Awake with a Memory

I woke this morning at 5am. I lay awake for a few minutes and was just about to turn over and go back to the Land of Nod when ideas suddenly started flooding into my head. All sorts of ideas about all sorts of things. It was as if my Memory had suddenly been turned on. Now those of you who have known me for years know that I was born with a very poor ability to remember things. Facts and lists and information just don't stick with me which is why I loathe quizzes with a passion. I am totally hopeless. The children of my New Zealand Family loved them and were always trying to get me to take part (my other pet dread was Monopoly).

Having a good memory is regarded as one of the things that equates to intelligence. When I was reading for my first degree at University I was told by my course tutor that if I ever did any post grad study then do it by dissertation not exam. I was good at essays and research and always got A to A++ in my written work submitted (except for a notorious economics paper where I got a C and caused a laugh when I said that understanding economics was, for me, like going forward in reverse gear.).

My entire adult life has been a matter of lists and notes to remind me 'to do' 'to remember' etc. If I do not have my diary then I am lost - totally. If I didn't have my diaries going back to the year dot then I would have no memory - just memories. There is a subtle difference. The brain is a strange and wonderful place.

So I am sitting at my laptop at 5.20am feverishly trying to make notes and recall the ideas for blog posts that I was thinking about when I woke.

I love Blogland and blogging but life at the moment is so full of living that I've not actually been participating in commenting or writing blog posts. I have been reading where I can. I can do that on my phone when I'm waiting for someone or something but, as most people will know, trying to comment on a phone involves signing in every time one wants to comment which is a pain.

I can't promise to get up at 5am every day (or ever again for that matter) but at least at 6am I have had two coffees, fed the birds and the fishes and still have 6½ hours before I'm meeting my son for lunch. 

Aphantasia

My maternal uncle was able, in his 90s, to read pages from schoolbooks which he could see in his mind's eye. He had a photographic memory.  

Some people, though, have little or no ability to visualise things ie they have no visual memory. I am one of those people. If, for example, I am trying to compare two things (perhaps pictures or sets of numbers or whatever) even if they are side by side I have to do it tiny bit by tiny bit looking from one to the other constantly. If there are seven individually distinctive skiffs sailing in the harbour, the second I look away from them I have absolutely no idea what order they are in unless I've managed to commit that to words and can remember the words. I have pictures on my walls that I have gazed at for hours but could still not describe them to you in anything but the most general of terms.

Those examples are, of course, very simple and only a small part of what it's like not to have visual memory and it is only within the last decade that I've become aware that, apparently, relatively few people have this affliction 

If you are curious as to your ability to visualise things then close your eyes and imagine walking along a sandy beach and then gazing over the horizon as the sun rises. How clear is the image that springs to mind?

Of course, every police officer and defence lawyer will tell you how poor people's visual memory is as evidenced when it comes to describing an incident and those participating, in the way the police would require of a witness. 

I know someone with prosopagnosia, also called face blindness, which is a cognitive disorder of face perception in which the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face (self-recognition), is impaired, while other aspects of visual processing (e.g., object discrimination) and intellectual functioning (e.g., decision-making) remain intact. Apparently it is a separate thing to lack of visual memory.

How alone am I in my blogworld?

First Lines

I have a bad memory: I always have had. It is a strange irony that people constantly tell me what a good memory I have. Like most people I can recall certain things.

The Big Book Clearout made me think about first lines and I wondered how many I could recall. The answer is that the number of first lines I can accurately recall is remarkably small. However the number that I can almost recall surprised me.

I can recall several verbatim:

“No one had expected Ernest to die, least of all Ernest.” from Dead Ernest by Frances Garrood.

"The Mole had been working very hard all [the]* morning, spring cleaning his little home." The Wind in The Willows by Kenneth Graham.

"It was morning and the [new]* sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea." Johnathon Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach.

"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson.

"Pip the pixie was doing the washing for his Aunt Twinkle." The Adventures of Pip by Enid Blyton. 

There are many of which I can recall the general wording but had to check:

"The French are proud of the fact that they are the last people to invade the British Isles." 1000 Years of Annoying The French by Stephen Clarke.

"I have very pale skin, very red lips." Skin by Joanna Briscoe. (An odd book for a man to find intriguing, I suspect.)

"It is always difficult to find a beginning." An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan. (A book that had a very very profound effect on me.)

"The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it." Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.

I was ashamed not to be able to recall the first lines of Tolstoy's War and Peace given that I've read it three times or The Piano Shop on the Left Bank which is one of my favourite books but whose author (T E Cathcart) I could not recall either.

I'm sure that there are very many other books which should spring into what passes for my mind but they haven't. 

Does anyone else remember first lines?

* Not quite verbatim, having checked.

Spending Time on the Loo

For my readers in the USA the title is "Spending Time in the Washroom" and for Canada substitute "Restroom".

When I was about 9 I was given The Schoolboy’s Pocket Book. It was a truly wonderful treasure trove of information including The Universe, Solar System, The World, Language, Tables and Formulæ (sic), Hobbies, Pastimes and Sports.

I used to shut myself in the bathroom with it and learn as much as I could. Unfortunately I was born with a very poor memory and getting things to stick in my brain was not, and still is not, easy. So I would write things out and pin them in places where I could see them and recite them which is why, over 60 years later, I can still recite the Greek alphabet. My brother reminded me a few weeks ago that as a result of me reciting it, he too (who had my share of memory as well as his own) can still recite it. I have to say that it has proved invaluable when doing crosswords.

Looking at some of the book's pages today gave food for thought and some interesting information.

Some is presumably relevant today:

Some probably not!

And  some might look quite bizarre by today's standards. I wonder if any of these records remain today.

Years later I came across Frank Bunker Gilbreth the father of work study and O&M (Organisation and Methods) having read the book by two of his 12 children, Frank and Ernestine, entitled Cheaper By The Dozen. One of his tricks was to put things he wanted the children to learn on the back of the toilet door.

So I have always used my time in the loo to good effect.

Nowadays if you play WWF (Words With Friends - a derivation of Scrabble) with me then there is a likelihood that my turn was taken in the bathroom.

I thought you’d like to know that.

Age Cometh Not Alone

I am used to travelling. As my regular readers will be aware one of the Edwards traits is timekeeping: lateness is totally anathema. If I am using any form of public transport I check and re-check my times and I always leave time for eventualities such as hold-ups on the road if I’m going for a ferry.

When I’m going for the morning ferry from Stornoway I just use the setting on my alarm clock and iPhone. It’s the only time I ever use an alarm to wake up. This morning I was vaguely puzzled after I’d had my shower by the amount of time I seemed to have to get all the other things done before I set off. I eventually set off good and early for the closing time for the ferry (which is 45 minutes before departure). I arrived, as I thought, 20 minutes early. In fact I was 10 minutes late. I’d got the ferry time wrong.

Fortunately the ferry wasn’t full and there were no weight-listed vehicles so I got on….just.

I am still recovering from the trauma. Missing the ferry would have been an irritation though not a disaster: there is another this afternoon. However the personal mental shame would have been just a bit too much.

The strange thing is that if I miss a flight connection or am late through no fault of my own then it doesn’t worry me in the slightest. What I can’t control is not a problem for me.

So far as I can recall this is the first time in 40 years of ferry travel that I’ve done this. It’s also the first time I’ve been 71. I’m beginning to draw conclusions I do not like.

(Written yesterday on the ferry).

How Often

does it happen that the thing you have lost turns up right in front of your nose?  In my case they were really just in front of my nose or my eyes anyway.  No I didn't lose my spectacles.  I lost the locks for my suitcase.  I couldn't find them when I flew to Northland.  I knew that I'd put them somewhere very safe where I couldn't fail to find them which made it all the more irritating.

I've just found them.  By accident.  I feel really really really (and a 3xreally is my ultimate expression of feeling for anything) silly.

They were here:

and here is at my eye level.  I see it every time I remove a key.

I Need More RAM

Like many people of my age I'm finding it hard to cope with all the pieces of information which are presented to my brain at any one time. Something happens and I decide that I must make a note. In fact I'm still trying to remember what it was I had to ask Pat urgently two days ago. By the time I've reached for the pen and paper at the side of the bed or two inches from my hand on the table the effort of asking my brain to get the pen and paper has driven the thing I had to write about out of my head.

I recall reading many years ago that the human brain can only cope with a certain number of pieces of information (12?) at any one time and thereafter it has to ditch one of them.

Having just managed to forget, within a space of several seconds, a piece of information that John had just given me I wailed in despair. The fact that I was trying to do and assimilate many other pieces of information at the same time gave me no comfort.

Over the last few days I have been suggesting to John that his PC and Laptop need more RAM.

John has just analysed my problem.

I need more RAM.