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Trivia I cannot forget

I was going through my hard disk and deleting a mass of useless and temporary files which were cluttering up my computer and slowing it down. Of particular concern was the accumulated rubbish. I was quite ashamed of the atrocious quality of many of the video and image files that were stored for no good reason.

If only, I thought, I could clean out my mind and delete all the rubbish stored there for no good reason. It always amazes me that stuff I have no use for, and which has no redeeming features, is stored permanently in my memory whereas important and useful stuff I would like to remember is stored nowhere. 

Just during the time it has taken to write this, the following indelible trivia rises, unbidden, unforgettable, into the forefront of my memory:

  1. A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
  2. If a woodchuck could chuck wood, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could, and would, chuck wood.
  3. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
  4. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep,
  5. Double double toil and trouble but which witch is which?
  6. 1729 is the smallest number which can be the sum of two different cubes in two different ways – 10 and 9 and 12 and 1.
  7. To be, or not to be not, are pretty much the same.
  8. The boy stood on the burning deck, and perished like an idiot.

The longer I sit here, the more trivia bubbles up. But I cannot recall my children’s telephone numbers. Of course I don’t need to – but I cannot if I try. 

When it comes to deleting memories I certainly have no free will.

This entry was posted on July 31, 2021 at 9:13 am and is filed under Trivia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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