Jonny McCambridge: How Martin Scorsese and the Kindle exposed that my memory just isn’t what it used to be

To round out the social picture that existed for me in that era, I also enjoyed going to the theatre, watching live music, attended comedy clubs and had enough friends to ensure that I was able to maintain a steady enough routine of going to bars, cafes and restaurants.

And then family life intervened. I still like to eat out, but it generally has to be somewhere which has chicken nuggets on the menu. Theatre trips are reserved for kids’ Christmas pantomimes. Live music and comedy are long forgotten treats, unless you count the routines of clowns at children’s birthday parties.

It is the same story with cinema. Almost all of my ventures to the picture house are to see films with a U certificate (or a PG if we’re being daring). On the very rare occasion where a babysitter is sourced and my wife and I get to go without our son, then it is expected that we will watch a romantic comedy as something "we can both enjoy".

The idea of disappearing on my own for several hours in the middle of the day to watch a blockbuster without interruption seems about as remote and unlikely as me winning a contract from the Department of Infrastructure to repair potholes on the moon.

None of which means that I still do not try my best to keep up with modern movies. While my consumption of films is nowhere near as prolific as in my youth, I do still try to watch some new releases when they become available on home streaming services.

However, the family demands on the TV mean that the windows for doing this are often minute, consisting either of small periods of time after midnight when the rest of the family are in bed, or else trying to persuade my wife that Oppenheimer is really a romantic comedy that we’ll both get something out of.

When Martin Scorsese released The Irishman, I was keen to watch it. However, its running time of three-and-a-half hours meant it had to be consumed in small half hour chunks in the early hours over the course of a week. In the end it became more of a mini-series than a true movie experience.

And then Scorsese released Killers of the Flower Moon. I was intrigued by the concept of the movie and read plenty about it, even though I knew that my chances of ever watching it at the cinema were slim. I learnt that it was based on a non-fiction book by the US author David Grann which tells the story of how multiple members of the native American Osage tribe were murdered after oil was discovered on their tribal land.

It seemed like a compelling tale. I’m always on the hunt for a good read so decided that, in the absence of going to the cinema, I would buy the book.

I charged up my old Kindle and typed in ‘David Grann’ and ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’.

My Kindle flashed a message in response which I did not expect.

It read: “You have already purchased this item.”

I was confused. I scanned through downloaded books on the little tablet and sure enough, less than two years previously, I had bought Killers of the Flower Moon.

My first assumption was that I had bought the book and then forgotten all about it, but when I clicked on the title to open it, it brought me to the concluding page, indicating that it had been read.

I tried to find an explanation. My first guess that someone must have broken into my house, stolen my Kindle, downloaded Killers of the Flower Moon, read it and then returned the tablet to its normal location, seemed unlikely.

The much more logical and disturbing scenario was that I had bought the book, read it and then entirely forgotten about it. Even the release of the story as a Hollywood blockbuster movie and all its accompanying fanfare was not enough to prick my memory that I had already consumed it.

I admit this scared me a little. I know that I have been becoming more forgetful as I get older. I have trouble quickly remembering names of people I meet and occasionally find that I now forget temporarily how to spell certain words. But to forget a whole book? This seemed to be taking it onto a new plain of mental deterioration.

I proceeded to (re)read Killers of the Flower Moon. For the first few chapters I found nothing at all familiar to grab on to. About half-way through I finally started to read passages that brought back some blurry recollections that I had indeed read this story before. I covered up my evident discomfort by telling myself that it was to my bank balance’s advantage if I could start re-consuming old books.

I quickly got to the end of the take. I enjoyed. I assume I must have thought the same when I read it the first time. I immediately began to seek out other works by the same author.

I found a title called ‘The Lost City of Z’ which was story of the activities of British explorer Percy Fawcett who, in 1925, disappeared with his son while exploring unchartered parts of the Amazonian rainforest.

“Bloody heck, that sounds good," I mumbled to myself.

I quickly clicked on the link to buy the book.

My Kindle flashed a message in response.

It read: “You have already purchased this item.”