The Memory Palace

The belt to the left was a new addition to the trophy cabinet when I took the boys to Muay Thai last night. It turns out that Woytek won the British Championship when he was fighting in Manchester the other weekend. This was exciting news for my six year old who had a lesson with the champ before Christmas.

I take "the boys" along to Thai boxing on Thursdays lately because two of my son's school friends have started as well. When I picked one of them up yesterday, I noticed a copy of "The Blind Man of Seville" on the kitchen table in his house, and said to his Mum that I had heard that it was a good book because Chris and Kim had recommended it to me in September 2005. When I brought his boy back after the class, the Dad gave me the paperback, saying that he had got it for free and was unlikely to read it himself.

Now I admit that these two stories (each an update of an earlier post) are not exactly earth shattering, but they do illustrate - in a small way - changes that I've noticed as a bye product of blogging every day, or perhaps more accurately thinking about my experiences in the context of writing every day.

I'm definitely remembering events and conversations a lot more clearly than I used to. Even if I haven't blogged them, my entry for the day they occurred can stir up the memories as an - often ironic - counterpoint.

Just looking at my archives for last April, I can see, for example, that:

• Dominic West had probably already wrapped 300 before I saw him The Voysey Inheritance; contrasting roles and styles indeed,
• the cherry blossom has bloomed a fortnight earlier in 2007 than 2006,
• and that this week's report that Police stations in Merton are the among the worst in London at answering the phone for non-emergency calls, shows that nothing has changed since scumbags poured paint over half the cars in our street.