Derren Bloody Brown

I’m still thinking about how on Earth Derren Brown did that last night. I feel it will bother me for quite some time. Yes I know he’ll be revealing it on Friday night, but sadly at that time I will be shouting at people in a field. I’m not an angry weekend farmer, I just mean I’ll be at Bestival. Never have I wanted to be at a festival less. I’ll have to find a way to see it. I can’t sit and wait for several more days till its explained. Thing is, I know he won’t really explain it. I know this, because he is an arse and likes to pretend he’s letting you in on tricks and then leaves an element out so you are left to assume he is just evil. There are lots of theories to do with last night’s show. Some people are fairly sure that he used camera trickery. Yes it was odd that a second camera was pointed out and then not used, and the whole shakey hand cam seemed odd. However, having seen Derren several times, camera tricks seem below him and I wonder if the second camera was to film something we’ll see in the reveal. Then there are various numerology theories, that somehow he worked out all the possible combinations and predicted the most likely. Then there is one person on notbbc.com who reckons that on Friday we’ll see a man all dressed in black walk up to the balls, put his fingers to his lips and say ‘shhhh’ before writing all the numbers on the balls. I like this idea the best. Derren has said its a trick, this series of events are about slight of hand and distraction so I’m sure it’ll be a lot simpler than we think. My personal theory is that Derren did it using THE POWER OF SATAN! Basically he’s proper evil and I still live in fear of the day that I wake up to see him hovering above London in a magic bubble telling people left, right and center what they were already thinking until they feel completely violated and cry. The second Derren Brown show last night confirmed to me exactly what sort of cruel bastard he is. It was called the Gathering. Now if I ever go to someone’s gathering where I have to turn up in a coach with blacked out windows and when I get there he’s not even around for a while and there aren’t dips or anything, then I will be angry. Yes I have been to gatherings where I’ve forgotten what happened but its usually to do with self inflicted booze rather than because someone has flashed the words ‘forget’ at me till it hits my subconscious. That’s no way as fun as downing Southern Comfort till you pull someone and try and fall asleep in a skip*. I suppose I am just a it jealous. I would love to use subliminal messages during my show. My messages would say things like ‘laugh you bastards’ and ‘forget that joke it was shit’. People would then just leave knowing they hadn’t really enjoyed it but couldn’t remember why.

Very little else is in my head today. I am meant to be writing new material for tonight’s Old Rope in Brighton, but everytime I start thinking about jokes, Derren appears in my head dangling his magically numbered balls and I just have to ask ‘but why?’ about 15 times over. It doesn’t help that I have absolutely no new material either. Since Edinburgh I have not found anything I particularly want to write about. There are some vague thoughts that I may use for this evening, but I have a feeling they will all be shit. I found out yesterday that the ever awesome Mark Thomas saw I was doing a gig in Portsmouth in October and so plugged it at his tour gig this week saying I was ‘funny and clever’. This is bloody lovely of him to do so, but now I am thoroughly worried that I have no political or clever material at all at the moment and several of his fanbase may be disappointed if they turn up. I was hoping that post Edinburgh the news would be filled with all sorts of mayhem for me to mock in an intelligent fashion, but instead its just some suicide bombings, which is so 2005, Obama going on about healthcare, and today’s BBC news has a whole page on how to eat a jellyfish because the public has become stupid. Surely you eat a jellyfish with ice cream. Idiots. I wish Derren Brown would go into politics. This was an idea touted by @ObliViVion on Twitter, who was right in saying that he’d be able to predict any public crisis. Then again I suppose we could never mock or speak out against him as he’d know and then he’d mind-rape everyone. Maybe I don’t want him to go into politics, maybe he just wants me to think that. Damn you Derren how did you do it you bastard?????

Must pack for Bestival in a minute as I head there tomorrow morning. Me and Layla went to Niki and Rosie’s house last night for me to borrow a tent. While we were there, they also made us dinner which is quite possibly the best tent collection service I’ve ever had. Next time I borrow anything off anyone, I expect a full lovely dinner and nice chat to accompany it or they wont get the pleasure and honor of me borrowing their stuff. Niki and Rosie are a mum and daughter who I knew through their constant attendance at Fat Tuesday. Then last year Rosie got to be one of the judges on the if.comeddie panel and this year Niki was one of the judges. They are proper comedy geeks and we spent much time last night complaining about people that didn’t get recognition and then talking about the Wire. Niki is a teacher too, so her and Layla spent much time saying how shit kids are. I love that generally whatever job you do, the people you deal with always become the enemy. I do comedy, so generally my audience are dicks, and when I worked for a housing association, all the tenants were dicks. I wonder if doctors sit there and get angry at those ‘stupid ill bastards’. So thanks to them I have a tent, I have borrowed my dad’s wellies and just incase it turns out as shit and muddy as last year, I’m considering hiring a small boat. My biggest worry, apart from missing Derren’s explanation, is that I’m not sure how I’ll blog from Bestival on Saturday. Its highly likely I will have no reception so won’t even be able to do an iphone mini-blog, though I will try. I have done a blog everyday now since December 30th 2008. I feel if I break the ritual now, a small black hole may appear and bad things might happen. So far suggestions have been to write it on paper and take a photograph, but I still won’t be able to upload it until I get home. Or there was the idea from @h2osarah on Twitter that I could project it into everyone’s minds using Derren powers, but I don’t think I’ll manage that and I’ll just get a headache trying. I’m considering asking Layla to do an apology note from me, which may be the best idea. Any other suggestions? Please leave them in comments below if you do.

I’m off to patent my anti-Derren hat, which is made of foil so he can’t get into your brains. If you haven’t seen it before have a look at this post from many moons ago ( I have been constantly mooning people since that blog):

http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/05/mind-benders.html

* please note, I did this when 15 and have not fallen asleep in a skip since.