TRIVIAL PURSUIT
As part of my recent promotional work, I was asked to memorize two editions of Trivial Pursuit - the Annual Edition and Genus III. There were 7,500 questions in total, on Geography, Entertainment, History, Art and Literature, Science and Nature, Sport and Leisure. If you have read Section 2 (History and Geography), it won't come as a surprise to learn that I memorized the answers using instant association and location.
Not everyone, I admit, might be taken by the idea of memorizing thousands of Trivial Pursuit cards, but the exercise is a good way of practising the techniques you have already learnt. For players of the game, particularly those who are fed up with always being beaten at Christmas, it is a sure-fire way of never having to lose again.
The task is not as daunting as it sounds. It took me only one read through to commit the answers to memory. Setting aside an hour and a half each day, I learnt them at the leisurely pace of three per minute. After a month, I had memorized all 7,500.
Unlike a pack of cards, however, I needed to store all this trivia in my long term-memory. Apart from anything else, it is a handy trick to have up my sleeve for live TV interviews. So I embarked on a systematic programme of revision, which I will explain at the end of the chapter. Today, I only need to run through the questions once every three months. Some people, though, still don't believe it's a feat of memory.
THE TALKING BRIEFCASE
I once spent the day at Hamley's toy shop in Regent Street, London, answering
Trivial Pursuit questions chosen by the general public. If I got one wrong, the questioner would win £50, if I got a second question wrong, they would win £100, and if, God forbid, I got three questions wrong, they would stand to win
£5,000, in cash! Questions were picked entirely at random and throughout the day there were queues of people desperate to try their luck and catch me out.
At one point, I noticed a man who studied me closely for five minutes, before joining the queue. He was particularly interested in my black briefcase, resting against my chair. I suspected a scene. Sure enough, when he eventually chose a card, he turned around to everyone and announced, 'Right, I want that briefcase removed before I ask a question.' An assistant dutifully obliged and moved the case ten feet behind me.
'Further back, please,' the man demanded. Only when the offending object was completely out of view, or should I say out of earshot, for it had become apparent that the man credited my briefcase with unnatural powers of commu- nication, did he proceed to ask me a question.
The question came out as a mumble. I think he was concentrating more on what my briefcase might be saying. I asked him to repeat it and he turned, victorious, to address the audience, 'You see! Have any of you noticed how often he has to have the question repeated?'
Everyone stared at their shoes, as only the English can do when a public row breaks out. I finally established what the question was, 'How old was Anna Kournikova in May 1992 when she was described at the finest tennis prospect of the century?'
'Ten,' I replied automatically. The man threw down his card in disgust, and walked off saying, It's a fiddle, it's a fiddle.'
It wasn't, of course. He failed to appreciate the brief chain of mental events that had provided me with the answer. Two key words 'Anna' and 'tennis', were enough to trigger an image of a tennis court (location) I had once played on in Hertfordshire. It was owned by a friend of mine called 'Annie'. I could vaguely see a man playing the piano on the tram lines: it was Dudley Moore from the film 10. This strange image provided me with my answer.
Needless to say, nobody won any prize-money that day, and the insurer's £5,000 was returned safely to the bank.
THE METHOD
As I promised, almost all the hard work in this book came in the early chapters. The method for memorizing Trivial Pursuit cards is very similar to the technique you used for putting names to faces.
1. Seize on a key word (or words) in the question and let it suggest to you a random location. It doesn't matter how absurd it is, provided that the associa- tion is instant. You are simply trying to ensure that the next time you hear that key word, the same location comes into your head.
2. Take a look at the answer. Grab hold of any associated image that flashes across your mind. Again, it is essential that you stick with the first image.
EXAMPLES
In the following examples, I am giving you my personal associations for the purposes of demonstration. Yours might be a good deal more imaginative!
Q: What material is the Cricket World Cup trophy made from? A: Glass.
The key word is 'cricket', and the obvious location is Lord's Cricket Ground. (If you can't picture a famous setting, use a local pitch.) 'Glass' suggests an image of an expensive cut-glass bowl. Linking the two together, I imagine the bowl balanced precariously on the stumps at Lord's (Taverner's end); I hear the glass shatter as it is smashed by an unplayable off-cutter.
Q: Which country's coast witnessed the battle of Trafalgar? A: Spain.
The key word is 'Trafalgar' which suggests Trafalgar Square as a location. I often use an image of a matador for anything Spanish. I imagine him waving a red rag in front of one of the lions at the foot of Nelson's Column.
Q: What is the alternative name for a cavy? A: A guinea pig.
The key word is 'cavy'. This sounds a bit like cave. Most of us have visited a cave at some time in our lives. I would use a cave I know in Ireland as the location. The ready made image of a guinea pig needs to be strengthened in some way. I imagine a huge family of guinea pigs emerging from the mouth of the cave.
The images for some questions and answers require a little more invention, but they are still based on immediate associations. Here is another example:
Q: What knot are you said to cut if you overcome a major difficulty? A: Gordian.
The key words are 'knot' and 'difficulty'. When I hear the word 'knot' I imme- diately think of a certain estuary in Ireland where, as a young boy, I first came across knots. It's a very strong location for me. I spent a long, depressing day fishing for brown trout, and most of my time was taken up untangling my line. For my image, I split Gordian into two, Gordon and Ian, which happen to be the names of two friends of mine. I imagine Gordon and Ian at the riverbank, helping me overcome my difficulties with the fishing tackle. What's the first thing to enter your mind when you hear the word 'knot'?
The method works providing you seize your first association when confront- ed with a key word. By all means explore the association (it's a fascinating area, as anyone who has played word association games will vouch), but don't over-analyse why the word reminds you of a particular place. Trust that your
mental chain of events, no matter how far-fetched, will repeat itself when you come to read the question at a later date.
In all the above examples, I have streamlined my final image to give me the answer and nothing else. Take the question I was asked at Hamley's. I was simply trying to get to the number ten. The year 1992 was irrelevant, as was the surname, Kournikova, and the fact that she was described as the finest ten- nis prospect this century was of no consequence at all.
If you ever come across information that is of particular interest to you, and you want to remember every detail, simply add the relevant elements to your overall image.
REVISION
If you want to memorize Trivial Pursuit, the Annual Edition is a good place to start. It has 1,500 questions. As I said earlier, you should aim to memorize them at a rate of three a minute. You may find it takes you considerably longer to begin with, but the process will speed up. In order for the information to be stored on a long term-basis, you must revise regularly.
Find your own level of retention. You might need to look at the cards again within minutes, or after twenty-four hours. Personally, my first revision takes place after forty-eight hours, and then I can retain the information for months on end. So far, I've never been caught out on a single question.
THE JONATHAN ROSS SHOW
I have had to remember some daft things in my time. I was once asked by Jonathan Ross to memorize the first word on every page of Jilly Cooper's novel
Polo for his TV show. The paperback version consists of no less than 766 pages. I set about this unusual task by planning eight journeys, each with fifty stages. I would need 383 stages in total if I placed two words on each one. To make the words more memorable, I gave them symbols, usually people: 'and' became 'Andrew', 'the' became 'Thea', 'you' became 'ewe'.
I received the book the day before the show was televised. By mid-after- noon, I had memorized all 766 words.
Just before the show, copies of the book were handed out to 150 members of the studio audience. Each person was given a set page number. If they were chosen, they could call out their number and personally verify that I had memorized the right word.
Jonathan Ross explained to the audience before I came on that certain words had been chosen in preference to others, to avoid repetition of dull ones such as 'to', 'and', 'of', 'a', 'it,' etc. As usual, there were the inevitable sceptics. No sooner had I walked on to the stage than someone at the back started shouting: 'Fix! Fix!'
It wasn't a good start, but the heckling triggered off the following series of images: 'Jim'll fix it' Saville jogging down a leafy lane in Surrey complete with fat cigar and chunky gold chains. He was at the first position on the second stage of the seventh journey.
Within three seconds of hearing the word 'fix', I told the audience to turn to page 703. There was a frantic rustling of pages and, sure enough, the first word at the top of that page was 'fix'.
Thankfully, my sceptic shut up after that, and I could continue to demon- strate my memory skills in front of a trusting audience.