***IF YOU ASK ME

People who froth at the mouth when you tell them to write things down, are afraid. They are afraid to learn. Nothing is worse than a fear of learning. Because, before one can learn one must admit one does not know.***

I call it a fear of learning.

"If you write it down," I suggest softly, "there are fewer chances that you will forget."

He looks up at me with the kind of glance that suggests I have accused him of child abuse.

"Forget?" he says. "I never forget."

Wow. He makes that statement with the kind of confidence even an elephant would hesitate to adopt. Elephants, one might add, are endowed with almost mythical powers of long-term memory. And this young man, a tailor with whom I am having a close encounter of the frustrating kind, is no elephant.

Indeed, if one were to find a perch for him on the tree of life, one would place my tailor on the same branch as the industrious squirrel. His features are sharp, his eyes dart about with agility, as do his hands, fingers and mouth. My tailor has a

big mouth.

It proceeds to work overtime as I grit my teeth and listen. He flicks his tongue in time with his fingers as he wraps up the various pieces of fabric that I have given him.

"This one, straight cut, no sideslit. This one blouse, like sample. This hem, no hem? Yes, I remember, this one hem to new length. This one I know, no problem, like green one last week, yes?"

Weariness sets in, diluting my persistence. I wave him away. He will appear next week, his hands as dexterous and his mouth as big, trying to talk his way out of trouble. And trouble he will surely be in, because there is no way he will remember accurately all the detailed instructions he has been given today.

He never does. In the last four years, my tailor has never written down instructions and he has never finished a job without making me regret that I have ever set eyes on him.

Why do I continue to patronise him, you ask? The others are worse. They, too, refuse to write down

instructions, but unlike this selfstyled maestro, they cannot sew for toffee.

Which is why I am still trying to convert him to an 'organised' way of working. It has been a losing battle, much like many others that have sapped my energy.

Like the other day when someone turns up nearly two hours late for an event and pleads that she has 'forgotten' she was invited. She ambles in, smilingly, and exclaims, "I suddenly remembered it was today! Did I keep everyone waiting?"

Many guests who have been waiting endlessly, laugh indulgently. I cannot help myself, though. I ask her a trifle aggressively if she has ever heard of a handy invention called a diary. She looks at me blankly. Something tells me that perhaps this supposedly educated, well-accomplished, well-to-do businesswoman, really has no idea what I am talking about.

Perhaps that is why so many 'professionals' appear empty-handed at meetings. I realise this won't make me the most popular person on the block, but I include

some members of my own profession in this category as well.

They will sidle in, smartly dressed and very attentive. But catch them carrying anything that remotely resembles a notebook. Sometimes, when it becomes obvious that the proceedings have become slightly more complicated than Einstein's theory of relativity, they will start fidgeting and rummaging through their pockets.

In my previous job, with an organisation that must remain unidentified, there was one unforgettable young man who used to play this game during regular departmental weekly meetings. When the meeting had got going, he would start to squirm.

"Got a piece of paper?" he would ask, completely unabashed. Someone would pass him a piece of paper. He would search fruitlessly in his pockets for a pen.

"Got a pen?" he would ask, also completely unabashed.

Once or twice, there would be an outburst on my part. I would demand to know why, since he knew we were going to have a meeting, he had not

come with paper and pen.

His answer?

"I forgot."

My mistake then, and now as well, I admit, was to engage in a rhetorical discussion. Like my brusque question to the latecomer asking if she had ever heard of a diary, I would ask my young colleague if he knew what a meeting entailed.

"Don't you know that one needs to write things down in a discussion?" I would bark. "No", he would say, totally confidently. "I don't forget."

Call me stupid or insane, and perhaps both words might describe my state of mind, but responses like the above baffle me.

Do people really not know? Or don't they care? Ignorance, an enemy that one could conceivably vanquish if one persisted, may not be the only culprit. What causes me immense personal and professional grief is the consistent propensity to believe that 'writing' things down is tantamount to accepting that one has failed in some way.

Is it a by-product of the machismo

syndrome, I wonder? Would one's worth be diminished if one were to admit that one needed to make a note of important matters in order to remember them later? Is it a genuine lack of knowledge, or a deliberate refusal to contemplate change? Is my tailor's facile, "I never forget" an indication of stupidity or stubborness?

Whatever the reason, it is the attitude that is daunting. Granted, I have a major shortcoming. I have been brought up in a predominantly organised household, with parents who have believed in planning, scheduling and anticipating. Sure, they have charted mundane matters. But they have done so with a consistent adherence to basics. Make notes. Keep records. Follow a plan. Never be afraid to admit you do not know.

You may think I am boasting, but my mother's household accounts would give any Chancellor of the Exchequer a run for his (or her) money, and my father's filing system would make the Library of Congress cough up and take notice.

I am nowhere near their level of excellence, but the memory of an organised childhood is difficult to shed. And why should I ?

People who froth at the mouth when you tell them to write things down, are afraid. They are afraid to learn. Nothing is worse than a fear of learning. Because, before one can learn one must admit one does not know.