Via @ericmead

It's the holiday season fast approaching, and you're no doubt going to be spending time with the Griswalds, so I thought I'd share a little trick I thought of a few days ago that you can use to kill some time and amaze some relatives. I'm going to ramble a bit first of all, so skip down to 'Here is what you need' if you just want the meat of the trick. I had a show cancelled yesterday. No big deal, just a scheduling mishap. I spent most of the day updating the various social networks I'd used to promote the show. I needed to use all of them, because different people would see different streams.  It was at this point that an idea probably formed in my head, but it didn't come to life until a few hours later.

A few of the people who were coming to the show got back to me to let me know they weren't going to be able to make the new, rescheduled show. Not wanting to let them down, I offered to go to their place and do a parlour show for the handful of people who couldn't make it. They accepted, and I set about getting ready for the show. Just before leaving the house, the idea that had started a few hours earlier pinged, and just before I left the house I made the necessary arrangements to blow people's mind using a social network.

'You don't even need to look at them, just visualise one of them. Use whatever instincts you have, you will be drawn to one of them. Okay, are you done? Tell me which card you're thinking of.'

'Aren't you supposed to tell me?' The young lady sat opposite me quite rightly points out.

'I've already made my decision, I'll reveal it in a moment and you'll see quite clearly that I made the prediction a good half hour before I arrived at this show.'

'Okay, okay well I'm thinking of the queen of spades.'

'That was a free choice correct? I mean, you could have chosen anything, I gave you the chance to change your mind even.'

'You did.'

'And yet you've stuck with this one? There's no way I could have influenced you? I didn't give you a tenner before the show to tell me exactly what I wanted to hear.'

'No! It was a free choice.'

I point to the laptop sitting next to her. 'Open that up and go to twitter.com/declandineen. Check out what my last post was.'

And they go to the website, and there is the post, and there, quite clearly timestamped an hour earlier, is my prediction. http://twitter.com/#!/declandineen/status/13679652279164928

Now, you too can blow people's minds on social networks!

Here is what you will need:

Five things, one of which will be chosen by a member of the audience. (I used cards mainly because I had the idea for the trick fairly last minute and they were the quickest things to hand. Of course, once you know the secret, your imagination is your only limit.)

Access to the internet.

The trick

Lay five objects in front of someone. Tell them they are to think of one of them. You're then free to make up any kind of nonsense you like about a 'feeling' you had before you left, or a premonition of the future. Whatever you like. The trick works by itself so you're only worried about how awesome you want to make yourself out to be.

Hell, make a bet out of it, have a drink on me.

They then choose an object. You then direct them to your chosen social network and show that you predicted it almost an hour earlier.

Take your applause.

The work:

So how do you make them choose that specific object? You don't. What you do is just use lots of social networks and a small amount of memorisation. You hedge your bets. You use what magician's call, 'multiple outs.'

Using the example above, the lovely woman at my show chose the Queen of Spade so I directed her to www.twitter.com/declandineen and said she should take a look at the latest tweet, which at the time, was this;http://twitter.com/#!/declandineen/status/13679652279164928

However, had she chosen the Ten of Spades, I would have told her to go to declandineen.com and click on the blog, which would bring her here: /wp/?p=441

Jack of Spades? http://www.google.com/profiles/declan.dineen

King of Spades? http://www.facebook.com/declandineen

Ace of Spades? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWD9dfLNNNE

This is why I have five objects in mind, because for me, those were the five social sites I had used earlier in the day to contact people about the show. To me, those are the heavy hitters and the ones most people will have.

I do a lot of card tricks, so you do get to know the type of cards people will choose when asked to think of any. It's not an exact science, but you can predict which ones will be more popular for sure. With this in mind I did kind of weigh it so that google buzz would be the least likely chosen and that youtube  the most likely.  I figured the  youtube reveal is slightly cooler because it's a video, and most people - whilst happy with facebook and twitter - will be a little 'Sorry, what?' when you tell them to go to your google profile. (Sorry google.)

So there you have it. A simple trick with a heavy punchline. Please do try it. If you do, I would love to hear how it goes, you can email me at: info@ declandineen.com.

There's this stuffy idea that camera tricks are somehow not as artful or as clever as sleight of hand magic. There was an awful lot of hoo haa around Derren Brown's Predict the Lottery Special because he, alledgedly, used a type of live editing rather than some kind of supernatural form of future sight. Personally, I don't buy it. In magic, the method is the least important thing. Your aim is to get the desired feeling from your audience, you get it by any means necessary. If you're doing magic you're already lying, why pretend that there is some kind of honor system?

Aside from that, camera tricks are fun! I'm working on a bigger post about the history and fun uses of camera trickery you've perhaps never heard of before. I'll hopefully get this up later in the week, for now, here's a brief clip impromptu bit of camera trickery achieved last night in the heady excitement of learning how easy it was to live broadcast to teh internet direct from my phone.

It goes on a bit, skip to 1.30 for the fun part.

Watch live video from declandineen on Justin.tv

As promised, for those who came and didn't see the original ending, here it is:

Now, I suppose it's up to you whether or not you think I should have dropped it. I'm glad I did to be honest. I do mean what I say and hopefully present it well enough, but in my quest to try and differentiate myself from other magicians, to try and give something different, something with my personality etched in it, I was maybe forgetting that this was a magic show. This is why it split crowds I think. As a finale, people were waiting for the twist, the prestige, and it never really came.

Enough justification for now, this is closure.

Check back soon and often though, I have lots of plans for the blog in future, as well as a bunch of videos and news about upcoming shows.

Incidentally, it'd be remiss of me not to remind you I am available for all kinds of venues and bookings. If you want me to come play at your club or in your living room, I cater to all and sundry.  Just drop me a line: info@declandineen.com

Stay gold

First Fringe finished, was it worth it?

It's almost impossible to quantify. To even begin to answer this question, you'll have to have set your own goals before hand. This is much harder than it seems. Before I started my run, I got possibly the worst heckle I ever received. It was on itricks.com, somebody had commented on the promo video I made for the show. The comment?

' I don't understand why he would do this.'

No doubt they were referring to the perspective skewing gag video, nevertheless the question itself does send a chill. Why am I doing this? If you're going to say honestly if it was worth it or not, you need to set some goals.

Outgoing (approx) -

Officially being part of the Fringe - £300.00

Posters & Flyers                                   - £120.00

Last minute props etc.                      - £60.00

Living expenses                                    - £220.00

TOTAL                                                       - £700.00

Incoming (approx)

Average hat per show                         - £25.00

TOTAL (14 nights)                                 - £350.00

GOOD

Day 1, pretty shambolic but I'm out unscathed

and paid. Cheers for the kind words.

Day 3 - Yuss

Day 5: aww yeah!

Day 7 - hugged Leo Tan live on stage.

Day 10 - where the fuck did that crowd come from? Pay the man Joe. Plus John Booth & secret magic clubs. Good show Day 9 - three people asked for my autograph. Also got to say the line, 'If you get this wrong, I'm going to electrocute your daughter.'

Day 14 - high fives all round. Day 13 - literally no one. Packed up to leave then a crowd of 20 or so met me at the door. I wanted to kiss every one of them Day 12 - magic, pals & late arrivals. A big bit went wrong, but I think I salvaged it, I'm pro.

BAD

Day 2. Everything went wrong. Horrific ten minute gap when i left the stage to search for a lost prop.Still claps enough though.

Day 4 FML http://yfrog.com/6tfhhj There were about ten people eventually but I like to be melodramatic.

Day 6 - it's not so good Al

Day 8 - so, so tired. Old friends and new friends. Such a fickle mistress.

Day 11 - mic check. One, two, one, two. Can you hear me Edinburgh?

Day 13 - literally no one. Packed up to leave then a crowd of 20 or so met me at the door. I wanted to kiss every one of them

I should add, for the sake of full disclosure, that nobody actually asked me about the title of my show, I made that bit up for the purpose of my video.

What can I say, that's my schtick.

The real mental preparation was done yesterday. The show itself is solid I think, it is definitely something I would enjoy seeing, which is the best I can do really. I have also dealt with the fact that maybe, just maybe, nobody will come. (People will come Ray.) Anyway, that's besides the point for now, the point for now, and for today's post, is my thoughts on the phenomena that is Inception.

I liked it.

I didn't love it. No doubt a victim of it's own hype, I felt as though the film was going to be cleverer than it was. Ultimately what you got was Ocean's 11 in dreams, and it is about as fun as that suggests.

A friend on twitter pointed out that it would have worked better as a miniseries and I have to agree wholeheartedly. The central premise of the film is so interesting, and so complex, there felt like  mountains of unexplored potential in the movie. I wanted more trains in city centres, more abstract and disparate imagery.

Most notably though I wanted more character. Besides Leo, I didn't feel like I got to grips with any of the characters in the movie, they didn't seem particularly bonded to one another, and thus I didn't really care what happened to them.

Still brilliant though, of course. A film of such scope, and an original idea with such a budget is a genuine cause for celebration.

Plus, this infographic by dehas on deviantart is sick. CONTAINS SPOILERS!!

So, the first proper full dress rehearsal for the Fringe show is tomorrow night, Black friars Basement, Glasgow, 8.30pm. If you're about, you should totally come along. I'm excited, but still a little concerned. There are one or two bits that could go disastrously wrong. I'll report back.

Penn & Teller are genuine heroes of mine. They've been on TV a lot the past few weeks thanks to their run at the Hammersmith in London, (I didn't get to visit sadly, but I am going to Vegas in January) and they have reminded me how amazing magic can be, how cool, how interesting. P&T was where it all started with me, that trick above specifically, allow me to indulge myself with some nostalgic thinking.

I was about 12 when this clip originally aired. As a kid I was a serial taper. I would tape everything. To begin with it was because my older brother worked at a bar during the week, but would always come home for dinner on a Sunday. Thinking myself somewhat a connoisseur of the four channels on offer, I used to make a TV mixtape every week of all the shows I thought he should watch.

Some things were always the same, week in week out. Without fail there would be an episode of You've Been Framed, Quantum Leap, and the entirety of the Friday night channel 4 comedy block. For years this meant a new episode of Cheers, then Roseanne, then Whose Line is it Anyway? But then Penn and Teller came along. I had this whole series on tape and to this day it's the only piece of media I've worn out from playing too much.

I didn't get seriously into magic, performing magic anyway, until my mid twenties, but Penn and Teller have always stayed with me. The first magic book I ever bought was Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends, and it was them I was interested in, not the magic.

If P & T liked it, I wanted to like it. So instead of The Royal Road to Card Magic I bought Randi's An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. Instead of Bobo's Modern Coin Magic and Corinda's 13 Steps to Mentalism I bought Martin Gardner's Aha! Gotcha: Paradoxes to puzzle and delight and the Annotated Alice.

My love of science and art and beauty and games all grew. My appreciation of a job well done, of analytical thinking. I'm now about to debut my own magic show, and hope that I can capture some of that early inspiration.

You've no doubt already seen the Old Spice ad where the incredibly charismatic and brilliant named Isaih Mustafa makes you feel less of a man (i've embedded it underneath if you haven't, and if you're not impressed, realise this was done in one take, and with CG only used for touch ups.) Anyway, this ad and it's follow up are both amazing, but Old Spice took it further, and a few days ago they created a series of personalised, one off ads for a truckload of  influential and infamous web personalities.  they pretty much won the internet.

Full story here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_old_spice_won_the_internet.php

Also, and this doesn't usually happen when an Ad strikes me as being amazing or clever, I am actually curious as to how this smells. That must count for something.

Originally publsihed in 2007

Declan Dineen has been with the GLC since the beginning, he catches up with the band at their recent gig in Glasgow and tries to come to terms with the bands rise and rise, from local comedians to reality TV stars and more.

About five years ago I used to DJ in a music bar in Newport called Le Pub, it’s a cool place to be, and I loved my job. People would bring me records to play and often I would say yeah yeah and slowly put the record down onto the floor where it would never be seen again. This one time though, Keith came along with some people I didn’t know and said you have to play this, it’s funny as fuck. It was early on a Saturday night, there were only about 20 people in the bar and I was indulging myself so I figured I’d indulge them too.

The first track that started playing was someone doing a pretty bad impression of Ice T, letting you know that this record would contain foul language, such as skid marks, big, brown, skid marks. I was dubious but I started to enjoy it. I played a few more tracks, I really liked it, it was funny. A few months later a friend of mine handed me a CD by a band called the Goldie Lookin Chain, the CD was in an envelope torn in two, with the tracklist scribbled in biro down the one side, Sexy Ladies, Mike Balls Soccer anthem, Roller Disco, Monkey Love, Professor Doppleganger. This CD was to become a staple in my DJ set until I left Le Pub and Newport all together.

I took this CD with me to university in Exeter, I met a guy there from Newport and asked him if he had heard of the chain, when he said no I copied him the CD I had, plus a few more I had picked up along the way. He loved it, clearly, not only was it pretty good party music, but they were singing about Zanzibars! And Pill! I don’t even regard it as satire, this is what gangsta rap from Newport would sound like. There are no drive bys in Neport, but there’s plenty of draw. There’s no Ho’s and bitches but there’s plenty of sexy ladies and single mums. People don’t say word and for real, they say safe as fuck and fresh bra.

I didn’t particularly share the band with people from outside of Newport or Wales, I didn’t think they’d enjoy it as much. A few stoner friends enjoyed the songs about draw, but they would have enjoyed anything, god bless em. Regardless of my efforts, heard they were, armies of people were going away to uni with similar DIY CDs of the GLC and word soon got around. In my final year at uni I first heard Jo Whiley playing Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do on her lunchtime show. Suddenly Newport’s best kept secret went national.

Even then I didn’t think they’d become what they’ve become. Never did I think that the I’d eventually be interviewing the people who did the Ice T impression at the Carling Academy in Glasgow. Not that they’re rubbish or anything, far from it, I just didn’t think anyone from outside Wales would get the joke. But get it or not, they are loved.

Within about fifteen minutes of sitting down to talk with the GLC my little notepad is full of words. Triggers i use to remember what we were talking about, what I asked, and what their responses were. I’m looking at this now, and whilst I remember what the words mean, I cannot piece them together into a coherent narrative. It started off genially enough, we went backstage and were greeted by Eggsy, Mike Balls, Mystikal and Billy Webb. It was the obvious how are you’s and what’s going on. And I know for a fact that deal or no deal was on, which is what started us talking about Noel Edmonds. But from there, we managed to traverse an extremely broad range of topics. When I say us, I mean them. I would try and write it down as a conversation but that’s not really what it was, it was an external internal monologue by a group. So rather than try and recreate it I’ll give you the triggers and let you piece this beginning together yourself. Here, in full, is my first page of notes from the beginning of the interview, think of it as a look into the band’s collective psyche. The Michaels - Ball and Bolton. Eurovision. Imagine Little Voice with a Cock. Noel Edmonds/Sleeps in Fridge. Sarah Greene crashing a helicopter? Phillip Schofield has killed a man. BBC SEX and BBC DEATH.. Cock Brick Phallus/elaborate stage direction. Aberdeen has an IN Shops.

Thankfully, things begin to settle down after a while, and comfortable chat ensues. This is a nice atmosphere.

So, how’s the tour going so far?

Mystikal: Crazy bollocks.

What do you mean crazy bollocks?

M: Crazy Bollocks, just mental.

Billy Webb: Mostly drinking, sleeping, you know. It’s been good though, some good shows.

Mike Balls: Norwich was fucking nuts.

BW: Yeah, Norwich was a good one. London was a bit of a chore to be honest.

How do you mean?

M: Well, it’s the media hub isn’t it, you have to do everything when you’re there. We usually just get through it by drinking, ending up pissed in the afternoon talking to interviewers about sex with aliens.

You were in Iceland before the tour started, how did that come about?

Eggsy: This guy called Rads, real oldschool hard drinker, he just phones us up and asks us to do these random gigs. Plus we got to go and see Sylvia Nott. She’s like the Icelandic Avid Merrion or something, she’s just found out she’s doing the Icelandic entry for Eurovision this year. I met her at South by Southwest last year and she was fan.

Like Avid merrion in that she’s a crazy stalker? Or just pretends to be a crazy stalker.

E: Bit of both I reckon.

BW: She’s lovely. Tight clothes.

E: She is lovely, she’s like a mixture of material girl Maddona and Cyndi Lauper. She sent me DVD of the show but it’s all in Icelandic.

BW: There’s probably a subtitles option.

E: Yeah probably I just couldn’t work it.

You’re getting quite a following lads, there’s a massive queue outside.

BW: Yeah, it’s nuts. There were three girls here about three o’clock in the after noon.

Did you go and do the meet and greet, wave from the balcony thing?

BW: I went out and told them to go to the pub, it was cold like. They said they’d already been so I just left them to it.

M: It’s good now that Maggot’s done this Big Brother thing, it take.s all the pressure off the rest of us.

How’s he dealing with the new found fame?

BW: Head down, straight ahead, no eye contact.

M: A good thing to do is follow him down the road about ten paces behind and watch all the people do a double take as he walks past. Unless there’s some school kids running around him giggling.

So did endemol approach you as a band? Or just maggot?

M : I think it was more like a Reader’s Digest prize draw sent out to lesser celebrities.

BW: Yeah, cos like, Joe Pasquale had already done the jungle one so they needed someone to fill in the gaps. He’s the poor mans Joe Pasquale.

I see Killa Kela is supporting tonight, and Skinnyman was with you on your last tour. How do you think the more hardcore Hip Hop fraternity view you? Has anyone taken offense?

M: No, not at all really, we’re a party vibe band, that’s what we’re about. There was this French festival we played at where some UK band were taking a slight offense, asking us what we were doing and that we should be delivering a message. Well, the party vibe is our message, that’s what we do. We don’t need more people to complicate life with unnecessary hassles and worries.

BW: No religion, no politics, just keep it light.

M: I mean, who could get worked up over a couple of guys who get dressed up in tracksuits and dance about on stage? Get a grip. I know a guy who puts cheese in his pot noodle, now that’s fucked up.

With the hint of sincerity in the air the subject is brought up of the creative process of the band, is it collaborative, is it one person?

BW: Terry sorts it. Terry Elliot his name is, he runs it all behind the scenes. I’ve never seen him myself, have you seen Terry?

M: Not in the flesh no.

BW: He’s the brains of the operation, whenever we wonder what we’re doing or how we’ll do that the answer is always “Terry sorted it.”

Not too much sincerity then, that’s good.

The band need to go and do some horizontal relaxation so we head out to the show. The crowd, as you’d imagine, is a mixed one. I find it hard to tell the people in their leisurewear from the people in their ‘leisurewear’, you know? I don’t think it matters anymore. People see them as a piss take and enjoy them for that, or people see them as a proud reflection of their own life, or people don’t quite get the whole joke, but they like the fact that they sing about drugs and penises, or people just think they’re a great band. They’re probably all of the above, and it doesn’t matter, because everyone will go home happy and no one is being judged. No politics, no religion, keep it light.

The GLC have evolved from being an affectionate parody of hip hop and the Newportonian lifestyle, and have emerged as a genuine party vibe band. When they hit the stage the place goes nuts, and despite the meandering answers to questions and despite the fact that they clearly don’t take the whole fame thing particularly seriously, it’s clear from the way they perform on stage that they feel like the luckiest blokes on earth to be doing what they’re doing, and they put their all into it, and they give sincere thanks to the people who have helped them be there. It’s almost impossible not to be taken along with them. I often wonder, would I like the GLC were it not for the fact I was from Newport? Based on tonight’s performace, you fucking knows it.

QUOTES: I mean, who could get worked up over a couple of guys who get dressed up in tracksuits and dance about on stage? Get a grip. I know a guy who puts cheese in his pot noodle, now that’s fucked up.

A good thing to do is follow him [MAGGOT] down the round about ten paces behind and watch all the people do a double take as he walks past.