Haha - that's brilliant! I know I find that when someone mentions 1979, for example, I will immediately think of Tusk anyway, so using those automatic associations is a great idea.
I'm oddly fascinated by mnemonics and memory, so as a complete aside, my favourite way to remember things when I was studying was always with a non-sensical acrostic. I was a mad X-Files fan at the time, and I used that very successfully to remember the hierarchy of biological classification: "Keep pretty cop Oliver from getting Scully". I don't even know what it means, but boy, do I know my kingdoms from my species.
Another interesting one is the
method of loci. I simply can't wrap my head around it, but I was astounded to see a friend at uni remember 12 different "blocks to listening" by thinking about where she was in her house. There's nothing quite like hearing someone in the middle of an oral test going "When I'm in the toilet, I'm sparring".
