The Dangers of Memory

I've never had a particularly good memory but on the odd occasion I do remember something, it is usually a piece of completely random information that wouldn't be of any use other than a particularly obscure pub quiz or its a vivid memory of something entirely unimportant. I tend to associate the strangest of things together for example over the summer I was being driven down 'the Bristol Road' for the Brummies (the A38 to everyone else) and I had a really strong memory of being on the road before going to Cadbury's World. The last time I went to Cadbury's World must have been about ten years ago at least so why I would remember that piece of information amazes me. Other things similar to this happen all the time and it tends to be the smaller pieces of information that I remember and I don't recall the bigger (and generally more important things).

The one thing I have got a good memory for is numbers and passwords. This helps quite a lot being a computer nerd because it means that I can remember the passwords for all of the different sites I use. Even sites that I very rarely use, I can often still remember the passwords for and unless it is something that I am unlikely to ever use again or I haven't given any personal details to, I tend to try and use different passwords or at least variations of the same one. For most people, remembering passwords and PINs are a daily pain in the backside and many people choose to use the same ones or write them down or use very easy to remember names and dates of births. Yet for some reason I have never had this problem. Perhaps it is the images that I associate with the passwords in my brain so that when the familiar Google log in page pops up, I relate that image to the password. I guess this would explain why I have problems recalling them outside of their normal usage. Alarm codes and card PIN numbers are a prime example of this; unless I see the alarm number pad, it takes great mental focus for me to recall the number and yet as soon as I see the pad - I can indistinctly recall the number to type in. The same goes with chip and PIN, before hand I am panicking that I can't remember what my PIN number is and I am preparing for huge personal embarrassment when I have to explain that I can't remember what it is and have to give back what I was about to buy; yet as soon as I see the pad it all comes flooding back.

The point I was trying to get to before that ramble was the event that occurred last night. I have been trying to convince my friend to come with me to see White Lies at the O2 in Sheffield next month and until now she has not given me a definitive answer but last night she told me she couldn't make it. I was a little bit disheartened but decided that it was no big loss. About 20 minutes later the little voice inside me chirped up and said "You don't have to go with anyone, go on your own it will be just as good." Until recently when I went to the NME tour alone, I had an underlying fear of going somewhere alone. When I go to meet friends in a pub I try to accidentally bump into them outside to save the embarrassment of sitting alone in the corner. But I decided I would take the plunge and go ahead and buy a ticket. Here is where the memory thing comes into play because this has caught me out quite a lot recently and cost me a lot of money. Within about 5 minutes of having the idea, I had bought tickets thanks to having memorised my debit card details. It has happened on many occasions although it is now being superseded by PayPal because more and more online stores are accepting this as a method of payment now but before that if I saw something that grabbed my attention I would have made an impulse purchase without having thought about it. I can understand remembering something that you have been exposed to for a long time such as a telephone number or a registration plate but a 20 digit number that I've not had more than a couple of years and don't see that often other than blindly copying it onto a webpage is bizarre.

Single of the Week
Music time again and this week has been difficult again. So this weeks single of the week isn't a new release but one that's been around a while but has caught my attention recently. The band is called Bombay Bicycle Club and the song is called Always Like This. I don't know an awful lot about the band so here is the link to their last.fm page so that you can have a look for yourselves. The bassline at the beginning is incredibly catchy and I hope you will also be humming this around and about for the next few days, enjoy!

The official music video cannot be embedded so here is an alternative.