How to learn: boost your brain with a trip down memory lane

Anyone can be taught anything if they are inspired enough to pay attention - the key to remembering it is firing up the imagination

I first encountered memory techniques just after leaving secondary school. I'd been struck down by an illness, and had to spend a few months in hospital. Needing a project to escape the boredom of the ward, I was unable to resist diving into memory techniques when a friend brought me a book called Learn to Remember by Dominic O'Brien (the "eight-time world memory champion", I was reassured to learn).

I still recall the delight at realising how simple and intuitive the ideas within it were. Enhancing your memory is first of all enhancing your imagination, O'Brien explained. You remember better by making things more memorable. Your memory - your capacity to learn, in other words - is, according to O'Brien, personal, improvable and much more interesting and colourful than education or traditional concepts of memory (such as it being akin to a warehouse or computer) might lead you to believe.