Again, just bookmarking really... but a couple of comments to add:

Howard - it must be a brain thing then, because I can remember my mobile phone number which I rarely ring, but can't recall more than three words and half the tune of the song I was singing not half an hour ago, which I'm supposed to be learning.


Don ~ you said "Let me suggest a little thought experiment:   think of your favorite stand-up comedian. One who really cracks you up!
Now—think of him or her standing there on stage and reading their routine out of a joke book."

I don't get to see many stand-up comics but there is one guy who really cracks me and thousands of others up... pants-wettingly, chest-acheingly funny, should have had a knighthood by now.... who uses a book each and every time and wrote everything in them himself. Each time he reads one of his songs, poems or monologues (and I mean read his songs, he admits himself he is not a singer), they are different. Each time I see him, there is something else to find in poems that even I remember by heart. If Les Barker can do it, I don't see why everyone else should be ostracised for doing the same.

LTS