Office blog: Remember the Wombles?

I cursed on the way to the Titleist and Cobra Fitting Centre at Brampton Park in Cambridgeshire yesterday. Why? Well, little more than half an hour into the two and a half hour journey, the M25 did its rather predictable grinding-to-a-halt trick – particularly galling as I usually opt for an only marginally slower back route to the Dartford Tunnel to avoid as much of the dreaded road as possible.

Next dilemma – the radio has currently given up the ghost so I had no easy way of finding out where the problem was, how long I was going to be stuck, and whether or not I was likely to make the 10.00 deadline for a video shoot on the latest Cobra and Titleist gear (look out for those on the website over the next couple of weeks). A quick call to the wife (yes, I know it’s still illegal even if you’re parked in a traffic jam, but needs must) revealed there’d been an accident at the M25/M26 interchange, about 4 miles ahead.

So rather than twiddling my thumbs and staring at other drivers picking their noses, I thought I’d see if I could coax the radio into a Lazarus-like recovery. Amazingly, after a few moments of blissfully ignorant fiddling it crackled back to life, but on discovering Mr Wogan was on holiday, I decided to rummage around for a cassette to play. Remember them? There’s no such luxury as a CD player in our “second” car, which has mysteriously become “my” car since the arrival of our second child.

Anyway, lurking in the driver’s door I discovered a vintage “Remember you’re a Womble” cassette from 1974, which I’d purchased at a boot fair for my son (honest!). As I’d been a big Wombles fan back then I thought I’d put it on to cheer myself up with a touch of nostalgia, and seconds later I was enjoying classics like "Remember you’re a Womble" and "Minuetto Allegretto", albeit in a slightly muffled, ageing cassette-type way.

The incredible thing was that although I’d probably not heard these songs for 30+ years, I somehow remembered not only the tunes but also a scarily high percentage of the lyrics. And not just on the well-known tracks, but also the album-fillers. How? Why? And just where had my brain been storing all this information, last used 30 years ago, for instant recall when next required? Who knows. A top neurologist perhaps.

What’s all this got to do with golf? Well, not a lot really, other than that it got me pondering just how powerful the brain really is. So it’s perhaps not that surprising our minds have the infuriating capacity to derail us as much as they do on the golf course. It doesn’t explain, however, just why whenever I go upstairs to fetch something these days, by the time I get there I haven’t the faintest idea what I’ve gone for. Perhaps that top neurologist could explain that too.

I eventually arrived bang on the stroke of 10.00 only to discover that my apparently powerful brain couldn’t remember what it was supposed to say from one second to the next in front of the camera. But you won’t get to see that - unless we run another of our Outtake Christmas Specials!