Maybe there were insufficient synapses firing, maybe the gnome was tired, but most likely in my view is that the person to whom the name referred just was not memorable. The solution, unscientific, but hey it works,is to have a few friends who are totally sensational people with whom to relate. Avoid everyone else.TC

I hope Mr Longstaff doesn’t really spend hours trying to remember somebody’s name (unless those hours are being spent in that somebody’s company). If he does, he has too much time on his hands.In my experience we tend to remember easily those things which are important to us, while forgetting those things we deem trivial. This explains why we can pass A level exams at age 17 but not at age 45, why contestants on Mastermind tend to do better on their specialist subjects than on general knowledge and why some people may know all the names of the 1935 Liverpool football team but not the name of their mother-in-law’s cat.Without meaning to be in any way impertinent, Mr Longstaff’s choice of words implies a slightly higher than normal stress level, perhaps brought on by overwork, which points to a further explanation of the phenomenon he describes. During periods when we are focused on an important or stressful matter, our brain tends to ignore requests to consider something else. This explains why, when we are trying to complete our tax return and our partner asks if we’d like a cup of tea, we usually answer, “What?” in a loud and unpleasant manner instead of “Yes please” or “No thank you”. When the ghost of Hamlet’s father entreats his son to remember him, Hamlet, overwhelmed by the appalling knowledge that his mother has married his father’s murderer, promises to become downright obsessional: “Remember thee! / Yea, from the table of my memory / I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records, / All saw of books, all forms, all pressures past, / That youth and observation copied there; / And thy commandment all alone shall live / Within the book and volume of my brain”Yet when these stressful matters are forgotten - if only briefly, as when Mr Longstaff might be in bed thinking about lying in the sun on a Mediterranean beach - minor memories can come bobbing into view like messages in a bottle. Even Hamlet, had he lived after dispatching his uncle, eventually might have been relaxed enough to recall some ‘trivial fond records’.

I just read an article recently (in NS? ... can't remember) that discussed a new theory that some infrequently-used memories are actually stored in DNA, rather than in neuron synapses. That would explain the long delay, followed by a sudden flash of clear remembrance.

I too have an inability to remember names in the crucial moments when it is needed. Given some time, my trick to enhance recall is to run through the alphabet until I get to a letter which "rings true" for the first letter of their name. Sometimes that is enough to produce the name. If I am still stuck, I run through the alphabet again to get the next letter. If I'm still at a loss after that I give up.

Related to this, there's a recognised IT problem-solving technique known as 'the cardboard cutout programmer'. A programmer who can't solve a coding problem or sort out a bug asks a colleague for help and begins to explain the problem. Usually the act of explaining brings the solution to mind without any input from the other person. In theory, and sometimes in practice, explaining to a cardboard cutout has the same effect. Why? I suspect that the act of vocalising forces one to surface assumptions which can be skipped over when thinking about a problem.