Creighton Carvello - Memory feats and memory world records

Date	Record		Location
12/07/1979	Pi decimals recited from memory to 15,186 places.		At the "Rudds Arms "Public House,Middlesbrough
27/06/1980	Pi decimals recited from memory to 20,013 places.		At the "Saltscar Comprehensive School"Redcar in Cleveland
21/03/1984	5 packs of shuffled playing cards recited from memory after seeing each card only once (4 card errors - original playing card world memory record).		At the "Speedway Hotel" in Middlesbrough
21/03/1985	6 packs of shuffled playing cards recited from memory after seeing each card only once (4 card errors).		At the "New Marske Institute Club"Cleveland
21/07/1985	6 packs of playing cards (all shuffled together) recited from memory after seeing each card only once (24 card errors - original world record for cards shuffled together format).		On the Japanese TV show "The Guinness World of Records
08/09/1987	1 shuffled pack of playing cards memorised in 2 min 59 secs.and recited from memory (1 card error - original "speed" playing card memory record).		On BBC tv's "Record Breakers"
19/12/1987	6 packs of playing cards (all shuffled together) recited from memory after seeing each card only once (12 card errors).		At the "Guinness World of Records", Trocadero Centre,Piccadilly London
01/02/1992	1 shuffled pack of playing cards memorised in 2 min 17 secs and recited from memory with no errors.		On "The Pauline Armstrong show", BBC-Radio Cleveland
25/06/1997	18 random digits memorised in 4 seconds and recited with no errors.		On BBC tv's "Record Breakers"
29/04/1998	19 random digits memorised in 4 seconds and recited with no errors.		At the "Lane Head Hotel" Brighouse, West Yorkshire
16/04/2003	I was tested on the following: Pi matrix memory to 10,500 places. This involves 50 random questions about the first 210 lines of Pi decimals (50 digits on each line; 210 x 50=10,500). Sample questions: name the 21st digit on the 183rd line; Recite the last 10 digits on line 58 backwards; Multiply the 31st digit on line 92 by the 48th digit on line 202 etc. Fortunately I passed these tests. 13 random digits flashed on a monitor for 1 second and successfully recited from memory. 18 random digits flashed on a monitor for 2 seconds and successfully recited from memory.		At "The David Game College,Notting Hill Gate,London

Creighton Carvello (centre) with (left to right), Memory Men Dominic O'Brien, Adel Anwar, Memory expert Tony Buzan and Memory Man Andi Bell		Creighton Carvello with World Memory Champion Andi Bell after they had received their International Grandmasters of Memory awards

I have also been tested many times on TV shows,radio,clubs,universities etc.,about my knowledge of:

• FA Cup Finals
  I can name every score,player,goalscorer,referee since the competition started in 1872.
• Derby and Grand National Winners
  I can name every horse,jockey and starting price since 1900.
• Telephone numbers
  I know the telephone number of every "Smith" in Middlesbrough,whose name appears in the Middlesbrough 'phone book.
• Dates
  Given any date from the past four centuries,I can tell you what day it fell on
• Words in a book
  I have memorised over the first 3,000 words from the Ernest Hemingway novel "The Old Man and the Sea" and each word's numerical postion. For example you might ask me the 6th word on Line 15 on Page 8 and I can name it. I once knew over 10,000 words from this book, but I think over 3,000 is enough!!

I think the most important and influential of my memory records was the 1 pack memorisation on BBC tv on 08/09/1987 (see above for details).This record caught the eye of Dominic O'Brien, who, at the the time, was an employee at Stansted Airport. Dominic,of course, is now internationally known for his amazing memory feats. Very kindly he states in many of his brilliant books and in the media, that my appearance on "Record Breakers" started him off on his memory career, see www.recordholders.org/en/list/memory-cards.html . Memory expert and author Tony Buzan also got the idea (through seeing myself and Dominic on TV) to organise a World Memory Championship in 1991. The World Memory Championships (a kind of memory olympics) has now taken on gigantic proportions and is held in various countries each year. One spin-off is the emergence of the magnificent Andi Bell who, amongst other things,memorises playing cards,numbers etc to unbelievable levels.

I have been fortunate to have appeared on TV in countries such as Japan, France, Germany and Thailand as well as the UK, of course,and some shows I recorded in the UK have been shown in the USA, Africa and Australia. It has been great to have appeared with such big names such as Bruce Forsyth, Cheryl Baker, Roy Castle and Sarah Brightman. I hope my memory stays in good shape for many more years yet!!