There is a special kind of humiliation reserved for forgetting someone’s name.
Not their face. Not their job. Not the entire plot arc of their divorce, their knee operation, and their dog’s dietary requirements. Just the one thing you actually need in the moment. Their name. The label. The basic human courtesy token.
So you do what any dignified adult does. You run through the alphabet like you’re cracking an Enigma code.
A… B… C… D…
Not out loud, obviously. That would look unwell. You do it silently, while maintaining eye contact and smiling like a normal person, as your brain spins up a background process called “PANIC”.
And the maddest part is it works. Not quickly. Not gracefully. But eventually you narrow it down to three plausible starting letters, like you’re describing a suspect to the police.
“It begins with… a J? No. A D. Or possibly a soft S. Definitely not a K. Nobody is called Keith anymore. That’s just a noise your dad makes when he stands up.”
Meanwhile your brain is offering you every other name it has ever heard. Dave. Steve. Clive. The bloke from the MOT station. That woman from 1998 who once served you a latte. Gandalf. All of them. Except the one you need.
And here’s the thing - at 70, I’m doing this more and more.
Not because I’ve suddenly become thick. If anything, I’ve got more knowledge rattling around in there than ever. It’s just that the filing system has been “optimised”. By which I mean it’s now run by a sleepy civil servant who’s on an extended tea break and resents being disturbed.
Then there’s the premium-grade version of this humiliation, which is when you do it with film stars.
You’re sat in your own living room, staring at a man who has been famous since 1987, and your brain is going, “Yes, that’s definitely… That Guy.” Not his character. Not the plot. Not the fact he always plays a haunted detective or a charming bastard in linen. Just the actual name, printed in six-inch letters at the start, and you still can’t get it.
So you do the alphabet again, like you’re tuning Radio 4 on an old valve set. You get flashes of certainty. It’s an M. No, it’s a J. Possibly a G. Definitely not a Q because nobody’s called Quentin unless they own an organic vineyard and vote Lib Dem.
And while you’re doing this, your brain helpfully supplies every other actor from the same era. It’ll give you the bloke who played “Third Henchman” in a Bond film. It’ll give you the woman from that one episode of Morse. It’ll give you a clear mental image of the actor’s teeth, his eyebrows, and the way he runs.
But his name? No. That’s confidential.
At least, with a film star, you don’t have to improvise a greeting. With a real person in front of you, the panic becomes social. This is where British manners earn their keep. Because when all else fails, you deploy the only reliable workaround known to civilisation.
You call them “Sir”.
Not respectfully. Ironically. The way you’d address a man who’s just told you the price of kitchen units has doubled and it’s “because of woke”.
“Sir” is perfect. It buys time. It sounds deliberate. It implies you’re being dry, not mentally buffering. It’s the verbal equivalent of holding a clipboard. Nobody questions it. They assume you’re in charge of something.
And later, of course, the name returns. Perfectly. Effortlessly. Too late. Like a waiter bringing your food out just as you’ve paid and put your coat on.
You’re left thinking: my mind can store every lyric to every Dire Straits song, but it can’t retrieve “Martin” on demand.
Human cognition is a marvel.
A deeply unreliable, petty, passive-aggressive marvel.
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