Memory aids are rats dressed as puppies that will bite you in the ass. I once knew a guy named Fred, a man who swooned in front of mirrors and knew his cholesterol level to the third decimal place. He was something of a great man, a man to be reckoned with because he occupied a high place in the general scheme of things.

When I met him, free drink in hand at a sendoff, a launch, an editor frenzy, a premiere or any other verbose conclave where backbiters feast on vertebrae, I always forgot his name. He bristled and rolled his shoulders as if preparing for battle. “It’s Frederick, Anson. But just go with “Fred” if the whole three syllables are too painful for you.

I decided to remember his name by associating it in my mind with a famous Fred. I should have used Flintstone, Weasley, Astaire or The Great. But I chose Freddie Mercury because the guy was gay, and when I think of Freddie Mercury, I think not only of his toothy thrusts in front of Queen, but also of the mano-a-mano-a-mano more sexual adventures commendable for which he has become so rightly celebrated. So a gay Freddie was the perfect cheat sheet for this guy, I thought.

But the next time I encountered him, I fell into a mnemonic panic, my memory aid said “goodbye”, and I asked the ghost of F. Mercury for help, I I found myself gone – and I called the man Dick. Which I quickly corrected to Peter. For me, word association turns out to be about as sure as having a ripped gibbon working on train tracks – the train of thought can go either way…or go completely off the rails.

I made a similar, but more powerful, misstep twenty years earlier, when I struggled to remember the name of a Sarah who occasionally passed through the outer fringe of my social orbit. She was a journalist with flamboyant hair, a broad face and a pretty smile. I admitted to a friend that I always get stuck on her name and the friend said, “Use a memory aid.” What I do is think of a famous person who has the same name as the person I’m forgetting. In that case, why not use Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York? Just think that “Duchess” and “Sarah” will come to mind.

It seemed like a good idea and might have worked without Rupert Murdoch’s intervention. Because the Duchess of York had, in pre-Ozemic times, suffered from a postnatal condition. And Rupert’s witty minions, who daily beat up the royal family in the tabloids for the public’s delight, had taken to billing her as headliners as The Duchess of Pork. I must have subconsciously adopted this crude epithet for Sarah Ferguson, and the next time I met with the publicist, I said, “Hi… uh… pig… pooork… Sarah.”

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The good thing was that I had finally remembered his name – but the two “pigs” that preceded him (one spit like a hot lychee and the other hummed at length to give my frightened mind time to unmask ” Sarah”) were impossible to retract. Worse yet, it felt like I had blurted out a nickname used behind his back, because, I mean, no one comes up with “Pork Pooork Sarah” out of the blue. She had the presence of mind to respond, “Hello, Ass… Arrrse… Anson.” And we laughed, each of us realizing that we were now enemies.

Once you admit to forgetting someone’s name, that emptiness, that emptiness becomes their hideous disfigurement. Forget where your daughter’s boss’s missing eye is – where’s his name? As I approach him, hand outstretched, the horns of social urgency go off in my brain, drowning out any useful echoes from the past.

But if I forget your name, I want you to take it as a compliment. Nobody’s name slips off the tongue like a regurgitated oyster. It’s the name of a big Barry that I can’t afford to forget and who hides among the Harrys, Barts, Gerrys, Clarrys, Berts, Humphreys and other jumbled nomenclatures in the hall of my brain. So the next time we meet and I expose my amber incisors and blurt out “Hello, Cocko” or “Hola, my friend”, remember, I am not a scared person and you are a luminary who has names that swirl behind my eyes. like rhinos, cherries and aces on an addict’s poker machine. Anyway, about 80 percent of you will call me “An…An…Anton”.

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