The Authentic Eclectic
An Itch in the Mind
Things that sent me off on quests
As I approach the sere and yellow, and my brain continues its gradual dissolution into something akin to duck soup, I wonder more about memory.
I’ve always had a fly-paper mind -things stick. In my childhood, when taking the annual Scripture Exam held by the local Nonconformist Sunday Schools, I found the task of memorising and writing out the required passage effortless. The lyrics of songs, poems, passages from plays and books, they go in there and they won’t go away.
But the worst ones — the ones that torment me — are the ‘mind-itches’. The memories that for some reason, keep popping up at irregular intervals. They won’t settle down until I’ve answered the questions they raise. Sometimes, it’s just ‘did they really exist?’. A kids TV show called The Friendly Giant, another one called Mr Piper; a fictional wizard called Mr Stabs: two books — The Bug Wars and The War Against the Rull, which I distinctly recall having read, but that nobody else I’ve spoken to seems to know of. The internet, when it finally arrived (yes, there are still some of us out there who predate the web) resolved these for me, as well as a few more!
