Memory Palace news

1. Riddled regrets the error in an earlier version of this post. We now accept that Jack Palance never appeared in the titular role of a big-budget Hollywood adaptation of Funes the Memorious with car-chases and explosions. The Ministerial advisors responsible for the typographical error have been fired.

2. A scholarly journal has accepted my contribution about the Memory Palace theme in contemporary fiction from Carlos Fuentes to Thomas Harris, and how various authors distinguish or fail to distinguish the Method of Loci from the Method of Images. The former (as any fule kno) is where you internalise some building's architecture -- the Palace per se -- as a topographically-organised sequence of 'niches' for filing information for recall, while the latter is the technique of creating bizarre or striking or otherwise memorable images, to be visualised within those niches as a way of encoding that information.

3. But wouldn't you know it, the article is out-of-date already! Now the aesthetic pendulum has swung away from cluttered memory decor and all the life-style journals are emphasising the need for simplicity and unadorned mnemonic austerity. I blame Feng Shui.

4. Do not memorise Wellyton's Town Hall as a Memory Palace, for it is "earthquake prone". Thus an internalised copy will attract earthquakes just as much as the external version, and you do not want the extra hassle of ensuring that all your memory images are securely fastened against falling and breakage.

Wellyton Town Hall [not really]

The city's job creators are loath to see money spent on strengthening the Town Hall. They believe that a better investment for the city would be to replace it with yet another feckin' Convention Centre, which would be immensely profitable (though not enough so for them to construct a convention centre themselves, which is why the City Council should do it).

Also not the Wellyton Town Hall

But Convention Management New Zealand director Dean Bradley said that, while it was "a beautiful old building", it was not ideal for conferences. Size, facilities, and the number of rooms were all problems.

A purpose-built convention centre that could fit thousands would be of huge economic benefit to Wellington, he said.

One Ian Cassels, Property Councillor, is particularly scathing.
As a Property Developer, Cassels has expertise in architectural excellence and takes great pride in the good taste he bestows upon the city: