DID A SHOW YESTERDAY IN BARNET in North London and had a call from Nicholas Einhorn who lives ten minutes away, inviting me to look in at his home in Elstree. I’ve been an Einhorn fan for many years and seen him develop from a highly enthusiastic amateur working as a salesman for a playing card company, [...]

Posted on July 22nd, 2008 by John
Filed under: Magic Miscellanea, Magic News | No Comments »

SORRY FOR THE DELAY.  I’ve been away visiting the magicians in Chester and  presenting my lecture K.I.S.S. which is an acronym for “Keep it Simple Stupid” This is a lecture that I have done for the past few years for magic societies in the U.K. and overseas on the marketing of magic .It tells and demonstrates ”How to apply [...]

Posted on July 18th, 2008 by John
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ONE EVENING AT THE MAGIC CIRCLE Alex Elmsley was asked to show something to a group of card magi. A man with an open mind to any method required to achieve a magic effect, be it a set-up deck, a sleight or a gimmick, he pulled the following stunt which later he told me he’d drummed up [...]

Posted on July 13th, 2008 by John
Filed under: Magic Ideas, Magic Miscellanea | 1 Comment »

YOU’RE IN A DEPARTMENT STORE,  supermarket or restaurant and it comes out that you’re a magician. Inevitably someone says “Show us a trick”. No doubt you have your own outs that you do but here’s an absolute stunner from Jeff McBride that was passed onto me by good friend and Magic Circle Editor Matt Field.
Get [...]

Posted on July 9th, 2008 by John
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WHAT WAS IT THAT STARTED YOU IN MAGIC?  My first memory of seeing a magician was at seven years of age at a school concert where a Chinese clothed gentleman borrowed a teacher’s watch, made it vanish and it reappeared in a locked box inside a large ball of wool.
It so stuck in my mind that I [...]

Posted on July 7th, 2008 by John
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I’VE ALWAYS BEEN AN ADVOCATE  of the magic philosophy expressed by Pat Page and top TV producer John Fisher who both said “Magic isn’t about secrets – it’s about performances”
I was reminded of this when speaking recently with Roy Walton, he told me of one Saturday morning when we were all assembled in Davenports when someone told [...]

Posted on July 6th, 2008 by John
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WHILST ON HOLIDAY I PICKED UP A NEWS ITEM about Bill Gates, the man behind Microsoftt and one of the world’s richest entrepreneurs. He is just stepping down from running Microsoft to concentrate on his philanthropist interests and he recently gave a speech to an American High School where he complained that feelgood politically correct  teaching [...]

Posted on July 5th, 2008 by John
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NO BLOGS OR NEWS FOR THE PAST WEEK  as we have been away on holiday in Portugal. Great villa with pool and air conditioning but 100 degrees all week. Not enough energy to shuffle a deck and too much food and drink. However, back to the world.
I have a show next Tuesday at The Magic Circle [...]

Posted on July 5th, 2008 by John
Filed under: Magic News | No Comments »