How to Develop a Perfect Memory

I've recently commenced a lengthy period of leave and have finally found the time to examine my substantial backlog of reading material. At the top of my list is Dominic O'brien's book "How to Develop a Perfect Memory". This book is an interesting examination of a world champion memorizer's memory techniques. The book begins with a few simple memory techniques (the journey method, and the number shape method) and then moves on to some highly unique memory systems that can not be found elsewhere. One of the author's more useful techniques is his system for memorizing long strings of numbers. This technique assigns a letter to each number (0=O, 1=A, 2=B etc) and then pairs these letters and associates them with both a memorable person and a unique action. These people and actions are linked together using standard memory techniques to memorize the number string. To use a brief example the number 12688072 could be encoded as follows:

12 = AB - Person = Allan Border
68 = SH - Action = Searching for clues (SH = Sherlock Holmes)
80 = HO - Person = Santa Claus (Ho Ho)
72 = GB - Action = Working in the oval office (GB = George Bush)

I would link these people and actions as follows - Allan Border (AB) is holding a large magnifying glass and searching for clues (SH) whilst walking around a cricket pitch. He stumbles upon Santa (HO) who runs off to the White House and starts working away in the oval office (GB).

By using this method numbers are given meaning and this in turn makes them more easily memorized. I'm still only in the early chapters of the book but it looks promising and at this point I would recommend it to anybody who wishes to improve their memory.