As I Get Older, I Realise How Much of My Memory is Wasted - Part 1

JLo's Grammy Awards Red Carpet Looks - in Date Order Since 2000

Let’s just go ahead and make a list of the Top 5 utterly useless pieces of information that are currently occupying space in my memory bank. I need to do this to explain to people why I can’t remember even the most basic of tasks or names anymore. I can’t because I have used up the allocated memory that I have, and I can’t get rid of the following:

• All the words to Boyz II Men’s iconic love song The End of the Road. And how to spell Boyz II Men. I don’t listen to R&B or love songs, and yet, to mix my songs, whoomp there it is… (Oh, hold on, the early 90s are calling.)
• All of Prince Charles’ given names. As discussion turned in the office to how Harry may name his first born after his dad, my mouth opened and out popped, “you mean either Charles, Philip, Arthur or George?” Why?
• All of the home, landline telephone numbers of my school friends. None of them or their parents live at these numbers anymore, but I will have some critical numbers to hand should I ever be in a pinch and I need a random stranger in the leafy southern suburbs of Cape Town to assist me. Splendid.
• The words of the poem Kubla Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It begins, “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree: where Alph…” which then reminds me that I remember the words of the song Xanadu by Olivia Newton John. There was also a film. I’m not sure if the director also had three names. That would be too far.
• The outfit JLo wore to the 2000 Grammy Awards. I mean who doesn’t? I just wonder why I remember that it was in the year 2000. And I am pretty sure, if presented with images, I could sort every one of her Grammy outfits since, into date order. Oh look there, I just did.

Pulp's Disco 2000 Vinyl Album Cover Art

There are likely to be more of these lists, but now I’m off to enjoy more of the seminal works of the early 90s with Pulp’s Disco 2000. “Let’s all meet up in the year 2000, won’t it be strange when we’re all fully grown.” So very strange, I’m sure, but who can even remember? 

I'm feeling sentimental - watch the video here: