1/ practice every day for at least half an hour and
2/ Go back to the classics which is a reversal of my usual stance.
Regular bloggettes will know how peed off I got growing up at having to play classical music all the time. Now that I appreciate that music more, it's time to revisit the likes of Mozart, Bach, Handel and Haydn.
On the cruise I watched closely how one of the very talented pianists played some Mozart. Now I reckon that if I practice Mozart regularly from my return until say 2050 (that's 2050 the year and not just before 9 pm) I might just get to their standard.
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What is it about the front rows? Every day on our cruise we either went to lectures or entertainment in the ship's theatre. The theatre for the evening entertainment was usually about two thirds full but the front four or five rows were left empty.
So whatever time we arrived we could always get a seat near the front which suited the other threequarters rather well being sadly very deaf. She likes to lip read and so was able to do that.
Obviously if there's a comedian on stage sitting in the front row it isn't a good thing as you could be picked on or even asked to go on stage. But keeping quiet at the back doesn't always work. We did that one night on another cruise and they started picking people to go on stage. We felt quite safe but then they walked round the room and found us cowering in the corner.
Up onto the stage we went. It was some kind of dance competition which involved the gentleman lifting his lady partner. Now the other threequarters isn't heavy and in those days she was probably even lighter but I got hold of the wrong bits, toppled over and the significant other ended up on top much to the amusement of the assembled multitude.
We came second on that competition out of six couples. I think it was the sympathy vote that gave us runners-up slot.
When on holiday we are largely sociable people. That's why we always elect to eat on a table of six, eight or 10. So we were pleased to find ourselves on a table of six people. Problem is our table of six was a table of two as nobody else sat there.
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At one of the lectures an astro physicist explained how the film The Martian is totally unrealistic. I tried to watch it once but gave up after a few minutes. Apparently the start shows an astronaut being knocked unconscious during a Martian dust storm which sweeps a hunk of metal along. But on real Mars there is no mass which means a dust storm wouldn't even move a feather. Makes you think.
Another aside now. One of my favourite singer songwriters is an American named John Grant. He used to be in a band called The Czars which is of no relevance to what follows. On his first album there was a song called Marz with the lyric I Want To Go To Marz. The song isn't about the planet, however, but about a sweet shop he used to frequent as a boy. The song is mainly a list of boyhood sweet treats.
We did feel at home when we saw that Ghost Ship beer was on the drinks menu. This is brewed by Adnams of Southwold in Suffolk, about 40 miles from our home. We are probably as I write this over 10,000 miles from home. It must be quite a coup for Adnams to get their beer on Cunard cruise liners. And even better I then found that they served my favourite beer Adnams Broadside.
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I'm now going to make a flippant comment that I believe might be a serious one.
The flippant comment is this. I would like somebody to use my brain for medical research into dementia.
It was meant as a joke-not about dementia but about me. Perhaps I need to explain.
On our cruise we decided to go to an evening trivia quiz on the 1960s. It involved questions on film, music and a few other things. There were 20 questions. We got the first 19 correct but I stupidly got Del Shannon's Runaway wrong by putting the title as a line from the chorus. Nevertheless we got 19 out of 20 or 95% which is A* level in anyone's books.
Now the serious point here is that people suffering from dementia can often remember things from many years ago but not what they did yesterday.
My family on my side has absolutely no history of dementia. I do not have dementia. But I have a brain that allows me to recall in great detail what happened to me from the late fifties to the middle of the seventies.
I can remember music, film, television programmes, news items, family matters and much more as regular readers will attest. I remember little from the arts or the news from the last two decades.
At the moment I'm not sure where this is taking me and I might have to think about it at greater length but I'm sure you get my drift
Recently when I wrote about dementia I received some lovely messages from readers saying how I had described things in a way that was easy to understand. That is often the essence of what I try to do in these blogs. Life is complex and there are so many strands to it with so many things going on and so much to understand.
So does my experience of being able to remember in intricate details things that happened over half a century ago have any bearing on dementia? Probably not but it is worth considering why I have this recall of the past.
Firstly I am convinced that our brain has room for a limited amount of information. As we age that bank of memory gets bigger and bigger until it becomes virtually full. But it doesn't dump memories from the past and replace them with memories of the present for which there is less and less room. Hence the fact we remember things from 50 years ago but not from last week.
Secondly we actually don't remember everything from the past. In other words we are selective about what we retain in our brain's memory bank. I have kept a daily diary for 50 years. Recently I re-read sections and couldn't remember the things I was reading. That after all is the reason for keeping a diary. I read about people I met and jobs I did without any recollection of them.
Thirdly we keep memories of good things and often filter out the bad. I can remember in great detail the good things that have happened in my life in much greater detail than the bad as I have filtered out the greater details of the latter.
Fourthly I remember what happened in the sixties and early seventies because I am genuinely interested in that period of our history. The fact I lived through it is a bonus. I retain lots of information on Tudor England as it's a period in history I am interested in. The sixties and early seventies were eras of great change and I was also trying to find my way in the world (whatever that means).
I hope that all makes some kind of sense.