QUICK!

I've set up several reminders in my email and on my portable telephone to make sure that I don't miss the programme but the discarded television I've been walking past thrice daily for the last two weeks has been a welcome extra reminder. I'd expected its screen to be smashed as it was lying face-down on the cobbles but when righted it appeared to be intact though evidently unwanted and presumably no longer functional.

If I need to remind myself of something I'll usually write it on my wrist in Biro, email myself at home or work (depending on where I need to be when I remember it), occasionally text myself, add something to my mobile calendar and (increasingly rarely) write something on a post-it or piece of paper and tuck it into my shoes or leave it atop my camera bag in the vain hope that I'll act on it rather than just remove it and carry on. Most of the important things get remembered... I leave reminders in place until I'm certain that I've taken heed of an impending birthday or christmas and usually keep on top of work via a complicated system of post-its, pieces of paper, calendar reminders, to-do items and secondary memories housed in the craniums of the colleagues who wish me to do things.

Nicky occasionally leaves something in the wrong place overnight such as a bolster chisel on the sofa or a saucepan lid in the middle of the floor as a reminder that she needs to take a particular item to work. If I tried that I'd see the thing and then spend ten minutes attempting to re-acquire the mindset I had when I decided to leave such a reminder in place in order to remember the thing I was supposed to remember of which I would not have the foggiest. I expect this will be one of the things which will get worse as I age along with what-the-fuck-am-I-in-here-for?-syndrome. There was probably once a special word meaning "remembering that you had to remember something but not remembering eaxctly what it was you were supposed to remember" which someone long ago forgot.

Hopefully people today shouldn't have to struggle to remember things for that much longer as someone's bound to invent some form of implantable diary/calendar chip device thing at some point in the next three decades which can remember things for us and gently prompt us at the appropriate time. Even just saying "remember you're on the last bogroll" in your ear when you walk past the supermarket would be a start.

Hopefully reading this a couple of times on Friday will remind me to buy some on the way home...