Derby memory man smashes three world records
A DERBY man smashed three records to become the UK memory
champ for the second year running and regain the world number
-
memory man: Ben Pridmore
one spot.
Ben Pridmore, of Hartington Street, memorised a row of 930
noughts and ones in just five minutes at the weekend contest in
London.
The 31-year-old, a qualified accountant, also accurately
recalled the order of seven packs of playing cards in 10
minutes and an 818-digit number on his way to the crown.
He said: "It's something everyone can do. But I'm still
pretty hopeless at remembering people's names.
"The standard in the competition gets tougher each year, I
have to keep on my toes.
"It was great to win, particularly as it was the second year
running."
The win means Mr Pridmore – who has an IQ of 159 – has now
qualified for the World Memory Championships, a competition he
won in 2004. It takes place in Bahrain in October.
The victory also means the grandmaster has regained the
coveted number one spot on the world ranking list for so-called
memory sports, dethroning rival Dr Gunther Karsten.
Mr Pridmore holds the official world record for memorising
the order of a randomly-shuffled 52-card deck, a feat he
achieved just 26.28 seconds.
Besides memory sports, he is also famous for his mental
calculation skills and took part in the World Mental
Calculation Championships 2004 and 2006.
He plays Othello and was the World Intelligence Champion
2001, an event which took place during the Mind Sports Olympiad
in London.
Mr Pridmore worked as a credit control administrator for
Parkhouse Recruitment, in Derby, before being made redundant.
He now works as a financial analyst at Boots and has written
How To Be Clever, a book on memory training and party
tricks.
In May, he won the Derby Memory Championship, while last
year he finished first in the UK memory tournament and
runner-up in the world and German championships.
He remembers playing card orders and lists of 10 numbers at
a time – including binary codes – by linking them to images. He
draws on what he knows most about to come up with his images,
particularly cartoon characters.
"For example, Homer Simpson is the nine of hearts and three
of hearts. Bugs Bunny is the five of hearts and six of
diamonds, and so on," he said.
"It takes a lot of work, I was not immediately brilliant,
but it's achievable by anybody."
Mr Pridmore, who dropped out of university in his first
year, admits he was mediocre at school, apart from maths,
because he hated revision, but has now learned that "practice
makes perfect".
He said his family have a laugh when he forgets things, but
his grandmother, 88-year-old Dorothy Robotham, of Chilwell, is
his biggest fan.
However, his memory career has not been without its lesser
moments.
In January, he was shown up by Ayumu, a seven-year-old male
ape brought up in captivity in Japan.
The primate did three times as well as Mr Pridmore at a
computer game, which involved remembering the position of
numbers on a screen.
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