Hi,
thanks Dai for pointing out that you talk about me in this thread 
First on the cards, I think it already has been resolved, DoubleHelix got it right.
The 20 doctors’ thing referred to 20 times exactly the same doctor - and is a description of my problem, not my solution.
Regarding locations, I guess I do it a bit differently than Dai. While in an outdoor setting like London (I lived in Reading for a year, so it is a familiar city for me), I do use bigger locations (whole tower of Big Ben as one location). I also have locations indoors where every single spot might be pretty small (like a bar of soap).
I do see, that I can fit in more information in a bigger location, BUT the limit of the size of the smaller ones does not seem to be to bas for me. I still can fit the names of all German presidents on the soap bar.
Anyway, for memory sports purposes I do prefer the smaller locations: Only one or two items per spot, doing those very quickly. I tend to “lose” the images in big locations where it is not so clear, which part of it I made the association to. For long-term learning in university I preferred bigger locations for having more chances to expand the images or increase the number of images in one spot, while being slower learning and having repetitions.
For the first journey, the first set of locations, I would make the opposite recommendation to Dai. I suggest my students to have very specific small items as locations. In my seminars I always start the first journey in the seminar room placing at least 10 locations in the room. In my opinion it is easier for beginners to have a specific item to have your image interact with.
Regards,
Boris