For the summer of 1993, I became Radio 2’s “Memory Man”, touring with the station up and down the UK, so that the public could test my knowledge of number-one hits spanning the previous 40 years. Once a week, the DJ asked a member of the roadshow audience to shout out their date of birth. I then had to tell the audience member the title of the UK’s number one single on that date, who the singer or artist was, how many weeks the song had remained at number one, and which record label it was issued on.
For example, if someone shouted out that their date of birth was February 23, 1956, I could tell them that the number-one single on that date was “Memories are Made of This” sung by Dean Martin. It was at number one for four weeks and released on the Capitol label.
How did I do it? To memorize the number ones, I gave each of the 40 years of hits its own journey, each month in that year an area on the route and each number-one single a specific stage within that area – usually there were around 20 number ones each year, so the total requirement was 40 journeys of around 20 stages (subdivided into month areas). At each stage, I placed a coded scene for the date that week’s chart was released, the single’s title, the artist, the weeks at number one and the record label.
So, for the Dean Martin single, the process went like this. The person was born in 1956, so I immediately go to my route for that year, which is the upstairs of my brother-in-law’s house. I need the month February, and I know that that is represented by the corridor. So I have my position for the year and month. The date I’ve been given is February 23, which I know fell in the chart week that began on February 21. February 21 is represented by the visual clue of my friend Julia holding a key (21 is the “key to the door” in the rhyme and Julia always used to carry a huge bunch of keys) and she’s standing by the door to the linen cupboard on the corridor. Inside the cupboard I see a large, pulsating brain – this is my trigger for “Memories are Made of This”. I know what Dean Martin looks like, so he’s there, too, and he’s wearing a white cap (which gives me Capitol Records). However, he’s not just standing by the cupboard, he’s in a sailboat – the sail is the number–shape (see p.83) for 4 – four weeks at number one. (If there’s more than one number one in a month, the different singles appear in different places at the one location, but as it happens, Dean Martin held his position at the top spot throughout February 1956.)
Memorizing facts and figures using the Dominic System and the Journey Method will make you a formidable opponent in a general-knowledge quiz (I’ve memorized all the Trivial Pursuit answers, too!), but even simple mnemonic devices have a firm place in our repertoire of memory techniques.
Here is a selection of ten UK number-one hits from the 1980s. Try to memorize the year that each song became number one. This is a lot easier than it sounds. Use the Dominic System to translate the years into characters, which you can then use to form associations with the song titles. For example, for me, 88 (HH) becomes the wrestler Hulk Hogan. To link Hulk to the hit single, I picture him wrestling with a monkey and George Michael is the referee.
You have 10 minutes to commit the following to memory. Once you’ve finished, from memory write down the tracks and their years and artists. Score a maximum of three points for each song (one point each for the year, title and artist). A score of 18–24 is good; 25 or more is excellent.
1980 “Rock with You” Michael Jackson
1981 “Physical” Olivia Newton-John
1982 “Eye of the Tiger” Survivor
1983 “Beat It” Michael Jackson
1984 “Jump” Van Halen
1985 “Heaven” Bryan Adams
1986 “Sledgehammer” Peter Gabriel
1987 “Open Your Heart” Madonna
1988 “Monkey” George Michael
1989 “Eternal Flame” The Bangles
A word derived from the name Mnemosyne, the Greek goddess of memory, a mnemonic is any device that helps us to memorize a piece or pieces of information. The Journey Method, number– shapes and number–rhymes, and all the tricks for memorizing you’ve learned so far, are all systems of mnemonics. These help us to translate information into meaningful symbols, pictures, words and phrases so that our minds can more easily store them (in turn making them easier to recapture). Some of the simplest mnemonic systems are the most useful for storing facts or pieces of trivia. Below are some of my favourites.
LOL, BTW, KIT – we live in a world where texting, “tweeting” and instant messaging encourages us to make frequent shorthand communications. Many of us use initial letters as shorthand in written – or spoken – sentences on a daily basis. (Those few mean “laugh out loud”, “by the way” and “keep in touch”.) Even if you don’t text, you probably talk in shorthand about the BBC or CBS, ADHD and PMS. Acronyms are even easier, because they use the initial letters of the words you want to memorize to form another recognizable word. For example, if you were learning about atoms, you would learn that they are made up of protons, electrons and neutrons – PEN.
Extended acronyms, on the other hand, take the letter of each word to make a memorable sentence. For example, to memorize the seven continents (Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, North America, South America), think of the phrase “Eat An Apple As A Nice Snack”.
Here’s a phrase I devised to memorize the seven deadly sins (Anger, Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Sloth, Envy and Greed): “A Politically Correct Liberal Seldom Enters Government!”
Extended acronyms are put to good use by medical students, who have to remember complicated anatomical terms. To remember the eight small bones in the wrist: Navicular, Lunate, Triquetral, Pisiform, Multangular (greater), Multangular (lesser), Capitate and Hamate: “Never Lower Tilly’s Pants, Mother Might Come Home!”
How would you go about using an extended acronym to memorize the nine muses? (Incidentally, they were the daughters of Mnemosyne and the king of the gods, Zeus.) They are:
CALLIOPE • CLIO • ERATO • THALIA • EUTERPE • MELPOMENE • TERPSICHORE • POLYHYMNIA • URANIA
You might think of “Count Clambering Elephants Thundering Eastward, Mighty Trunks Pointing Up”, or you might bend the rules a bit and make it a more fluid sentence using a few more of the letters or sounds: “Call Clio ET. You (Eu) Twerp Mel, Turps isn’t Polyurethane!” The benefit of this second version is that it gives you more of the sounds from the names, which might help your recall – especially with unfamiliar names or terms.
I like to think of mnemonic devices such as acronyms as my “pocket” memory techniques – the easy memory systems that I keep at hand to make it easier to lodge facts as I pick them up.