts of 'lovely fresh strawberries',
Annie's Song
being played by a flautist, feeling the compressor drill vibrating under your feet, the smell of freshly ground Kenyan coffee beans.

Have confidence in your wonderful memory. Trust it. You will be

impressed by its ability to recall the images along your journey. Make a note of the troublemakers; it's either the person or the place that is at fault. If they begin to cause you trouble regularly, change them. And if it's only one card you can't recall, you can always find it out by a process of elimination.

17

HOW TO WIN

(ALWAYS) AT

TRIVIAL PURSUIT

As part of my recent promotional work, I was asked to memorize two editions of
Trivial Pursuit -
the Annual Edition and Genus III. There were 7,500

questions in total, on Geography, Entertainment, History, Art and Literature, Science and Nature, Sport and Leisure. If you have read Section 2 (History and Geography), it won't come as a surprise to learn that I memorized the answers using instant association and location.

Not everyone, I admit, might be taken by the idea of memorizing thousands of
Trivial Pursuit
cards, but the exercise is a good way of practising the techniques you have already learnt. For players of the game, particularly those who are fed up with always being beaten at Christmas, it is a sure-fire way of never having to lose again.

The task is not as daunting as it sounds. It took me only one read through to commit the answers to memory. Setting aside an hour and a half each day, I learnt them at the leisurely pace of three per minute. After a month, I had memorized all 7,500.

Unlike a pack of cards, however, I needed to store all this trivia in my long term-memory. Apart from anything else, it is a handy trick to have up my sleeve for live TV interviews. So I embarked on a systematic programme of revision, which I will explain at the end of the chapter. Today, I only need to run through the questions once every three months. Some people, though, still don't believe it's a feat of memory.

THE TALKING BRIEFCASE

I once spent the day at Hamley's toy shop in Regent Street, London, answering
Trivial Pursuit
questions chosen by the general public. If I got one wrong, the questioner would win £50, if I got a second question wrong, they would win

£100, and if, God forbid, I got three questions wrong, they would stand to win

£5,000, in cash! Questions were picked entirely at random and throughout the day there were queues of people desperate to try their luck and catch me out.

At one point, I noticed a man who studied me closely for five minutes,

before joining the queue. He was particularly interested in my black briefcase, resting against my chair. I suspected a scene. Sure enough, when he eventually chose a card, he turned around to everyone and announced, 'Right, I want that briefcase removed before I ask a question.' An assistant dutifully obliged and moved the case ten feet behind me.

'Further back, please,' the man demanded. Only when the offending object was completely out of view, or should I say out of earshot, for it had become apparent that the man credited my briefcase with unnatural powers of communication, did he proceed to ask me a question.