How to Develop a Perfect Memory (14 page)

Lamb

Burning oil

Now use the DOMINIC SYSTEM to transform the dates into characters and

actions, which can then be combined with your key images at each stage. For example:

1588 Spanish Armada defeated

My key image is of a sinking galleon, which I imagine at my sixth stage. I have organised my journey so that the sixth stage is the beach at Hastings. Using the DOMINIC SYSTEM, I break 1588 into 15-88, which translates into Albert

Einstein (1 = A; 5 = E) and the action of wrestling. (8 = H; 8 = H; HH = the wrestler Hulk Hogan.) I imagine a galleon tilting dangerously, just off shore. A wrestling ring has been erected on deck, and Albert Einstein is fighting with a sailor.

1642 - 1645 English Civil War

My key image is a sieve and the sixth stage of my journey is a restaurant. I imagine a fight breaking out and customers grappling with each other, armed only with sieves taken from the kitchen. (An outbreak of 'civil' unrest, perhaps.) To remember that the war started in 1642, I use the DOMINIC

SYSTEM to convert 16-42 into the unlikely image of Arthur Scargill (1 = A; 6

= S) rouging his cheeks (4 = D; 2
=
B; DB
=
David Bowie, whose action is putting on make-up). Perhaps his strange new look caused the rumpus.

Anyway, he is making himself look pretty in the middle of the fight.

The DOMINIC SYSTEM can be used to memorize additional information.

In this case, I also want to remember that the Civil War ended in 1645. I imagine Duke Ellington (D = 4; E = 5) playing the piano in the corner, oblivious to the scenes going on all around him.

1991 Gulf War against Iraq

My key image of the Gulf War is of a burning oil well, and the final stage of my journey is Hastings Pier. I imagine oil has been discovered on the coast and the pier has been converted into a rig. Unfortunately, it has been set on fire.

As the Gulf War is so recent, the only further data I need to remember is 91.

Using the DOMINIC SYSTEM, this converts into Neil Armstrong (9 = N; 1 =

A). I imagine him trying to put out the flames. He is wearing his spacesuit to protect himself from the heat.

HOW TO REMEMBER OTHER DATES USING JOURNEYS

A simple journey can help you to memorize large amounts of varied information. Try learning the following table, which lists the names of the twenty-six British prime ministers this century, the date they came to office, and their political persuasion.

Use exactly the same principles as before. Choose a journey with twenty-six stages. (You can always expand it to keep abreast of any dramatic developments.) Make your route relevant in some way; perhaps it starts in Downing Street, or at a number 10 in your road.

Run through the names, forming key images. Let the words themselves suggest associations if nothing else springs to mind. And use the DOMINIC

SYSTEM to remember the dates. In each case, you can discard the '19' and just concentrate on the last two digits.

There is one further piece of information to learn: the political party. The easiest way to do this is by incorporating another key image:

Conservative

Bowler hat

Labour

Red rose

Liberal

Big woolly

Coalition

Sack of coal

You can also incorporate colours (blue, red, yellow, black). Again, your own images are better.

BRITISH PRIME MINISTERS THIS CENTURY

GAME TO OFFICE PRIME MINISTER

PARTY

1905

Sir Henry Campbell—

Liberal

1908

Herbert Asquith

Liberal

1915

Herbert Asquith

Liberal

1916

David Lloyd George

Coalition

1922

Andrew Bonar Law

Conservative

1923

Stanley Baldwin

Conservative

1924

James Ramsay MacDonald

Labour

1924

Stanley Baldwin

Conservative

1929

James Ramsay MacDonald

Labour

1931

James Ramsay MacDonald

Coalition

1935

Stanley Baldwin

Coalition

1937

Neville Chamberlain

Coalition

1940

Winston Churchill

Coalition

1945

Winston Churchill

Conservative

1945

Clement Atlee

Labour

1951

Sir Winston Churchill

Conservative

1955

Sir Anthony Eden

Conservative

1957

Harold Macmillan

Conservative

1963

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

Conservative

1964

Harold Wilson

Labour

1970

Edward Heath

Conservative

1974

Harold Wilson

Labour

1976

James Callaghan

Labour

1979

Margaret Thatcher

Conservative

1990

John Major

Conservative

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS THIS CENTURY

Test yourself further with American presidents, creating separate key images to distinguish between Republicans and Democrats.

INAUGURATION

PRESIDENT

PARTY

1901

Theodore Roosevelt

Republican

1909

William Taft

Republican

1913

Woodrow Wilson

Democrat

1921

Warren Harding

Republican

1923

Calvin Coolidge

Republican

1929

Herbert Hoover

Republican

1933

Franklin Roosevelt

Democrat

1945

Harry S. Truman

Democrat

1953

Dwight Eisenhower

Republican

1961

John Kennedy

Democrat

1963

Lyndon Johnson

Democrat

1969

Richard Nixon

Republican

1974

Gerald Ford

Republican

1977

Jimmy Carter

Democrat

1981

Ronald Reagan

Republican

1989

George Bush

Republican

1993

Bill Clinton

Democrat

USING RANDOM LOCATIONS TO REMEMBER DATES

A journey is not always the best way to remember dates. Faced with a long sequence of events or people, you will be hard pressed to find a more efficient method. However, there are occasions when we want to memorize individual instances in time, one-offs. The best way to remember these is by using random locations, as opposed to the ordered sequence of a journey.

Have a look at the following list of twenty useful dates:

1086

Domesday Book

1215

Magna Carta

1348

Black Death

1381

The Peasants' Revolt

1431

Joan of Arc burnt at stake

1476

William Caxton begins printing in

1536

Dissolution of monasteries

1605

Gunpowder Plot

1665

Great Plague

1666

Great Fire of London

1750

Industrial Revolution begins

1752

Gregorian Calendar is introduced

1851

The Great Exhibition

1918

Women over 30 win right to vote

1926

General Strike

1945

Founding of United Nations

1948

National Health Service established

1953

Hilary and Tenzing conquer Everest

1969

Death penalty for murder abolished

1969

First man on the moon

1973

Britain enters European Community

If you were asked to memorize all of them in order, you would use a journey.

For now, imagine that you are given one or two of these to learn during the course of a lesson, or a guided tour. This is how to remember them:

Step 1:

Let the words suggest a key image. For the Domesday Book, it could be a

large, dome-shaped book. The General Strike might suggest a large banner; William Caxton suggests a printing press. Imagine a mountain for Hilary and Tenzing's conquest. And so on.

Step 2:

Look at the dates and convert them into persons and actions, using the

DOMINIC SYSTEM.

Step 3:

Combine your images and place them at a relevant location. The dome-shaped book is in your local library. The printing press might be outside Wapping, by the main gates.

This is how I remember some of the dates:

1431 Joan of Arc burnt at stake

My key image is of a bonfire. Using the DOMINIC SYSTEM, 1431 translates

into Arthur Daley (1 = A; 4 = D) and the action of weight-lifting (3 = C; 1 = A; CA = Charles Atlas). My location is Shamley Green, where I used to go on Bonfire Night. I imagine Joan of Arc being burnt, while Arthur Daley practises a spot of weight-lifting, seemingly unconcerned.

1536 Dissolution of the monasteries

My key image is of a church ruin. The year 1536 translates into Albert Einstein (1 = A; 5 = E) striding out along a catwalk (3 = C; 6 = S; CS = Claudia

Schieffer, the fashion model). I imagine this strange scene taking place in a church ruin I know.

1948 National Health Service established

My key image is of an ambulance. The year 1948 translates into Andrew Neil (1 = A; 9 = N) turning into a mermaid (4 = D; 8 = H; DH = Daryl Hannah). I imagine him being wheeled out of an ambulance in front of our local hospital.

DH is also an extra reminder for Department of Health.

COMBINING JOURNEYS WITH RANDOM

LOCATION

You can, of course, choose a random location to remember a date and then decide to store more information using a journey. For example, to remember that the battle of Waterloo took place in 1815, you might imagine Adolf Hitler (1 = A; 8 = H) writing on a blackboard (1 = A; 5 = E; AE = Albert Einstein) in the middle of Waterloo station (your location). Further facts about the battle could be placed along a journey out of Waterloo. Each station on the Exeter St David's line, for example, going out through Woking, Basingstoke, Andover could be a separate stage,

BRINGING THE PAST TO LIFE

If you want to increase your ability to retain historical facts still further, you can use familiar locations as a substitute for real ones. People you know can become famous figures of the past. All it takes is a little imagination.

15

POPULAR

MNEMONICS

A mnemonic is something that assists memory. (Mnemosyne was the Greek

goddess of memory, and mother of the nine muses.) The most common forms

are acronyms and verses, although my journey system could also be described as a mnemonic. In this chapter, I list a selection of the most common (and printable) ones: medical, historical, musical, mathematical, and legal.

It should be said that mnemonics don't meet with universal approval as a teaching method; academics dismiss them as exercises in idle wordplay, ditties for parrots who want to remember rather than understand. As far as I am

concerned, there is nothing wrong with anything if it helps you to remember.

Having said that, I do wonder about the effectiveness of one or two of the following, some of which I have included solely for their literary quirkiness.

EXTENDED ACRONYMS

In the same way that we remember the name of an organisation by forming an acronym (UNESCO for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organization), we often create meaningless sentences to remember useful

pieces of information. The first letter of each word reminds us of what we want to recall.

This is how some people remember numerical prefixes (kilo-, hecto-, deca-, metri-, deci-, centi-, and milli-):
Kippers Hardly Dare Move During Cold
Months.
The Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario):
Sergeant Major Hates Eating Onions.
And musical sharps (F, C, G, D, A, E, B):
Fat Cats Go Dotty After Eating Bananas.
Food is a good subject for a mnemonic as we all like eating. As I said at the beginning of this book, we are more likely to remember those things we enjoy. It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that sex also plays its part in popular mnemonics. Most people have heard this way to remember the colours of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet):
Richard Of York Goes Battling In Vain.
But did you know how to remember them in reverse?
Virgins In Bed Give You Odd
Reactions.

The following two strike me as particularly odd, but then, mnemonics are intensely private affairs.
Did Mary Ever Visit Brighton Beach?
There's no answer to this question. It reminded someone of the order of social rank in Britain (Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, Baron, Baronet). Then there is this strange comment, should you want to remember the order of England's Royal families (Norman, Plantaganet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, Hanover,

Windsor):
No Plan Like Yours To Study History Wisely.

DOCTORS AND NURSES

Medics are famous for making up mnemonics. The amount of technical information they have to learn, particularly concerning the human anatomy, has inevitably led to some highly ingenious mnemonics. Sadly, most of them are unprintable, and those that are clean tend to be obsessed with women.

This one is used for remembering the nerves in the superior orbital tissue (lacrimal, frontal, trochlear, lateral, nasociliary, internal, abduceir):
Lazy
French Tarts Lie Naked In Anticipation.

Stockings play a puzzlingly major role in medical mnemonics. I can only

assume that the following two examples were invented shortly after the war, when developments in nylon legwear were raising eyebrows.
Should George
Personally Purchase Ladies' Smooth Stockings?
A question on the lips of any self-respecting student who wants to be reminded from where the portal vein derives its blood (spleen, gallbladder, pancreas, peritoneum, large, small intestines, stomach). The following, rather desperate plea is a reminder of the branches of the abdominal aorta (phrenics, coeliac artery, middle suprarenal, superior mesenteric, renal, testicular, inferior mesenteric, lumbar, middle sacral):
Please, Can Soft Soap Remove Tint In Ladies Stockings?