Derren Brown

Something that just came to mind, I thought Derren Brown was worth mentioning here. I am a sceptic, and can be very cynical of the world from time to time, but I am genuinely impressed by his skills. For the past month I have looked forward to watching his new series The Events every Friday night. They were very ambitious, and you could sense how much was riding on these stunts, any idiot could. As far as I'm concerned, he succeeded.
The first one, How to Win the Lottery, was a success; he 'guessed' all the numbers. Careful thought and hindsight tells you that he could not, however, have 'predicted' the numbers. The odds are far too great. But I really don't want to believe he used a split screen, as many people on the Internet are hypothesising. Maybe that's just something I'll leave and call 'a very clever trick'
How to Control the Nation was interesting. Here you have the population of the UK inevitably sceptical about being stuck to their chairs because of course it seems ridiculous, doesn't it? About 50% got stuck in the studio and he predicted the same sort of percentage in Britain. It doesn't seem like much, but when you step back from it all for a second and actually look at what he's trying to do; subliminally influence all of us into getting stuck, I'd say 50% was quite good. On a personal level, I didn't get stuck. It disappointed me for the split second that I stood up. I must have tried it about 5 times and each time was slightly different. It did have an effect on me though, I felt drawn in, and had the sensation something was pulling me into my seat, and when the subliminal film had stopped I found my arms virtually impossible to lift, and every part of me was aching. My eyes were watering and I was nearly in tears, but I stood up. I don't know if that was because I willed myself to stand up; told myself I could. But it had a pretty weird effect on me. I would have been extremely disappointed, however, if it had no effect whatsoever.
How to be a Psychic Spy puzzled me slightly as to why Derren would tap in to the whole Psychic area, as its clearly fake. Regardless of the fact that the whole area is interesting to him. Still, it was very interesting and it made me laugh in places, for example when Dr Wayne Carr did his remote viewing but pretty much guessed at everything that could possibly be in a city, it was just total bullshit. Hours cut down to five minutes of hits. I'm not sure what the point of showing it us was though, that it wasn't the way that Derren would do it? I drew a parrot, moons and trees and oddly enough, circles. the actual drawing that was produced were concentric circles. I was freaked out at how close I was. Derren then put the advert "Draw concentric circles" in all of the papers on the day of broadcast. But I never read the papers that day...
Last night was the final episode, or event. How to Beat the Casino was pretty amazing. It was probably the most nerve racking one, as a viewer. This, I thought, would be the most genuine and believable out of them all because how on earth could you ever rig or influence something which just cant be? For example, the sequence he did where a woman threw a ball and it landed on one of a hundred massive squares on the floor. Derren would guess which number it would be a second after she threw the ball- before it even hit the floor let alone the bounces all over the floor. He got it right, of course, number 37. This was supposed to be to do with Trajectory. The weight of the ball, the speed at which it was thrown and also the angle. I can believe that, because in cases like this, physics is surely the only answer. Paul Wilson from The Real Hustle came and talked to Derren about the impossibility of beating 'the holy grail', the Roulette wheel (quite a treat for me, I love The Real Hustle) The importance of the relationship between the speed of the ball and the 0 on the wheel, and how computers could be the only way of working this out. Derren then said the only reliableand legal way of doing this would be to calculate it in his head, which is pretty much impossible. Actually placing the bet on the Roulette wheel, which was live, was so awful to watch. It was if I was doing it myself, or it was my money. I felt so sick inside, more for Derren. He placed £5000 of someone elses money on number 8 as he watched the ball spin round. It landed on 30 and I gasped and practically cried. He was one off (30 is next to 8 on the Roulette Wheel). He walked away and kept saying to his hidden camera "Ahh, I was one off. Sorry Ben. I'll give you your money back" I could hear the disappointment so much in his voice! People think he meant to do that. My mum said he wouldn't be allowed to use his powers for someones personal gain which is a very good point. I don't mind him getting it wrong. It shows to me that he's human, and also that what he was doing was genuine, and took real skill. One off is not half bad.

What an end to a series. I feel kind of deflated though, because I really looked forward to these Friday nights. But he's doing this online show called Science of Scams, and a 3D channel 4 thing next month (we can all buy 3D glasses in supermarkets) and I'm seeing him next year live, which will be a thrill.

Long winded, yes. But you enjoyed it.
Tell me what you thought of The Events. I dare you to do it in detail as I have.
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