I am delighted to say that I am going to regularly blog about quirky things that have captured my imagination. I hope your curiosity will also be tickled! You can follow the posts here or over on Substack. To kick things off, here are some thoughts on the strange link between my life, Paul Daniels, mathematics and wrist watches.
I became interested in magic at a young age, and when I was thirteen years old I saw master magician Paul Daniels in his summer season show at Bournemouth. It was the first time that I had seen a big magic show, and I loved it. Recently, my magic pal Paul Kieve kindly gave me a poster from the show, and it’s amazing to see that it ran six days a week throughout the entire season. Paul Daniels worked hard! Anyway, I digress. In my favourite part of the show, Paul asked someone to call out any number and then placed 16 large silver numbers onto a giant board. Amazingly, the columns, rows, and diagonals on the board added up to the chosen number! Magicians refer to this as a Magic Square and that performance sparked my lifelong fascination with mathematical magic. For instance, here is a Quirkology video based on the work of mathematician Martin Gardner…
A few weeks ago, I received a mysterious package from Chris Cross. Chris buys and sells magic and has a large collection of Paul Daniels props. I had written an article on the impact that Paul and the Magic Square had had on my life, and Chris had kindly sent me one of Paul’s original numbers!
Paul’s influence on me extends beyond mathematical magic. It’s vital that any act doesn’t under- or over-run, and Paul had a reputation for always finishing on time. How did he do it? Openly looking at a watch onstage is never a good idea, and Paul’s secret was as simple as it was effective. He placed a clock inside his onstage box/table, and glanced at the clock each time he took a prop out of the box! I loved the idea and came up with my own version for talks. Whenever I speak, I wear a watch with the face on the inside of my wrist. If my slides are being projected on a screen to my right, the watch is on my right wrist and if the slides are on my left, the watch is on my left wrist. When I need to know the time, I just gesture to the slides and appear to look at them – in reality, I am secretly glancing at my watch! Every time I do it, I think of Paul!
I last met Paul and Debbie McGee when we were all performing at a convention organised by the brilliant Portuguese magician Luis de Matos. At the meeting I was delighted to unveil a new version of the Magic Square. What goes around, comes around.
If you want to see Luis’ wonderful show Impossible, it has just opened at the Folies Bergère in Paris.
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