Total recall…

I’m beginning to worry that I’m running out of memories and if that happens what will I write about? I can’t have used up them all can I? Surely there must be others waiting to be poked with a sharp stick, like wild animals, and awoken.

They say that every moment we have experienced is available to us stored away in those dusty filing cabinets at the back of our minds. I wonder how they are filed? Are they stored by date or activity or a mixture of the two, numerically or alphabetically, by event or by some far more random association driven system waiting to flicker up onscreen with just the right trigger?

There are some days from my past I think I remember from start to finish in detail. But when I try to recall that detail it seems I only remember a fraction of what must have happened. Did I put extra salt on the chicken served on my wedding day? What vegetables were served? Was the chicken in a sauce? What was the pudding? What colour was my underwear?

It seems I only remember the things that have stuck in my mind. Memorable days and events glued into my recollection. Sometimes I pick up a book and realise (after 100 pages or more) that I’ve read it before. Now I’ve read a lot of books, but surely I should remember reading them all shouldn’t I? The same goes for films and television. After twenty minutes of watching I remember the ending, so what is the point of continuing to watch?

I wonder what it would be like if we really did remember everything? Every moment of our lives, each second, every cup of coffee, all the words of every conversation we’ve ever had, each waking, each falling asleep, the name and face of every person we’ve ever met, every news report, each and every word we’ve ever read. Would it be so overwhelming that it would change us as a people, or would we simply shut down unable to absorb any more data like a computer whose memory is full?

It’s all there though, all that detail, way back in that backroom of my brain, hidden away within my subconscious. All I need to be able to do is access it. But do I really want to? Do I really want to remember every slight, every unkind word, every slap and punch, every argument, every embarrassment, every bad thought I’ve ever had, each person I’ve let down, every lie I’ve told, every dagger slipped into my heart? And do I really want to remember every terrible event – the rapes, plagues, wars, murders, disasters - that I’ve seen, heard and read about in the media over the last fifty-six years?

Yes, I think that total recall must be a frightening thing and I don’t think I want to find out where it could take me and what I might become if I went with it.

Chocolate mice...

Chocolate mice, what’s that all about? Edibles don’t get much worse do they? A slightly deformed rodent made from greyish chocolate that actually tastes more of mouse than chocolate.

So, Chocolate Week is almost over, did you notice it or did it pass you by? It’s meant to be the nation’s favourite themed week and has been running for ten years. Well, who would have guessed it? Of course it’s mainly London focussed and really just an opportunity for chocolate companies to get together at Chocolate Show London to show off their latest chocolaty stuff. Chocolate Show London, what a grand name – mind you chocolate makers call themselves chocolatiers, so that’s hardly surprising.

Personally I don’t get the whole chocolate thing. I’m not a huge fan and my relationship with the dark brown substance is patchy. Of course, as a child I used to cram my face with a selection box or two at Christmas, but I never really enjoyed the chocolate experience. I think that it was the lack of chocolate for the rest of the year that made me do it, that and the fact that I was piggy greedy. The Christmas tree was always covered in cheap, hollow, chocolate baubles. Foil wrapped soldiers, shiny pine cones, even chocolate stockings which were tied to the branches with thin golden string. We weren’t allowed to eat them until after the Christmas tree needles had fallen all over the lino and by then they just tasted of Christmas tree and dust.

At Easter it was all about chocolate eggs, although again I never really got into the Easter chocolate thing. Easter was so boring – all crucifixion and hot cross bun - a non-event and a hollow Easter egg or two was never going to change that. This was before the big companies started filling their eggs with mini-sweets, so all you got inside your egg was air. Besides, I preferred Black Jacks, Fruit Salads, liquorice, and sherbet to Mars, Milky Ways, Bounties, and Chocolate Buttons.

Chocolate is a take it or leave it thing with me. I can go months without a piece, then crave a Turkish Delight or a square of Fruit and Nut. When I eat it I’m always disappointed with the taste; it never quite lives up to the smell and I don’t like the texture of chocolate unless it’s been in the fridge. I can’t stand hot drinking chocolate, chocolate spread, chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookies, or even chocolate flavoured beer; and as for white chocolate (which isn’t chocolate at all) it’s like eating milky powdered dirt despite the Milky Bars being on me.

No, I’m not a chocolate lover as you probably realise by now. I know that I’m in a minority, particularly among the ladies who scream about chocolate being gorgeous, or heaven, or even to die for, but in all honesty I don’t want to die for a Cadbury’s Cream Egg. In fact I can’t think of anything worse; it’s a gooey, sugary, chocolate coated mess that tastes nothing like an egg at all.

Scientists have proven that women prefer chocolate to being in love (which I can understand, most things are preferable to that) and that the chemical in chocolate produce a similar effect to smoking cannabis which I never really liked anyway. Perhaps that’s why I can take it or leave it.

It doesn’t explain why I’m so fat though.