Thursday, 17th February 2005.

"I've never been too good with names, but I remember faces"

It was like any other shopping night. I was lingering by the baby clothes in Abingdon Tesco Extra, trying not to get too attached either to frilly dresses or sailor-striped romper suits (one downside of not knowing whether you're going to have a boy or a girl, I suppose). The supermarket hummed with quiet activity as the evening consumers dipped and ducked from aisle to aisle: young families with buggies and screaming toddlers, foul-smelling pensioners (all right, not all of them smell) and late-teenage couples chattering on mobile phones. Somewhere in the background, Duran Duran could be heard belting out the chorus of Rio. I was lost in thought, one arm leaning on the bar at the head of the trolley, when I saw him.

"Hello, James."
Facing me was a stocky, bespectacled man in his forties, wearing a casual blue shirt, with wavy hair. It only took me a moment or two to realise I knew him, but the rest was a blank.

There is a Saturday Night Live sketch that runs along this theme. Paul Simon - eager to play up on his fame - is seen wandering along a street when he is approached by a succession of fans, most of whom have met him before at past random gatherings. Not only does he recognise every single one of them, but Simon is also somehow able to recall each of his past encounters with each fan down to the most minute detail - until all this changes when he runs into Art Garfunkel, whom he doesn't remember at all.

But my failure to recognise the man who had just greeted me had nothing to do with a fame complex. It's simply that he'd gone clean out of my head, something that doesn't happen very often. I hate moments like this. It's a rabbit-caught-in-headlights scenario. It's the moment when your teacher asks you about your missing homework in front of the whole class. The next few seconds - both your verbal response and your body language - are crucial. The important thing is not to panic, because it comes across immediately. You have to remain utterly composed and think of an immediate response that will give you a few seconds' cover while your brain kicks into gear.

This is less easy than it sounds. The tiniest slip can give you away, betraying your sense of bewilderment at the mess you're in. Am I overreacting? Possibly. But the truth is I hate being caught off guard - as someone who prides himself on remembering the details, there are few things quite as humiliating as being faced with someone who not only knows you but also remembers your name, and probably your favourite colour, inside leg measurement and your national insurance number. It makes me feel rotten to the core: inadequate, a charlatan.

So my first response is "Hello!". Maintain eye contact. But not too hard; he'll think you're staring.
"How are you?" he says.
"Fine. How are you?"
That's good. Bring it back to him. A simple "Fine" is not going to be enough for him here, not unless he wants to appear tedious. He will have to elaborate, and in doing so will almost certainly give away some tiny detail that will help you figure out who on earth he is.
"I'm fine, thank you," says our unidentified figure. "So's Sandy."

Like a lightning bolt, it hits me: a random freelancer who has done some in-house work for us in the past. I remember him from late 2002; he would come into the office and sit with Sandy, while they caught up. He obviously still keeps in touch with her - publishing, if I haven't told you before, is a highly incestuous business, and if you stay in it for long enough the chances are good that you will meet almost everyone you've ever worked with at least once more further down the line.

But I can't remember his name. I ignore this and concentrate on the little information I do have.

"Good," I say.
"I hear you got married," he says.
This fact is enough to rouse me from my stupor, at least temporarily: at last I have something to talk about. "That's right. Actually, my wife is just over there, in the - over there." And I signal to the toiletries department. Emily is actually buying deodorant, but he doesn't have to know that.
"Yes, we've been married for a few months now. How about yourself? How have you been?"
"Oh, all right, you know. Still working."
"Good. I still see Sandy on the odd occasion, actually; she pops in sometimes to drop off work and every now and then I run into her."
"Publishing's like that."
"Yes, it is..." I neglect, of course, to mention how tired and haggard she looked last time I saw her.

There is a moment's silence, which is filled by the barely audible sound of cog wheels inside my head, as I try and work out who I'm talking to. Suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, a familiar figure rounds the corner.
"Ah!" I say, trying my best to redeem myself. "This is my wife, Emily. Emily, this is..."
Oh, bugger. Well, I might as well admit it.
"I'm sorry. I've forgotten your name."
He smiles and laughs. "Richard."
"Richard! That's it," I reply quickly, snapping my fingers. "I knew that it was Richard or Nick." This, of course, is an outright lie, but hopefully I've bluffed my way out of it."
"Richard was - well, is - a freelancer. He did some work for T&F a while back; he used to come in occasionally. I didn't know you were local. Where are you living now, Richard?"
Richard tells us, and then says "Hmm, turned chilly, hasn't it?".

I take this as an indication that the conversation has been promoted to superficial nothingness (promoted from where? don't ask.). There is a tiny pause, and then a mutually exchanged "Yes, well - "
" - anyway - "
"Anyway, we'd better be off," I say. "Lots to do. It's nice to see you, Richard."

I feel like Father Ted, face to face with Tod Unctious, anxious to use the name as much as possible. We say our farewells and off he goes in the opposite direction. We do not see him again, thank God.

"He was a friend of Sandy," I explain as we strolled up the dairy aisle.
"Really?" says Emily, one eyebrow slightly raised. "Did he sleep with her?"
"I don't know. Hasn't everybody?"
She gives me a look.
"I know you haven't. Well, you might have done. The odds are good," I continue. "Have you ever had a one night stand where the details were hazy, but which involved at least one woman?"
Emily shakes her head.
"All right. But if you had, the chances are it would have been Sandy.."

I sometimes think that Sandy's like the Kevin Bacon of academic publishing, at least in Britain - when it comes to degrees of separation she's more often than not a part of the chain. This thought fleets through my mind, and then casually tumbles to the back with the rest of the garbage: something that I don't need to think about. I'm merely left with the memory of a superficial encounter with a man I didn't really know - one in which I came out looking a little foolish, but through no real fault of my own. And even that fades, at least with time. We're doomed to forget the people we barely knew: most people have only so much room in their heads for casual acquaintance. Moving on and away from this is a pattern of life. There are days when I wish I could remember everyone and everything - or at least be able to summon all that subconsciously stored memory to the surface - but I can't. It's a question of looking around at what you have in front of you and making the most of that. "Be mindful of the future, but not at the expense of the moment."

So I shrugged, and put it down to experience. Then Emily and I went off to buy cheese.