BUNHILL : Thanks, but no thanks for the memory

SO WHATEVER happened to memory? Or, to be more precise, whatever happened to those advertisements that offered to improve our memory?

You may vaguely recollect these ads because they used to stare us all in the face from the front pages of national newspapers. I say "vaguely" because the regularity of their appearances eventually dulled their impact; like all things that stare us in the face for long enough, we didn't really take them in - they were just there.

One ad was for a company called First Scene, which trumpeted self-improvement cassettes dedicated to developing "right/left brain hemisphere synchronisation" - a process which, we were told, was "perfectly safe". This reassurance was probably unnecessary because scientists, the company explained, "have known for years that the human mind is more sophisticated than the most powerful computer". Many people would agree with this, but to me it just reinforced what a comedian once said on the subject: "I used to think the brain was the most wonderful organ in the human body; then I remembered what it was that was telling me that."

To jog your memory further, however, we reproduce an ad from April 1992 which asks: "Why do you have a poor memory?" You may think you've seen something like this more recently; it's hard to say because the man in the picture has the same sort of all-purpose face featured in ads that promise to combat impotence or baldness. And I'll bet all these people have 17 children, more hair than an old English sheepdog, and know exactly where they were when President Kennedy was shot.

In fact you might well have seen a similar ad recently, though it now tends to appear in the classified sections rather than on front pages, because the company is still going strong. Memory and Concentration Studies is the name on the tip of your tongue and in the promotion we've reproduced it was hailing Adventures in Memory, a "free" book which pledged that we would "never again be at a loss for appropriate words or entertaining stories". Now it is advertising You CAN Remember - a 12-part course that explores a system devised by Dr Bruno Furst, who found he could amaze his colleagues with "dazzling feats of memory".

Memory and Concentration Studies was founded in 1929, and You CAN Remember was first published in 1939, so there is clearly some mileage in the subject. And it is easy to see why. After all, you might still walk out of the house without your keys and leave your umbrella on the train, but that won't matter if you can remember the Barnsley team of 1933 and reel off all the names of the South Korean synchronised swimming team.

Incidentally, you may have noticed we have come all this way with scarcely a single corny memory joke.

Incidentally, you may have noticed we have come all this way with scarcely a single corny memory joke.

Memory joke.

MY THANKS to Alan Jones of Mountsorrel in Leicestershire, who has written to inform me of Tony Blair's remarkable victory in the US Masters and his new-found status as role model to young black golfers. More problematic, though, is the challenge faced by Tiger Woods as he tries to shrug off charges of inexperience and lead Labour to victory at the election.

"I am Tiger Woods", a chorus of multiracial youngsters declare in the latest TV advertising campaign from Nike. But why stop there? As the pictures above demonstrate, with a good set of teeth you can be anyone you want.

It's a mugs game

IT USED to be that only obituaries were produced - published, even, as the American novelist Mark Twain discovered to his surprise - in advance of a person's death. But now it's mugs as well.

Last Thursday, the morning after Denis Compton died, an advertisement appeared in the papers offering us the chance to pay our own tribute to one of England's greatest cricketers. This was Royal Doulton's "Denis Compton Character Jug", a limited-edition model (yours for pounds 49.95) which depicts a likeness of Compton in his heyday, and features a handle in the shape of a cricket bat, ball and stumps.

The offer is not quite as macabre as it might seem because, Royal Doulton tells me, the mug was first promoted last Christmas and since then a programme of ads has been scheduled to appear at regular intervals. Moreover, the company adds, both the cricket authorities and Compton's family gave it permission to carry on selling the mug after his death. That said, if the ad really had been due to appear last Thursday, it was certainly a remarkable coincidence.

But back to the mug itself - is it in good taste or bad taste? I must admit I can't imagine what it's like to sip tea from a truncated head while holding on to a set of stumps - and, to be honest, I don't want to find out. However, Royal Doulton does seem to have a market here because it produces a full cricket team of "character jugs", featuring everyone from WG Grace to Dickie Bird. All power to its elbow, then, but there's no accounting for taste. As Freddie Trueman would say: "I just don't know what's going on out there."

ONLY four days to go till polling day and it looks like a photo finish: Tories (Blue Stilton), 23 per cent; Labour (Red Leicester), 25 per cent; Liberal Democrats (Double Gloucester), 23 per cent; Green Party (Sage Derby), 16 per cent; Monster Raving Loonies (Cheddar with Fruit Cake), 13 per cent.

This, of course, is Tesco's sandwich poll - the election that gets to the meat of the issue (well, the cheese of the issue, to be pedantic) - and not the phoney campaign conducted on such arcane issues as Europe and the economy. It shows the Tories still fighting hard - despite allegations that it would extend VAT to mayonnaise - but Labour clinging on to its lead even though its sandwiches are said to lack substance.

However, senior sources at Tesco now confess to their unease that this could be a rogue poll - that, just like the other election, people may be lying about their true intentions. Rather than make a clean breast of their Tory affiliations, it seems, cheese sandwich buyers are snapping up Red Leicester and Double Gloucester when all their gastric juices are screaming for Blue Stilton. Will they still be in denial next Thursday? Watch this space.