I'm sure it will be no surprise to readers of this blog that I tuned in to Derren Brown tonight. I'm left, well, laughing all the way to my keyboard. Derren's deadpan 'Oh, one out.' The face of the man whose money's on the table, clearly utterly convinced that the ball's going to somehow jump over the divide in the roulette wheel yet, because Derren Brown wouldn't mess up on this scale. The production assistant, standing outside the trailer with a giant cheque at the ready for a hundred and eighty grand and the way he walks up, gingerly. 'Don't worry mate, we'll get your five grand back.' The silence as the series peters out could almost define dramatic anticlimax. It brought to mind the ending of The Blair Witch Project.
Of course they'll get his five grand back because they ain't gambled it away in the first place. Derren Brown ain't been nowhere near no casino tonight, not unless it was after the show in his own time. I know Casinos and I'm telling yous; that was a Channel Four studio 'somewhere in Europe', or a Casino they'd borrowed and closed for the evening.
For starters, it was too quiet and empty. There was no sound of other gamblers, of other roulette wheels, or cards being shoed or shuffled. Sure, it could have been a small casino but the problem with that is there was no evidence whatsoever, either visual or audio, of slot machines. They ain't not one casino in the world that don't got slot machines, girlfriend, and they make noise and flash lights all the time to try to hypnotise you and get your money (not unlike Derren Brown). There were no croupiers rushing past, or people serving drinks, and none of the small trolleys you get given as a punter to put your drinks on. You don't stand at a table with holding your wine glass while you play. You don't change your chips when you're putting them all on the same number. You don't walk around holding your sleeves up to stuff so the hidden camera can catch it. Well, not unless you fancy getting taken away and being beaten up in the basement.
Then there's the size of the bet. Five grand on a single number? Casinos risk manage their exposure. You don't just walk over to a table and put that much cash on the nose of a 35 to 1 payout without the pit boss having a look see if he's happy. At least, you don't unless you're in Aspinall's or one of the other super exclusive casinos on Curzon Street. And the thing about those Casinos is that A. you have to be a multi-millionaire to join (although mebbe our Derren's been playing the lottery) and B. you have to get a personal invitation by someone who's already a member. And like even if Derren did all that, they're gonna let him join, four weeks after the TV schedule announces he's going to bring the place down? Yeah, right, whatever.
It almost goes without saying at this stage that Derren's explanation of how he did it was complete rubbish. Brown claimed tonight to be able to assess two different speeds going in opposite directions by tapping his feet to their different rhythms. Hello? Anyone here ever tried to rub their stomach and pat their head at the same time? Well this would be harder, you'd have to do it faster, then apply a load of complicated calculations and take into account rebounds and bounces on the wheel. And all that in the few seconds you've got between the croupier spinning the wheel and you putting your chips down. Derren's clever and quick. He ain't a computer. Add to this the fact that there's a camera in Derren's sleeve, he is tapping *both* of his feet but at slightly different rhythms and yet we don't see its picture (or our Derren for that matter) shake any more than it was doing before. He would also have looked mighty strange while he carried out this little trick. If you don't believe me stand up and try tapping both your feet. Hmmm...
So, if what I say is true and it's all a big set up, why on earth not just go all the way and get the number exactly right?
Well one big reason springs to mind right away. If he did that, he'd have had to give Ben that blooming great cheque. There's a second thing too. By getting the figure one out, he makes the trick more believable. People think he came so close to pulling it off, and assume that if he was cheating he'd have got it exactly right so that he must be telling the truth. Paul Daniel's even suggested Derren should get one of the lottery balls wrong, for this exact reason.
But it was well done and it was funny, I'll give him that. I suspect there will be some kind of link between The Events and Derren's next series, where he'll be scam busting. Starting with his own scams mebbe? Just a hunch.
Showing posts with label derren brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label derren brown. Show all posts
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Sunday, 13 September 2009
A personal thank you to Derren Brown
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Derren Brown for increasing the readership of my blog by, well, quite a lot. Actually, it's not really his doing, to be honest. I wrote a wish on a piece of paper and put it in my pocket. If anyone asks me, I'll say it was a trick...
I'd also like to point out to the new readers of this blog, who may or may not have spotted book launch photos on the right hand side from a few years ago, that I am thinner now.
And, while, I'm here, I'll just announce the next part of Derren's trick before it comes to light by itself. By showing a (bogus) method to the world on Friday suggesting that, if only we get together in groups of 24, do automatic writing and average out the numbers, we too can win the lottery (forgetting the small fact, of course, that he didn't) I'm guessing he may have set something in motion. I'm guessing that enough people will have seen and believed it, or think, what the hell that they'll actually get together in groups of 24 and give it go. There will probably be a significant number of these groups set themselves up and try to win using the wisdom of the crowd.
Of course, one of them will...
PS See this blog here for yet more evidence of misdirection by Derren Brown. Derren Brown fixed the lottery. Yeah, right. His second explanation was just as likely as his first one. ie absolute nonsense. Still, interesting that he showed the studio audience extra footage. I bet he didn't expect them to talk about that on blogs, facebook or to their families and friends, did he? Lmao.
PPS. My husband just won twenty quid on a scratchcard and gave it to me. Bless...
UPDATE: 15th September. Do a search on Facebook for "Derren Brown Lottery" and see the groups beginning to proliferate there along the lines of 'Let's predict the lottery Derren Brown stylie'.
I'd also like to point out to the new readers of this blog, who may or may not have spotted book launch photos on the right hand side from a few years ago, that I am thinner now.
And, while, I'm here, I'll just announce the next part of Derren's trick before it comes to light by itself. By showing a (bogus) method to the world on Friday suggesting that, if only we get together in groups of 24, do automatic writing and average out the numbers, we too can win the lottery (forgetting the small fact, of course, that he didn't) I'm guessing he may have set something in motion. I'm guessing that enough people will have seen and believed it, or think, what the hell that they'll actually get together in groups of 24 and give it go. There will probably be a significant number of these groups set themselves up and try to win using the wisdom of the crowd.
Of course, one of them will...
PS See this blog here for yet more evidence of misdirection by Derren Brown. Derren Brown fixed the lottery. Yeah, right. His second explanation was just as likely as his first one. ie absolute nonsense. Still, interesting that he showed the studio audience extra footage. I bet he didn't expect them to talk about that on blogs, facebook or to their families and friends, did he? Lmao.
PPS. My husband just won twenty quid on a scratchcard and gave it to me. Bless...
UPDATE: 15th September. Do a search on Facebook for "Derren Brown Lottery" and see the groups beginning to proliferate there along the lines of 'Let's predict the lottery Derren Brown stylie'.
Friday, 11 September 2009
Events of misdirection....
Derren Brown. Manipulator. Misdirector. Liar? I won't say some of the other words I've seen friends and family use about him tonight. They're too rude.
What I will say is this. I think everyone's been focusing the last two days on 'how he did it' when, in fact, what we saw on Channel 4 on Wednesday was a simple illusion that Paul Daniels could have pulled off. Camera trick, spilt screen, LED balls, time delay, who cares? However he did it, it was dead simple. As I said at the time on my Facebook status:
"Derren Brown lmao. He shows us his numbers *after* the BBC and everyone's amazed? That's not a prediction... Interested to see how he did it, except that the whole thing reeks of much simpler illusion than I thought it would be.... Paul Daniels could have pulled off that one."
Now, Brown always said his events would be events of misdirection. I think he's misdirected us entirely here. He's got the entire nation focused on a simple illusion, one that was, frankly, below him, when in fact his real trick was performed tonight. He convinced 24 people in the studio, and countless in homes around the country, that the way he did this was using 'deep maths' and 'the wisdom of the crowd'. He even showed us everything on video to 'prove' it.
For those who didn't see, Brown got a group of 24 people in a room together and got them to predict the lottery numbers. They were rubbish to begin with, getting just one right between them. He went through various iterations of the experiment. Taking the average of each number in the individual predictions - not much better. Then he got them to predict but stay in the room until after the draw so they couldn't profit from their predictions, removing greed from the equation. He sent them team building. He had them guess their numbers and averaged them again. Finally, he had them do automatic writing and, again, calculated the average of the numbers. It seemed the team got better and better. Some goes in, they even got 4 balls correct. Finally, they appeared to predict the numbers for last week's lottery. They were incredibly pleased with themselves and you could see it was genuine. It was almost convincing.
Appeared to predict. Almost convincing. As much as I'd love to believe 24 people in a room could work together and genuinely guess the National Lottery numbers, I'm afraid I can't. I don't have to think very hard to know this isn't true. It's all an illusion.
It was interesting, the way Mr Brown carried out that final prediction. The group did their automatic writing and wrote down their numbers again. This time, Brown calculated the averages. Without showing the group, he wrote them on the balls, sealed them in a tube and went on his way to the Channel Four studio. The rest is history. The group of 24 watched live and celebrated their victory. It was clear they believed.
But they hadn't seen those numbers on Derren's balls (oooer missis, sorry, couldn't help myself) until the show. Until after the actual lottery draw. Just like the rest of us. They had only seen the automatic writing they'd put on their own pieces of paper and would have had no clue what these would have averaged out at...
But how did they manage to get three numbers right, then four? We know this bit is genuine. We see their numbers being collated and averaged, right in front of us and them. On one occasion, a member of the group does the calculations and, on others, independent observers do. What happened with their previous predictions is still pretty unlikely, right? So why not believe they actually did produce the numbers Derren took into the Channel Four studios with him?
Well, yeah, it's quite unlikely they would improve over the weeks. Fairly unlikely they would ever predict four out of six numbers at the end of a number of weeks of trying. But not nearly as unlikely as guessing all six. (Reminder for those who can't remember - 14 million to 1!)
I suspect there were several groups being filmed like the one we saw tonight, going through the same kind of experiment. They did the team building, they did the automatic writing. Derren didn't know which would provide the right footage but he knew chances were that one of them would. The 24 people we saw today were the most successful of the groups and used to try to convince us that there was more to this illusion than we could possibly understand.
The real trick was to get us staring at the screen on Wednesday, finding clips on YouTube in the two days since, submitting to forums with all our theories and ideas. When the truth was, he never predicted a thing.
My favourite twitter through the whole event came from Derren himself.
"#derrenbrown is/was at the top of Twitter trends. This is very new to me. I'm not really dressed for it. Thank you, very kind. Xx" 5:57 PM Sep 10th TwitterFon
Really Mr Brown? So you can predict the Lottery numbers on live TV but not that you're going to be the biggest trend on Twitter the next day? Man, I could have told you that!
And the best Facebook update came from my mate Dex.
"Well I thought I'd give it a go. Did 10 minutes of automatic writing but all I could get was a stream of profanity and "Kill smug twat" over and over."
Derren Brown says that next week he will glue us to our sofas using hypnosis. Come on Derren, don't make me laugh. To be fair, you did that already this week. But never again....
What I will say is this. I think everyone's been focusing the last two days on 'how he did it' when, in fact, what we saw on Channel 4 on Wednesday was a simple illusion that Paul Daniels could have pulled off. Camera trick, spilt screen, LED balls, time delay, who cares? However he did it, it was dead simple. As I said at the time on my Facebook status:
"Derren Brown lmao. He shows us his numbers *after* the BBC and everyone's amazed? That's not a prediction... Interested to see how he did it, except that the whole thing reeks of much simpler illusion than I thought it would be.... Paul Daniels could have pulled off that one."
Now, Brown always said his events would be events of misdirection. I think he's misdirected us entirely here. He's got the entire nation focused on a simple illusion, one that was, frankly, below him, when in fact his real trick was performed tonight. He convinced 24 people in the studio, and countless in homes around the country, that the way he did this was using 'deep maths' and 'the wisdom of the crowd'. He even showed us everything on video to 'prove' it.
For those who didn't see, Brown got a group of 24 people in a room together and got them to predict the lottery numbers. They were rubbish to begin with, getting just one right between them. He went through various iterations of the experiment. Taking the average of each number in the individual predictions - not much better. Then he got them to predict but stay in the room until after the draw so they couldn't profit from their predictions, removing greed from the equation. He sent them team building. He had them guess their numbers and averaged them again. Finally, he had them do automatic writing and, again, calculated the average of the numbers. It seemed the team got better and better. Some goes in, they even got 4 balls correct. Finally, they appeared to predict the numbers for last week's lottery. They were incredibly pleased with themselves and you could see it was genuine. It was almost convincing.
Appeared to predict. Almost convincing. As much as I'd love to believe 24 people in a room could work together and genuinely guess the National Lottery numbers, I'm afraid I can't. I don't have to think very hard to know this isn't true. It's all an illusion.
It was interesting, the way Mr Brown carried out that final prediction. The group did their automatic writing and wrote down their numbers again. This time, Brown calculated the averages. Without showing the group, he wrote them on the balls, sealed them in a tube and went on his way to the Channel Four studio. The rest is history. The group of 24 watched live and celebrated their victory. It was clear they believed.
But they hadn't seen those numbers on Derren's balls (oooer missis, sorry, couldn't help myself) until the show. Until after the actual lottery draw. Just like the rest of us. They had only seen the automatic writing they'd put on their own pieces of paper and would have had no clue what these would have averaged out at...
But how did they manage to get three numbers right, then four? We know this bit is genuine. We see their numbers being collated and averaged, right in front of us and them. On one occasion, a member of the group does the calculations and, on others, independent observers do. What happened with their previous predictions is still pretty unlikely, right? So why not believe they actually did produce the numbers Derren took into the Channel Four studios with him?
Well, yeah, it's quite unlikely they would improve over the weeks. Fairly unlikely they would ever predict four out of six numbers at the end of a number of weeks of trying. But not nearly as unlikely as guessing all six. (Reminder for those who can't remember - 14 million to 1!)
I suspect there were several groups being filmed like the one we saw tonight, going through the same kind of experiment. They did the team building, they did the automatic writing. Derren didn't know which would provide the right footage but he knew chances were that one of them would. The 24 people we saw today were the most successful of the groups and used to try to convince us that there was more to this illusion than we could possibly understand.
The real trick was to get us staring at the screen on Wednesday, finding clips on YouTube in the two days since, submitting to forums with all our theories and ideas. When the truth was, he never predicted a thing.
My favourite twitter through the whole event came from Derren himself.
"#derrenbrown is/was at the top of Twitter trends. This is very new to me. I'm not really dressed for it. Thank you, very kind. Xx" 5:57 PM Sep 10th TwitterFon
Really Mr Brown? So you can predict the Lottery numbers on live TV but not that you're going to be the biggest trend on Twitter the next day? Man, I could have told you that!
And the best Facebook update came from my mate Dex.
"Well I thought I'd give it a go. Did 10 minutes of automatic writing but all I could get was a stream of profanity and "Kill smug twat" over and over."
Derren Brown says that next week he will glue us to our sofas using hypnosis. Come on Derren, don't make me laugh. To be fair, you did that already this week. But never again....
Thursday, 10 September 2009
How did he do it?
If you don't know what I'm talking about then I can only assume that you A. have been gravely ill or asleep for more than 48 hours, B. took a trip to another solar system last night or C. are not from the UK and no one else is bothered. But that's okay, because you can watch the footage of Derren Brown 'predicting' the UK National Lottery numbers live on Channel Four here and catch yourself up.
Of course, the entire world wide web is buzzing this morning with theories and ideas about how he might have pulled this off. The one that seems to have convinced most people is this idea. It fits with what Derren said, that this illusion took a year of his time to set up. He only ever promised to get five numbers right so that massively cuts down the permutations of numbers he'd have to film, right? And it fits with the footage if you watch it carefully. Derren switches off the TV when he's written the numbers down, he pauses and stands still. There's even a gap in his speech at this moment.
There's just one problem with this theory. In the second, supposedly spliced on, pre-recorded TV clip, Derren would have to carry in his hand a card with the actual lottery numbers on it. He's supposedly just written them down from the TV a moment ago, so they have to be right. His prediction can be one number out, but the writing on the card can't be. This takes us right back to our 14 million little recordings, though, doesn't it?
Whatever the explanation is on Friday, it is even cleverer than that. And most of the nation will watch with bated breath to find out how he did it. I'm going to watch it, that's for sure.
Which brings me to the actual subject of my post. Because I wasn't really talking about his trick with the numbers. Derren Brown is a master illusionist and I've seen him do stranger things. They always end up being viable, explanable illusions and, sometimes, he reveals his methods to us. Bringing us in on the secret makes us feels as clever as him, and we like him all the more. We don't feel cheated because his methods are so intelligent and novel, so that we can only admire him.
I think he pulled off a much bigger trick than predicting the lottery numbers last night. I'm the kind of person who doesn't buy in properly to popular culture. I've never watched Big Brother, for example, and couldn't give a toss what the current status is between Peter and Barbie (although, admittedly, I do know there is something going on there despite my total lack of interest...) But last night I was hooked. I was completely fascinated with how he was going to pull it off. Then I was completely obsessed by how he might have done it. I even dreamed about it.
He had us. All of us, completely hypnotised and transfixed. How did he do that?
This one I can have a go at explaining. For a start, he chose the lottery. How many people can honestly say they've never bought a lottery ticket or at least dreamed of winning it? It could be you. Probably the most successful marketing gimmick of the last two millennia. Yes, of course it could be you, but the actual chances that it will be are around 14 million to one per line of numbers, so it's not very likely. What always puts this in perspective for me is the plain old laws of probability that say the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are just as a likely to come out as any others. Last week's numbers are just as likely to be drawn again as the ones on your ticket. I remember back in the 80s some cynical comedian flushed a pound coin down the loo and said 'You're just as likely to see that back as win the lottery' and that's about right. (All of this, of course, ignores the fact there are other prizes to win, some of them well worth having, and these are much more likely to happen to you.)
The National Lottery (or Lotto, I suppose I should say) is something that has already captured our imaginations. We are already hypnotised by its power, the possibility that our lives could be completely transformed. Derren Brown was already compellingly famous but we would have tuned in to pretty well any old Joe Bloggs saying he could predict the lottery numbers and convincing Channel Four to give him a time slot to prove it.
And then this is the thing. Not only does Brown not predict the numbers in time for us to get rich (of course, that wouldn't be allowed, Channel Four have even banned him from buying himself a ticket pffftttt!) he doesn't 'predict' the numbers at all. He shows us a set of balls and reveals the correct numbers are indeed stuck to them after the lottery's been drawn. The whole thing felt a bit Paul Daniels, for me. 'I put the card you are going to choose in this box.' Basic Magic Circle stuff.
Is the world ablast with 'what a crock?' this morning, then? It turns out not. Wherever you look on the web there are hoards of people saying how brilliant Brown is. Most people talking about this agree he's a genius, and the best illusionist we've ever seen. There are others who seem to genuinely believe he has some kind of psychic power. Even the cynical ones who are saying 'prediction my ass' are convinced he's going to blow us away with his denouement in the show on Friday and are looking forward to finding out what he did.
And, by some remarkable coincidence, Brown's new TV series started last night. I wonder what the viewing figures were like for that? Tickets went on sale for his latest tour. I bet them there phone lines were quite busy. I don't want to but I have to say it - the man is a genius!
There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he has the nation well and truly hypnotised. Truth be told, I'm not really sure how he did that either. I'd kill to know.
Look into the eyes, in the eyes, not around the eyes, into the eyes, you're under. Buy my books. Buy my books. Buy my books....
Of course, the entire world wide web is buzzing this morning with theories and ideas about how he might have pulled this off. The one that seems to have convinced most people is this idea. It fits with what Derren said, that this illusion took a year of his time to set up. He only ever promised to get five numbers right so that massively cuts down the permutations of numbers he'd have to film, right? And it fits with the footage if you watch it carefully. Derren switches off the TV when he's written the numbers down, he pauses and stands still. There's even a gap in his speech at this moment.
There's just one problem with this theory. In the second, supposedly spliced on, pre-recorded TV clip, Derren would have to carry in his hand a card with the actual lottery numbers on it. He's supposedly just written them down from the TV a moment ago, so they have to be right. His prediction can be one number out, but the writing on the card can't be. This takes us right back to our 14 million little recordings, though, doesn't it?
Whatever the explanation is on Friday, it is even cleverer than that. And most of the nation will watch with bated breath to find out how he did it. I'm going to watch it, that's for sure.
Which brings me to the actual subject of my post. Because I wasn't really talking about his trick with the numbers. Derren Brown is a master illusionist and I've seen him do stranger things. They always end up being viable, explanable illusions and, sometimes, he reveals his methods to us. Bringing us in on the secret makes us feels as clever as him, and we like him all the more. We don't feel cheated because his methods are so intelligent and novel, so that we can only admire him.
I think he pulled off a much bigger trick than predicting the lottery numbers last night. I'm the kind of person who doesn't buy in properly to popular culture. I've never watched Big Brother, for example, and couldn't give a toss what the current status is between Peter and Barbie (although, admittedly, I do know there is something going on there despite my total lack of interest...) But last night I was hooked. I was completely fascinated with how he was going to pull it off. Then I was completely obsessed by how he might have done it. I even dreamed about it.
He had us. All of us, completely hypnotised and transfixed. How did he do that?
This one I can have a go at explaining. For a start, he chose the lottery. How many people can honestly say they've never bought a lottery ticket or at least dreamed of winning it? It could be you. Probably the most successful marketing gimmick of the last two millennia. Yes, of course it could be you, but the actual chances that it will be are around 14 million to one per line of numbers, so it's not very likely. What always puts this in perspective for me is the plain old laws of probability that say the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are just as a likely to come out as any others. Last week's numbers are just as likely to be drawn again as the ones on your ticket. I remember back in the 80s some cynical comedian flushed a pound coin down the loo and said 'You're just as likely to see that back as win the lottery' and that's about right. (All of this, of course, ignores the fact there are other prizes to win, some of them well worth having, and these are much more likely to happen to you.)
The National Lottery (or Lotto, I suppose I should say) is something that has already captured our imaginations. We are already hypnotised by its power, the possibility that our lives could be completely transformed. Derren Brown was already compellingly famous but we would have tuned in to pretty well any old Joe Bloggs saying he could predict the lottery numbers and convincing Channel Four to give him a time slot to prove it.
And then this is the thing. Not only does Brown not predict the numbers in time for us to get rich (of course, that wouldn't be allowed, Channel Four have even banned him from buying himself a ticket pffftttt!) he doesn't 'predict' the numbers at all. He shows us a set of balls and reveals the correct numbers are indeed stuck to them after the lottery's been drawn. The whole thing felt a bit Paul Daniels, for me. 'I put the card you are going to choose in this box.' Basic Magic Circle stuff.
Is the world ablast with 'what a crock?' this morning, then? It turns out not. Wherever you look on the web there are hoards of people saying how brilliant Brown is. Most people talking about this agree he's a genius, and the best illusionist we've ever seen. There are others who seem to genuinely believe he has some kind of psychic power. Even the cynical ones who are saying 'prediction my ass' are convinced he's going to blow us away with his denouement in the show on Friday and are looking forward to finding out what he did.
And, by some remarkable coincidence, Brown's new TV series started last night. I wonder what the viewing figures were like for that? Tickets went on sale for his latest tour. I bet them there phone lines were quite busy. I don't want to but I have to say it - the man is a genius!
There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he has the nation well and truly hypnotised. Truth be told, I'm not really sure how he did that either. I'd kill to know.
Look into the eyes, in the eyes, not around the eyes, into the eyes, you're under. Buy my books. Buy my books. Buy my books....
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