i don't remember

I don't remember where I was when I heard that Thatcher had resigned.

I don't remember how many times John Wark hit the woodwork in Ipswich's 1-0 FA Cup Final victory over Arsenal.

I don't remember who directed The Mechanic, in which Charles Bronson plays a contract killer who squeezes a ball of wax, partly by way of relaxation, partly to build up his shooting muscles. I used to imitate him - up to a point - using a ball of blu-tack.

I don't remember in which year the Sunday Correspondent was launched and then within weeks went under.

I don't remember my first London telephone number.

I don't remember an extended rhyme that we had to memorise at school which listed all the kings and queens of England alongside their predominant characteristic.

I don't remember which year it was that the Mouth - McEnroe - and the Shoulders - Borg - first did battle in the men's singles final at Wimbledon.

I don't remember how I came to hear of the French writer,Georges Perec.

I don't remember the rules concerning the semi-circle around each goal in hockey.

I don't remember when Polaroid cameras first came on the market.

I don't remember the name of the stuntman who died during filming - or was it live on air - of the Noel Edmonds Late Late Breakfast Show.

I don't remember the last time I saw a jar of Brylcream. I do remember when the fashion for boys using hair gel began, and the 'Morrissey' cuts that followed.

I don't remember who wrote a book for children called The Ogre Upstairs.

I don't remember whether the woman who does the interviews (and photography?) for the Observer Magazine's 'A Room of My Own' ever displayed her own room to public view.

I don't remember what the room looked like where groups played at the Falcon in Camden when it first opened as a venue.

.I don't remember if I ever succeeded in memorising all the stops along the Piccadilly line, as I used to try to do.

I don't remember when or with whom I first went to the Tate Gallery. I do remember Momus saying - 'that wild octagon of mirrors the Tate calls a coffee shop'.

I don't remember how young Nick Drake was when he died.

I don't remember outside which denomination's place of worship in Cambridge there was the notice, 'While there's death there's hope'.

I don't remember when the 253 through Holloway and Camden changed from Routemasters (with open access at the back) to buses having driver-operated doors.

I don't remember how many platforms there are at Clapham Junction.

I don't remember any more than three of the Seven Wonders of the World - the Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the Pharos of Alexandria.

I don't remember how many arches make up the Pont de Pierre across the Garonne in Bordeaux; one for every letter of the name NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, but is there one denoting the space between fore- and surname?

Ipswich Town have a white horse for an emblem, Norwich City a canary, but I'm afraid I don't remember what Cambridge United are signified by.

I don't remember if they ever caught the Blue Peter garden vandals.

I don't remember which songs the Jam played when they appeared live on the first edition of The Tube, just after the news had leaked out that Paul Weller was splitting the group.

I don't remember whether an outing to see Jaws at the local cinema was a birthday treat for my friend, or for me.

I don't remember which types of conflagration the different colours of fire extinguisher are meant for.

I don't remember who the other team captain was along with Frank Muir on Call My Bluff.

I don't remember which contains proportionally more water, an apple or ice cream. I do remember arguing about it with a friend for longer than the subject merited - much longer.

I don't remember the second record I ever bought. The first was 'Here Comes The Summer' by the Undertones.

I don't remember when or where I was disillusioned about Father Christmas.

I don't remember anyone failing their driving test more than the thirteen times a family friend failed her's.

I don't remember in which Dr. Who story London is threatened with the Thames flooding. Or was the danger from Cybermen in the sewers? Or both?

I don't remember when Scoop - a magazine for boys that crossbred elements of Shoot! and Tiger - ceased publication.

I don't remember when Oink! - a junior version of Viz whose first issue came with a flexi disc featuring the Oinklettes - began publication.

I don't remember what caused the fight with Mark E. Smith - 'the steak and kidney Bo Diddley' - that led to the man behind the Oinklettes, Marc Riley, leaving the Fall.

I don't remember the rains that caused floods in Suffolk in the year of 'God Save the Queen', but I do have a clear picture of a woman canoeing down the village high street.

I don't remember what the play within the play that Hamlet tells Claudius is The Mouse-trap is actually called.

I don't remember the plot of the Sherlock Holmes story, 'The Adventure of the Cardboard Box'. I do remember it begins with Holmes subjecting Watson to the mind-reading trick that is recounted word for word the same in 'The Resident Patient' - whose plot I also forget.

I don't remember who is responsible for the phrase, 'the deep dark blue centre'.

I don't remember the offside rule in Subbuteo.

I don't remember the name of the road that takes you up onto the Archway, from where, at night, your eyes can follow the sodium glow of the Holloway Road, also the A1, into the City.

I don't remember whether the Pink Panther ever smiles.

I don't remember what filled the gap originally in 'watch out watch out, there's a ... about'. Whatever it was would drink your milk when you weren't looking.

I don't remember the smell, partly of detergent, that permeated the corridors at school. I know it had a particular smell, and I associate it with caretakers.

I don't remember the name of the slimy stuff which would stick to a wall when you threw it at one.

I don't remember how you record wides in a cricket scorebook.

I don't remember who took the photograph during the 1984 miners' strike which showed a mounted policeman leaning down across a wall apparently about to truncheon a woman on the other side of it; she has just raised an arm to shield herself.

I didn't remember my lines when playing the part of the second witch in a school production of Macbeth.

I don't remember what the first animal (it was a dog) in space was called.

I don't remember from where the word 'botley', used at school as a term of abuse meaning mentally deficient, was derived. Possibly there was an institution of that name in the neighbourhood.

I don't remember when I became aware that the gravelly voice I occasionally heard on the radio was Tom Waits'.

I don't remember in which Carry On film it is that Charles Hawtrey plays 'Dan Dan the Lavatory Man'.

I don't remember whether or not Choppers, and later Grifters, were the first 'designer' bikes.

I don't remember the species name of the creatures dressed in cowls who pick up R2D2 and C3P0 in the desert in the first Star Wars film.

I don't remember when coaches between Victoria and Bury St. Edmunds started calling at Stanstead - 'the third London airport'.

I don't remember who was deputy when Michael Foot was leader of the Labour Party.

I don't remember how to do differential equations.

I don't remember Ian Botham's figures in the legendary Headingley Test where he turned the match, and the Ashes series, around.

I don't remember looking at people on tube trains when I was a child. I simply used to let my eyes follow the cabling in the tunnel alongside, which was sometimes purple, sometimes brown, but more often thick with dirt.

I don't remember how many 'o's there are in the game of scrabble.

I don't remember the title of Krystof Kieslowski's first film.

I don't remember all of the Ten Commandments.

I don't remember who scored the winning goal in the Saints' 1-0 FA Cup Final vitory against Man. Utd. I do remember it feeling a long time to have to wait for a goal, and that once it had been scored, impatience finally got the better of my brother and I, and we decamped to the garden to enact our own version of it. It is the first FA Cup Final I can remember.

I don't remember how much I won when Red Rum won the Grand National for the third time.

I don't remember who was on the cover of the first issue of Smash Hits that I bought - Splodgenessabounds, or possibly Gary Numan, with a feather shaped dash of pink dye covering some of his surgically implanted hair.

I don't remember what a tube used to collect golf balls on a driving range was called, unless it was a 'golf ball collecting tube'.

I don't remember whether Lawrence of Felt has ever revealed his surname.

I don't remember if any of the wishes I used to make when I caught a leaf or a feather or a dandelion head ever came true.

I don't remember the smell of oil seed rape when it was shallow-piled two feet high across a barn with ventilated flooring.

I don't remember who invented Monopoly.

I don't remember any of the straight men who appeared alongside Basil Brush. Boom boom.

I don't remember if it is true that a detective called upon to investigate Mark Rothko being ripped off was so taken with the artist's work that he brought it to the public's attention and so established Rothko's reputation.

76 I don't remember the rules of a card game we used to play called 'Newmarket'.

I don't remember in what order everyone dies at the end of Hamlet.

I don't remember the brand name of the glasses from which we drank water at school lunchtimes. There was an individual number etched in, or embossed on, the bottom of every glass. Did we play a game as to who had the highest number each day?

I don't remember which of the Beach Boys drowned.

I don't remember who chose the Beach Boys' 'That's not me' as one of their Desert Island Discs.

I don't remember the facial features of the spy couple with whom Steed and Mrs. Peel were forced to swap minds in one episode of The Avengers.

I don't remember exactly the particular smell of the inside of a Mini Clubman, the Mini with the wooden frame.

I don't remember the seventh way of getting out in cricket: bowled, played on, lbw, caught, stumped, run out and - ?

The Amazonian fish reputed to swim up a human being's urine and, having entered the duct of the genitalia, there extend spines which make it very difficult to remove - I don't remember whether these fish are reality or myth.

I don't remember what clothes I was wearing a little while before I lost my virginity.

I don't remember the price of the first tube ticket I bought. I do remember the 3 x 1" (?) shape of the old thick card tickets, with their purple-inked yellow fronts and brown backs.

Two fat ducks - 22; and two old ladies - 88; but I don't remember what a bingo club MC calls when the number 55 is drawn.

I don't remember when the Post Office Tower became the Telecom Tower.

I don't remember which song of Curtis Mayfield's I first heard him sing.

I don't remember the third name ascribed to Robert de Niro in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America. Born David Aaronson, nicknamed Noodles, assumed the identity of - ?

I don't remember which of '70s t.v. detective duo Hopkirk and Randall was the ghost, and always wore a white suit.

I don't remember

(to be continued...)

[This is a variation on Georges Perec's Je Me Souviens, which in turn was inspired by Joe Brainard's I Remember.]


Daniel Williams, 1996.



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