Desert Island Tricks
Each week we invite one of the biggest guests in the world of magic to maroon themselves on a desert island. They are allowed to take with them 8 tricks, 1 book, 1 banishment and 1 non magic item that they use for magic! We discuss their 'can't live without' lists and why those items were chosen.
Episodes are uploaded every Friday and are available via all Podcast service providers!
To find out more about the team behind Desert Island Tricks, please visit: www.alakazam.co.uk
Desert Island Tricks
Alan Rorrison
Meet one of Scotland's most creative magical minds as Alan Rorrison takes us through the eight effects he couldn't live without. Known for his prolific creativity and innovative approach to magic, Alan reveals how his performance style has evolved toward more organic props and scripted presentations that put participants at the centre of the experience.
The conversation delivers powerful insights about performing philosophy, with Alan explaining why he now approaches tables empty-handed rather than with cards visibly ready. "They were making a presupposition on what I was going to do before I'd done it, and I didn't like it," he shares, describing how this simple change transformed audience engagement.
What makes this episode particularly fascinating is Alan's commitment to using everyday objects rather than obviously magical props. From his three-coin routine "Trivium" to his custom-built magic watch, each selection reveals a thoughtful approach that emphasises strong magic over flashy presentations. Even when discussing playing cards, Alan rejects the notion that expensive designer decks are necessary: "For a spectator, a playing card is a piece of paper with a drawing on it."
Perhaps most revealing is Alan's decision to banish smoke effects, despite having created a successful product in that category earlier in his career. His willingness to acknowledge when cultural shifts have diminished an effect's impact demonstrates the self-awareness that has kept his magic relevant for decades.
Don't miss the touching story of how his signed copy of Card Warp mysteriously found its way back to him years after being lost, a moment of "real magic" that perfectly captures why we fall in love with this art form in the first place.
Alan's Desert Island Tricks:
- Triivium Coins
- The Key
- Cerberus Wallet
- Okito Box
- Deck of Cards
- Watch
- Rubiks Cube
- PK Ring
Banishment. Smoke Devices
Book. Complete Walton Vol 1
Item. Phone
Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk
And then I discovered I couldn't find the original Cardwarp either, and I'd forgot that I had lent it out to someone and I just never got it back. So I was a bit down on that.
Speaker 1:And I spent a couple of years to try and find replacements. At this point I didn't care if they were signed or notated or that kind of stuff, or if they were signed to someone else, as long as it's just the original one. So a couple of versions of Cardwarp popped up on eBay a couple of months back and I thought, cool, I'll grab it. And then the seller sent me a message back and says look, I've refunded you. And I was like, oh, did you not have them in stock anymore? What's going on? So no, I've sent them out, but I've refunded you. You'll understand when it gets there. So the card warped, arrived and I opened it up and it's like 2 Allen da, da, da da. It found it, picked it up and I've managed to find it again. Try and buy it without knowing. And they sent me a note back just saying I think this rightfully belongs to you. And they gave it back, which was real nice.
Speaker 1:Um, so it was a couple of months later, complete walton volume two pops up and it says inscribed. The guy said he had two in stock, both inscribed to someone, and the picture showed one that was inscribed to scott. That's fine, it'll do as long as I replace that book. It's important to me. The book arrived and it opened up and it says to alan now I know, fine. Well, it wasn't this alan, it wasn't me that this was signed to, because I've still got my creolet penned version of it with my singatronic, but this was just signed to some other random alan. So I've got a pristine copy of that now with my singatronic, which is great.
Speaker 3:Hello and welcome to another episode of Desert Island Tricks. We're joined on the Scottish Isles today with this gentleman. Now, believe it or not, this gentleman I've known since I was, I think, about 16. It was him and Liam Montier were the two magicians that I first spoke to, and I still perform one of his tricks even now, all of these years on, since I was 16, when I first learned it, all the way to now I still do that routine.
Speaker 3:He's an absolutely prolific creator. At this point, if you haven't seen his stuff, he's so, so clever, absolutely ingenious. I remember one of his tricks which I loved way before vaping was a thing, was an excellent trick called smoke, which is what he called it to begin with. He released it in small numbers first before taking it to a company, and that trick because that technology was so new that's how long ago this is it was an absolute miracle when smoke appeared out of your mouth. Now, of course, it's not so amazing because we have vapes and everyone knows about it, but that's an absolute example of the way he thinks. He can just take things and turn them into absolute miracles, whether it's card magic, whether it's visual magic, he'll put his hand to anything and always succeed. He's an absolute joy to have on the podcast. So, everybody, it is Mr Alan Rorison.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, I never quite know what to say after introductions like that, because I always feel like it kind of bigs me up a little bit too much and then I'm just this little small Scottish guy from a small town. It's always kind of weird.
Speaker 3:But it's all very true and all of that praise is true. I mean, you've been in our industry now for so many years and I remember your Fingers of Fury DVDs they're the ones that I was referencing. On DVD 2, there's a trick called joking, which is a sandwich routine, and that's a trick called joking, which is a sandwich routine, and that's a routine that I've done all of these years later. But even the tricks like you plowing the the card into your arm, so there's like a a knife through arm routine but with a playing card, and it looks so killer visual that was a stupid one, to be quite fair.
Speaker 1:That was, I was cutting up cards for something else. I was building something else at the time and I was looking at this card with a half moon kind of cut into it, just lying on the table and all the scraps, and at that point I just thought, ooh, wait a minute, will that? Because I remember the old bar gag where you would rip a little tear into a bar mat and you can make it look like it had been flung and hit you in the nose. I thought I wonder if that would hold onto your arm in the same kind of way with that one there. That one kind of came together quite quick, to be fair, just because the gimmick was just a scrap that was already there, and then it was just a case of switching out that selected card. With that one it was quite easy. I won't lie, I still do that one now and again, the crazy thing with the Fingers of Fury projects. There's a lot of material in there that I still just do.
Speaker 1:At the time where I put it out I stopped doing a lot of it because I thought, much like a comedian would do, once an ever special is out there that material is burnt. Everyone knows it. There's no point in it anymore. It's lost. It's worth kind of, and it was wasn't until a couple of years after the release of it I kind of realised maybe I was a bit too hasty on that. There's a lot of that material, I know that's still good and your standard everyday spectator or participant hasn't seen this. So I started doing my own material again, which was quite fun.
Speaker 1:I was saying this earlier on to you that there was a routine that was on the fingers of three DVDs. There was a routine on there and I wanted to do it again and there was a part I couldn't get. My brain wasn't remembering what solution I put in there to make that part work and I had to go back and dig out the DVD. In this little room I've got little DVD frames on my wall. It looks like a picture frame but you slide a DVD into it, you can hang it up. It's like a display piece. So I've got all my releases kind of like that in my room.
Speaker 1:I had to go, take it off the wall and watch it and I went through and obviously figured out what the trick was and got it all working. That was fine. But both my wife and I kind of turned to each other and, like her accent was was quite a bit thicker then, wasn't it? Then we'd realise it might have softened up over the years. But yeah, the fingers are free ones. Thank you for that. The Joe King one is one I still use to this day as well. I think it's just because it's good to go out of a normal deck. It always comes in quite handy.
Speaker 3:Now, because you've been in our industry for so long, you've obviously been absolutely surrounded by magic, and I know that you're a collector of magic just as much as I am and everyone else is. So how did you find putting your list together?
Speaker 1:I'm very opinionated. It can be to my detriment at times, but I am very opinionated on things. The older I've got once I kind of come out of my 30s I've realised that sometimes it's better just to sit back and keep that opinion to myself and life goes a little bit easier. Not everything needs to be as abrasive as it is, but the list kind of fell together for me just because I've got such strong opinions on things. And even when the option of banishing something came up, it wasn't like I had to think about it, it was just like a little light bulb.
Speaker 1:There we go, got something for that, and then I swiftly realised that not everyone has done one and not everyone has thought the way I have on it. So thankfully I can say with 100% guarantee that I won't feel bad for saying what I need to say. But you'll understand why when I say it. The list came together quite quick. Again. Thankfully, the opinionated nature of myself kind of helped, and now that I've been holding off a little bit, it's nice to have a platform to get some of that out. So thank you for being my therapist for the next short while.
Speaker 3:Well, if this is your first time listening to the podcast, the idea is that we're about to send Alan to his very own desert island. When he's there, he's allowed to take eight tricks banish one item, take one book and one non-magic item he uses for magic Particulars like who's there, what's there? That sort of stuff we do not mind. This island appears in Alan's imagination, so it can be whatever he wants it to be. It's basically the list of tricks that he could not live without if he had to perform them for forever more. With that being said, let's go to that little island and find out what Alan put in number one. What did you put in your first spot?
Speaker 1:This one was an absolute no brainer. It's the Tribune. This is by myself, slightly egotistically, but it's not a new plot in any shape of it at all. It's literally a production of three coins and then a vanish of it at all. It's literally a production of three coins and then a vanish of three coins, one by one. So they appear one by one and they vanish one by one, right up at your fingertips, as the old magic books used to say.
Speaker 1:But it's, I think, for me, the reason it's in my number one spot is much like a few items in this list. It's something I number one spot is much like a few items in this list. It's something I carry with me every single day. I decided when I was putting this together in my brain I realised that if it's something that I've been carrying with me for at least the past year, it needs to be on the list. There's just no way it can't be. So yeah, trivium, it's just $3 a peer at your fingertips and banish, but beat. So yeah, trivium, it's just $3 a peer at your fingertips and vanish.
Speaker 1:But there's a lot of magic for the spectator and that's a short space of time and you can make it play really small for a small group, or just step back slightly because you're using dollar sizes to catch the light. Quite nice, so you can use it for a slightly bigger group. So Trivium's in there. I love it. Obviously, david Roth has got his version of it and Josh G has a version of it out there too. I think his what was his called the name of it will hit me later on, but I'm not thinking on it. It was another Tri sort of name Triadcoin, triadcoin. There we go. He's got a good version of it out there too. The reason I like mine is the gimmick is slightly more controllable and it just works nice.
Speaker 1:So it's been my go-to for the past maybe two years now. It's what I, if I got to a table, I used to walk up to a table with cards in my hand, like when I was performing. I how you doing? Folks, my name's Alan. I'm the magician for the evening. Can I borrow two minutes of your time? And they would see that I had cards in my hand. So I was just ready to go. Now I don't have anything in my hands and if they say, yeah, yeah, I want to see something it's trivia my go for first. So that is my number one go-to.
Speaker 3:Now, you mentioned that you put it in your number one spot, but you said it almost like you've listed them from your most wanted to your not least wanted, but you've ranked them in order. Is that the case?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I've got an EDC. Like most magicians, I'm obviously in the camp of you should always be able to do something if you have nothing on you. However, if you're going out of the house, just have something on you that you're comfortable with and you're happy with and you think looks good, it should always be something to take a bit of pride in performing, because that comes across, if you ask me, and it also comes across as something um, it's been worked enough, so it's a bit more scripted and feels a bit more professional. So it should always be something that you do a lot and it's kind of one of your edcs. So everything in the list kind of falls within that. No, not everything. There's a few things in there that are not everyday carry for me, but all my everyday carry is in the list somewhere.
Speaker 3:And you mentioned that you don't. It's one of those weird debates amongst table magicians and close-up magicians is do you walk up to the table with a deck of cards? What's the reason for you changing to this coin trick? Is it just you prefer the coin trick? Is it because you don't think that people will respond to you as well with a deck of cards in your hand?
Speaker 1:For me, there was a slight shift in how participants I'm trying to stop using the word spectators, because they're not really just spectating, they mostly are taking part. So I'm trying to shift to participant but there's a definite shift in how they look at you. It used to be if you walked up with a pack of cards, they knew what they were getting, it is what it was, and you just got on with it. Then I noticed that people started to look at. It was almost like Uncle Bob with a pack of cards walked up saying, hey, you want to see it. It's not that it felt cheap, it's just they were making a presupposition on what I was going to do before I'd done it and I didn't like it. So if I've got no props ready to go, if I just walk up and go through my spiel and then say look, I'm the magician, can I borrow two minutes of your time? So when I'm asking if I can borrow two minutes of the time, I, if I can borrow two minutes of their time, I'm not saying I'm going to do a trick for you yet, I'm just making sure that you're willing to give me some of your time, because I get that time is the most expensive commodity on the planet, making sure I get that first, and then, once I've got that, I don't want to burst into something that's going to make them presuppose. I don't want to have them pull out a deck of cards and have them think oh great this. Think, oh great this.
Speaker 1:Again, the last two bars had this as well. I just want it to be something different and and up where I am and where I gig, there's not a lot of people just bursting out coin magic like not like just bending a coin or boring a coin and bending that kind of thing, but proper roth style coin magic, like making things appear your fingertips and danish your move and all that stuff. Not straight off the bat, most certainly. So it was a conscious decision for me and I found that since shifting and moving these card related effects I do to later in the set, I'm getting a better response. So it's been a sort of weird, a weird two or three years I've started shifting how I perform a lot.
Speaker 1:I never used to script a lot. Now I think everyone should do it. Don't get me wrong. Jazzing now and again can be fun, but if you're pitching yourself as a magician there should be an air of professionalism in it. So I shifted to starting to script everything and really scrutinising the sets I do and figuring out what should go where. I don't like to jazz with positions anymore. I like to know what the set is before I do it to try and build up to the sort of big clap at the end and all that jazz. Sorry, I like to sing in my own voice and you don't even know this, mind you.
Speaker 3:No, I think that's great. I think there's some really, really good points there, and it's kind of cool that we've come in at a coin trick, because it's not what I expected from you personally. I thought we were going to come in with a car trick, but it does lead us to number two. So what did you put in your second spot?
Speaker 1:well, it's a car. No, it's not a car trick, I won't lie. So the second thing that I carry with me every single day it's now known as the key. I designed up a linking key basically God, this must have been about yeesh, 20 years ago. I'm getting old.
Speaker 1:So I designed up this linking key and it was obviously along the lines of, like Porper and everyone else that had done it, I just built in my own little parts that I wanted in there, and then Wayne Dobson has seen it as a look. I've got this routine. I used to use this version of the key, but I think this one would work better. Would you mind, if I want to put the routine out again, can we use your design for the key? And obviously, with Mike and Wayne, I was like yeah, sure, go for it.
Speaker 1:I was never going to release it, if you guys can. For me it was too similar to something that had already been out. However, wayne had already had something similar that was out, so for him to release it, that's absolutely fine. It's just a slight derivative of his work. The key has changed a little bit since then, but it is the key. It's basically you take your key off, your key ring, you can show it, you can let them inspect it and all the usual things that magicians would do. You would then borrow their key chain and then you would link it on to their keychain just by tapping it on it and it's on there and then you can drop their keys back off of it and then drop your key into their hands and everything can be inspected.
Speaker 1:The only stats how I perform it. We used it on the Dynamo show as well and we used a set of headphones for it, which became quite a popular presentation after he'd done that. But that Lincoln key, it lives in the same little pants pocket or trouser pocket I should say over here you can tell I've been speaking to Americans too much on my jeans. It's a little tiny pocket that no one knows what to do with. I put Trivium in there and the keys that's what live in there and those two things I like having. I put Trivium in there and the keys that's what live in there and those two things I like having in that spot. So much any pair of trousers I've got on the inside of the brief. I have them put a little pocket there as well, on the inside of the pocket, just so I know where I'm going.
Speaker 1:For that I mean nothing I need to do changes. But yeah, that key, just because it's so versatile, you can link it to stuff. You can have stuff pass through it, like you can make it pass through a finger ring and all that stuff. If you use Wayne Dobson's old routine, which is phenomenal you can do a bite and restore key style thing with it. It's just a nice little versatile thing that lends itself to a few different styles of routine, so it needs to be in there. They're a bit of a pain to make but they're great.
Speaker 3:I remember seeing this for the first time years ago and seeing the construction, in particular, of the gimmick. Now, obviously, we're not going to talk method here. We're not going to talk method here, but when you see how you hid everything and how everything was integrated into the design of the key, I think I had just as much appreciation for that as the trick itself. It's such a cleverly constructed prop. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:It's what I take about Pridan. It's much like any of the sort of key gimmicks the coin gimmicks I make as well maybe not the coin ones so much now that everyone's moving away from physical money, but definitely back then you had to make a coin gimmick or a key gimmick look as good as it possibly could, purely because this is something people unconsciously look at every single day and whether we like it or not, um, if there's something even slightly off about it, it's like the uncanny valley thing you get in CGI, where a face doesn't look quite right. It's a face, but it doesn't look quite right. I think the same thing happens with magic props. So if it's a coin or a key or something that people handle regularly, even if it's slightly off or just slightly out of the ordinary, their brain picks up on it, and once their brain picks up on it, anything you're doing just goes out of the ordinary. Their brain picks up on it, and once their brain picks up on it, anything you're doing just goes out the window. So I took a bit of time in making sure that that thing looked right and making sure I had the right key and making sure it would be one that would pass in most countries and all that kind of fun stuff.
Speaker 1:But I'm a bit of a geek. I love the reshare side of things like the room I'm in just now is my practice space and my workspace. My 3D printers and stuff are here. My little lathe is here. Everything I like is round about here so I can try and make things look as good as they can. The key has just been in there because it's so versatile and it looks as it should and in the routine it's obviously all inspectable, thankfully.
Speaker 3:And we've gone for another very organic thing. We've gone from coins into keys, so we're looking at quite an organic set so far. So we'll see if that changes. With number three, what did you put in your third spot?
Speaker 1:Oh, this is where we break the chain. As a card trick I'm getting on. Of course it's not card trick, um, the third position for me is my wallet. Um, a lot of people might not realize that you get two types of magicians. You get magicians that are into wallets and have drawers full of them and you get magicians that just don't get the fuss. I was most. I used to be one of the ones that had a drawer full of them. A wallet came out, didn't matter what it done. I bought it For anyone.
Speaker 1:That's sort of non-magic-y listening out there for a magician. If you find a wallet that helps you make a card vanish and appear in your wallet, or you can have wallets that will help you view things easier without giving too much away. There's a whole plethora of different wallets that do a bunch of different things and some that claim they're doing them all and none of them quite do it. Quite right, but the wallet I have is in my pocket so I can roughly go through everything that's on it. I love this thing and it is an Oster wallet. It's like a three-fold wallet. I know you guys can't see it, but so this is the Cerberus wallet. Any of you magic people out there. If you want one, I think you can still pick them up in most magic stores. It's the Cerberus wallet. I think you can still pick them up in most magic stores.
Speaker 1:It's the service wallet. I think it was Magic World that initially put it out. I went away from it for a while. I went for the Orphic wallet for a bit, which I still quite like, which is by the 1914. And I always end up going back to the service wallet because it'll allow me to the server's wallet, because it'll allow me to do a card to wallet, it'll allow me to do a peek. It's got an out to lunch built in there. It's also got like a, an indexing system where I've got a couple of things built in and, hmm, I may have found a cheat and I'll need to discuss if this is allowed on the island. Is it my wallet, as is, with everything in it and there's everything that's in? This will count as still this one item.
Speaker 3:So because regular listeners know exactly what this means I have other tricks for them here, so so regular listeners know that if you're going to take a wallet, then the devil's advocate comes out.
Speaker 3:Because the devil's advocate is going to restrict you down to just one thing with that wallet. So that wallet is only allowed for one purpose. So the other tricks that you have in it become obsolete because you're only allowed to use one routine. So with your wallet, if you were only to perform one of the routines, which routine would it be and why?
Speaker 1:With this wallet. I like the idea of they can sign or not sign. They can write a word or a number or a name or whatever and you stick it inside your wallet. You close up your wallet, nice and clean, and you place it in their hands. Just in that action you know what the word is or whatever information is on there or whatever the drawing is. Again, I'm a bit of a wallet snob, considering I make my own leather goods as well. But the service wallet is, if you ask, the best one out there just now, and it has been since its release. It's got to be over 10 years now. I love to think yeah, so the peak within the wallet is what I would use on that side.
Speaker 3:And without giving any method away, because, once again, we don't want to go into methods, but most peak wallets will function different ways, so what about your particular one? Makes it more impactful for you without them knowing it.
Speaker 1:You're looking at the everything they've written on that card for you. It's a threefold wallet. So you open up the wallet and it's not bifold, it's trifold, right? So when you put your information in there and you fold this back up for them, it makes it appear like it's way deep within the wallet. There's no way you can get to it and then you can show all the way around. But in the act of closing this up, I can see everything Like. I can see everything. Like. Everything is just here. So, poor Jamie, on camera, it's just there, you can't miss it. That's why I like it. There's no, that's why I like slick as well. There's no messing about. You've got a clear view of what that is. There's no trying to peek through a folded billet and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:I get those guys out there that are really good at that.
Speaker 1:I'm just not, and I don't want to be fiddling around with a billet that's folded up and trying to get a double peek in there and all that stuff. Once the information's in there, I can close up the wallet and as I close up I get a good, clear view of what it is and then, even if I miss that, I then get a reasoning to go back into the wallet, take out another business card from another spot in the wallet for where it's held a DV out of Lunch Park so I can write down what I think their word is. And as I'm doing that, I can get a second peek, so it gives you an out if you forget what the word was or just didn't quite get a good read, or that kind of thing as well. And it's just a good-looking wallet as well age as well. Um, and it's just a good looking wallet as well age as well. It's made of nice leather, so nice.
Speaker 3:Well, again, we're keeping with the organic nature of your, your list so far, and it brings us to number four. So what did you put in your fourth spot? We're trying to break the chain.
Speaker 1:Um, there is no cards in four slot. Am I knowing you? Yet I think think I might be. So in the four slot there's an Akito box, which is not something that I think a lot of people who know my material and my work not a lot of people would have thought Urusin's going to put an Akito box in there. But it needs to be there, the reasoning being is I've written a one man show and this routine that I use, even in close up, is from that show and it flows nice, like for anyone that's listening in a keto box.
Speaker 1:It's just a nice little brass box. You put four coins inside there, you put the lid on, you tap and a coin falls through the bottom and you can make that happen one by one. There's also a bunch of other effects that you can do with it, but I just coins go in and they fall through, and this is usually something I'll do off the back of Tribune. So it works as like a little flowing set. But again, it's a little brass box that you can just throw into your case. It can bounce about in the bottom there. You don't have to mummy this thing.
Speaker 1:It will take a beating and I'm one of those people that either thinks if you're going to have a brass prop, like in a Keto box or a Boston box or that kind of thing, it either needs to be quite well polished which is the way I'm keeping this one for the show just now or beat up to an inch of its life, it needs to look used. So it either needs to look kept or used. It can't be sort of mid-ground just me being a bit snobby but yeah, I love the thing and the reason I'm liking it so much just now is I have some audience participation with it and it's flying well. And the reason I never used to use them is because Nikita box is the keto box. It's a little brass cylindrical box.
Speaker 1:Um, it doesn't look like anything we have in the world just now. Um, it looks like a magic prop and I thought people would call on that. Um, but by the time I've done trigon and they understand it's magic, the brain kind of relaxes slightly and then once I ring this and just he looks a little box here, pop the coins in there for me it then flows nice and people don't question it anymore. So I'm now looking at some of the sort of older gimmicks out there and just trying to apply my style of thinking to it.
Speaker 3:A Keto box is something that we've not had a huge amount of, and I know that there's. I mean Bluthermagic recently brought out the Deluxe box set, which basically has one of everything in it. It's an amazing set. But if someone wants to get into the akito box or wants to start learning where, where did you start learning your routine?
Speaker 1:so I'm a bit of a funny one with it. Obviously I've been. I've been doing magic now since I was nine and I'm now 42 and the akito box even back then was one of the first things you got, because these are a prop much like anything in Magic. You'll be able to find really cheap versions of it that you can get just to buy like a kid, to test the waters to see if they're going to like Magic. But then you can go up and buy really nice ones where obviously you're not going to buy one of these real nice ones if you haven't worked your way up from the little cheap ones. So the initial routine that I had was Joker Magic. Remember the tricks you used to buy and it's like a fold out sheet of photocopy paper and that was your instructions and they were very obviously taped up in a typewriter and the image drawn at the top. So it was initially that that I used and then I played with little parts here and there over the years.
Speaker 1:A couple of years back I saw Terry from the Oracle, who is just a phenomenal coin worker, one of the best coin magicians I've ever seen. I'm at a weird point with him where I'd probably say he surpasses Roth, and I don't say that statement lightly. David Roth, for any non-magicians, is a pro-epic coin magician but Terry's phenomenal. So I saw him do some stuff on the Keto box and I thought I think this could play well within the new show. I'm doing not his routine. Obviously I'll go and learn my own. But to answer your question, sorry again, I like this in my own voice.
Speaker 1:The Okita box I'm using is Lost Art Magics Okita box. It's been designed a little tad different. The difference in it wouldn't make sense to a normal participant, but for something that we do in the routine it's a must and needs to be changed. The lid's slightly shallower and their routine's good that you get with the Lost Art Occhietto box. But good luck finding them now I don't think the company's going anywhere. So if you can find one secondhand, go for it. They're great and the routine you get in there is good. It's a nice flowing routine with phases that look very fair. There's a point in there where you drop the coin in the box or you let them do it. You put the lead in the box, you let them hear it in there and then when you drop it down at the table, the lead falls off and the coin's just gone.
Speaker 3:The lost art routine is beautiful, so if you're looking for one, if you can find that second hand, go for that well, that's a great choice and it's a slight deviation because we do have a magic prop in there, so it's slightly less organic, but I know we keep referencing it. Go back to listen to Andy Nyman's episode where he talks about magicians having props and why maybe we think too much about trying to justify stuff and not just being the magician that has a magical prop.
Speaker 3:It's a really great, great point, but it does lead us to number five. So what did you put in your fifth spot?
Speaker 1:Number five is a pack of cards. Woohoo. So that is for obvious reasons. We weren't going to get through this episode without there being a pack of cards in there. Considering the amount of card magic that I've consumed, it needs to be in there. Now we could get into the snobbery of what pack of cards we use and, in this vein, we could really annoy a bunch of magicians. And, coming from someone that has had their own custom deck of cards out, I mean, that's the ones I use up on. If you can hear me saying riffling, that's what I'm using. If I'm using.
Speaker 1:If I'm gigging. I've got a very particular card I like to use and they're called bikes. Don't care if they're blue, don't care if they're red, just bikes. And the reason being is a lot of magicians fall into the trap of thinking these 52 little objects hold a bunch of power in the spectator's eyes. So I need to use the very best I can get the best paper, the best pressing, the best printing. For a spectator, a playing card is a piece of paper with a drawing on it. This is something that if you're in the house and the table's wobbly, they'll jam some of them under that table to fix it. So if I'm doing magic with them and I'm out in the public, I want to be the same. I don't want to be treating these any different. I don't want to be worrying about a dry spot on the table. Sure, if I'm doing a routine and I need to deal with the table, I'll wipe a little bit. But I'm not going to worry about if a little splurge of water gets on there and the car warps. I'll just trash that deck and put a new one. And that's why I like bikes, because even though they are getting a bit more expensive now, they're still relatively cheap compared to some of the designer decks out there. So I love bikes.
Speaker 1:The next in line on that one in my little rant will be the Phoenix cards, and it's for the same reason. They're a standard Phoenix deck or cheap enough. You don't have to baby them too much. You can get different sized pips, which comes in quite handy. And with the Phoenix decks I'm sorry I'm going to maybe break a rule here you can get a normal Phoenix Dex and a Mark Phoenix Dex for roughly the same price, which doesn't happen with any other company. As far as I'm aware. If there's extra work put into them, most companies will put their price up, maybe rightly so, but I like that. Christian and the guys over at CardShark have just said no, no, it's still a pack of cards. The print process is still the same.
Speaker 1:Here you go have it, and sometimes it's nice to have a deck with some marks on there. I don't use them often, but if there's markings on there, there's a few routines that I will use that the marks will facilitate with and help. Yeah, deck of cards, you can't not have them in there. You can do torn, restored locations, card pockets. There's just a wealth of material out there that everyone can choose from, even a little card norm, which you can make on the fly if you get a neat tear.
Speaker 1:In fact, one of my favorite tricks is Ray Walton's card warp. So much so that I've got an image like a cartoon image of the cards in the card warp position tattooed on the back of my calf. The card warp is where you take one card and you fold it lengthways. Take another card and fold it widthways, and as you pass one card through the other, it will flip over so you'll see the back and the face of it with the base, and as you pass one card through the other, it will flip over so you'll see the back and the face of it at the same time. It's a gorgeous routine by Roy Walton. Being one of Roy Walton's assistants, I could not do. You know what I mean. So yeah, playing cards, I love them. I think most magicians do, even the hardcore mentalists that say I don't use props, I am. I purely mean we will mess around with cards. I don't think you'll ever find a magician that hasn't messed with cards at some point, and it'll be a great disservice not to have them on the list.
Speaker 3:Well, everyone knows what's about to happen. I need to get a sound effect for this part really of the podcast.
Speaker 1:The devil has arrived. I could have Again.
Speaker 3:I can only do one card trick Is that what it is, Because you picked a generic deck of cards. You're only allowed one card trick with that deck of cards. So what would the one trick be if you could only do one trick for forevermore?
Speaker 1:Right, we need to play another devil's advocate now instead, because I'm going to throw one back at you Just to be annoying the ambitious card. However, my ambitious card has many phases, some where the card will jump to my pocket, some where I pass that card through the other and it warps as it goes, like card work. It's going to be the longest, most boring ambitious card by the time you get to the end of it. But all the tricks can be in there. In fact, I could start halfway through my ambitious card and maybe end a bit early Like just one phase. No, I'm kidding. I think I thought it was going to be one trick.
Speaker 1:So I do a trick where you have a deck shuffled and there's a Joker face up on the table. They select a card. So you just let them see a card and you drop it back into the deck and you take the joker and you place it down next to it and you just flick the card from the table into the side of the pack. So the jokers face up and the face down deck. So once you square it in and spread, you take the card that's right next to it and that card and turn them over and it's their card, and then you can quite nicely just pop the joker in front of them, place your card on top and say my favorite card is the six of diamonds. Why don't you give it a try? You let them flick it on in, pop it in, you spread out and it's a six of diamonds. And you can just keep that going over and over and over if you wanted to.
Speaker 1:That's my favourite routine just now with a normal deck. If it was a gimmick deck for something else, I'm doing with a normal deck. That's the thing that I'm doing most just now and I'm because of the show I'm doing. I'm focusing quite heavily on routines and moments that put the onus on this the participant to do the work. So it makes them feel like you're just spectating on them doing the magic. So I like sort of putting it in their hands and that's this one lets you demonstrate it and lets them show that you are the magician, you can do it, but also lets them feel the sort of power of it as well, which is quite good, okay, well, we'll let you off, then We'll let you off.
Speaker 1:We need to name that one. Actually, what do we name it?
Speaker 3:Go for it Simply Flip or Flip. I would do Simply Flip because it sounds like no effort needs to be put in by the spectator, but they still end up with a miracle.
Speaker 1:You're using Flip as a replacement. Okay, so that's what we're using Simply flip is it?
Speaker 3:That's what his name is from now on. There you go. That's the first trick we've named on the podcast since it started. So there we go.
Speaker 1:That's one of my little weird crepes in this magic community. You'll do a chain and someone will go oh yeah, what's that called, I don't know. I made it up last week on a plane. I don't name everything. See, when you see a list of tricks on a DVD or a lecture or that kind of thing and they've all got their little names there, so people know what they are, people come up and go oh yeah, so that's a good little trick. It's amazing, I don. People know what they are. People come up and go oh yeah, so that's good little trick. It's amazing. Don't know what you're talking about. I made up the name on the spot just so it had a name for the thing. So I just call it. The car gets thrown in, thingy. I think most magicians are the same that release stuff. But we don't name tricks mostly. I don't know many people that do unless it's like a big piece in your show, then it tends to be named after that part of your show.
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Speaker 3:Well, that brings us to number six. So what did you put in your sixth spot?
Speaker 1:My watch going back to the organics. So there's a lot of watch magic out there. There's a lot of routines that you can do with a standard watch where you can have the spectator wind on through and then land at a specific time, and there's some where the watch can be faced down on the table and they can name a time and then when you lift up your watch, that's the time you set. And there's a lot of fun stuff you can do with it and I have recently got into I've recently got into watch building as a hobby. I have ADHD. I chronically collect hobbies I do apologize.
Speaker 1:So there's a couple of gimmicks out there that are slightly electronic, that help you manipulate a watch. I think is the best way to put it. But none of those watches really look great. They don't look like any other sort of watches that are out there, so I decided to build one basically. So I've got a couple. Now this is one that is just a Speedmaster, but it does extra stuff for magic, so this one will let me do time predictions and that kind of thing. I will never leave the house without a watch on, so I thought there's no point in me having this on me. If it doesn't do any magic, I'm going to have it on me at all times. So it does that and I'm also working on doing a a linking thing with the strap. Because it's a bracelet style strap where there's no gap in it, I'm working it away to have things link onto it.
Speaker 3:So the reason that you created your own version of like a magic watch was that because you're unsatisfied with what's out there at the moment already, because there's quite a few brands nowadays that that make special watches there is there by all means.
Speaker 1:There absolutely is. There's a slight rant again here. I guess there's a lot of magic companies out there making, um, these specific watches that do specific things, and not all of them. Some of them are just rebranding movements that are already out there but not offering support for them, like there was a company. I won't say the names, I don't want to put anyone on blast. I'm quite friendly with a couple of them. I get why it happened, but there was a company that became massive in that sort of field. They were the watch to have. Now they've vanished. You can't get support for the watch if you spent money on that very expensive watch.
Speaker 1:So what I've done is the movement that's in mind is a high street brand's movement that does the same thing, and I just built it into a nice watch case that suits my style more. But the ones that are on the market just now magicians aren't watch designers. There's very few of us that mess around in this kind of field. A lot of magicians aren't really design engineers either, whether we like it or not. So designing a good-looking watch and understanding what goes and what looks nice aesthetically, it's not something that they're very good at in that aspect. So, yeah, I built my own because of that.
Speaker 1:The ones that were out there just were a bit lacking for what I wanted. And, to be absolutely honest, since Neil Sturton has got me into watch building, I became a bit of a snob. To be quite honest, with it, I became a bit of a watch snob. I don't I'll never wear a smart watch again. If I need to track my fitness and that kind of stuff, I'll put a myBand on my other wrist. But my watch is my watch and that's the first thing it needs to do. It needs to be a good watch. If I can get a magic feature built in, great. But yeah, just because I became a bit of a snob with it, the stuff that was out there was just a little bit lacking for what I wanted. Not saying there's not good watches out there in the magic field, which is not, for me, very diplomatic answer. It was a very diplomatic answer.
Speaker 3:Well done, but it does bring us into the tail end of your eight, so you've got two more spots left. What did you put in your seventh position? A Rubik's Cube.
Speaker 1:This is another sort of funny one for me, because it's not one that I thought would have been. If you'd asked me these same questions two years ago, a Rubik's Cube would have been nowhere near this list. However, in fact more than two years ago now, during the pandemic. So during the pandemic, the first time I got COVID, I was quite bad with it. I was bedbound, basically, and I had bed-bound basically and I had nothing to do just sitting there in bed. So I thought I'm going to learn how to solve one of these finally, like properly. I've been doing it for years, let's just learn how to solve it. So now I've got a nice little base. I'm able to solve it within about the 2 minutes, 2 minutes 30 mark which I found.
Speaker 1:If you're not trying to be like a super kid at it, I found that this 2 minutes to 2 minute 30 mark is still quite impressive for a normal punter or spectator, and I don't want to be like Tom, who is just freaking phenomenal with these things Like, if you ever get the chance to see his act, go see it. It's Nerdcubed I think he's calling it now Tom Crosby's set. He's just phenomenal with them. He's built up a whole act on them and I don't think anyone's going to compete with that, but just with a normal cube. If you know some simple, quick solves and how to do a normal solve, there's a lot of play. You can get in there with the spectator and again it's one of those things that everyone knows, everyone's seen.
Speaker 1:Most people still to this day will probably still have a release cube somewhere in a bottom drawer, still mixed up, with the stickers half peeled off and all that kind of fun thing. And again, if you wanted to, in the magic scope of things, there is the stickers half peeled off and all that kind of fun thing. And again, if you wanted to, in the magic scope of things, there is other versions out there just now that make it easier for you. If you don't know how to solve it, I'll try and leave that as big as I can, because that may be some information that we don't want out there. There's other ways to make it a bit easier, however. Just a normal root cube.
Speaker 1:And again, if I ever get bored because again diagnosed ADHD. I need to stim a lot. I found just sitting messing with a cube is a great. It's like a fidget thing. It's phenomenal for that too, so it'll facilitate in that side as well.
Speaker 1:But yeah, a Rubik's Cube. I never not have one too far off. There's always one kicking about somewhere and he says, as he picks one up, I can have another four in sight. And the good thing with cubes now as well, they're so cheap. Now you can buy. You'll get something for like two or three quid on Amazon that are decent enough to perform it and then, after doing magic, you've got a table with one. If it's a kid there, you can just give it to the kid and leave. It can be a little giveaway to keep that kid happy at the table, and that's why I've bought a bunch of them. So yeah, a Rubik's Cube. I never thought it would be on my list, I never thought I would see it, but because of Tom Crosby it's absolutely in there. I see the error of my ways and I know I have one in my bag at all times.
Speaker 3:Well, I completely agree. I think Cube Magic is superb and I love that there's been such a massive. I mean, arguably it was Stephen Brundage back in on America's Got Talent which really made magicians go, wow, there's, there's something in this and the reaction that he got. And then, of course, his project, which was cube cube cubed, that just literally set the world on fire, the magic world on fire, with Rubik's Cube magic. And I think that a lot of magicians think that it's not within their grasp to learn a Rubik's Cube, but it's just memorizing steps. It's actually a lot easier than people think yeah, it's even doing a normal solve.
Speaker 1:As I say, if I have a really, really good day I can get it down to about a minute, maybe a minute 30. But that's me on like if I've gone up, I've had my wee abex, I'm tanned, I'm chilled, I'm ready to go. But, as I said before, I think about this at a 2 minute 30 mark with a little bit of body play with people, it's perfect. People still find that impressive and they find just solving it better than most tricks that I have seen done with it. Apart from Tom and I think you're right on the Stephen Brundage thing as well, with the drama on that one aside I think most people would need to agree that he was the one that sort of brought it to the sort of public forefront for what it is. But I think Tom has taken that sort of mantle from him and boosted it through the roof.
Speaker 1:There's a routine that Tom does in his show. I won't say what the routine is because I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but it's basically a cube solve and it's done under the most impossible conditions and it's one of those ones where I have a. I think I know how he does it. There's most magicians. We kind of know a chunk of a lot of stuff from what other people are doing. However, I don't want to ask him, or I don't want to talk to him about it, because I don't want to know if that's right. I like the idea that there's going to be something in there that I've not quite got and it's it's still getting me, do you know? I mean it's, it's such a gorgeous routine. I love it. Um, yeah, it's. Cubes are great. It's a puzzly thing you can just play with as well, if you want to. There's a bunch of magic you can do.
Speaker 3:I recommend everyone has one with them and I would still put that under the organic, broad uh bracket, because I do think it's still something that lives in the real world as an organic object. I don't think it necessarily is associated with magic and magicians specifically, so I still think that that would come under an organic thing. But it does lead us to number 8. So this is your final thing now people playing Alan Morrison bingo do we think another organic prop? What do we think it's going to be? I think that this might be a curveball item. I think this may be a bit different.
Speaker 1:After this one, do I still have the non-magic related?
Speaker 3:item as well. You do still have the non-magic item which you could have taken your Rubik's Cube technically in that position.
Speaker 1:I'll sort of figure out if the thing I'm going to put in there would have to be put in here or if I can use what I want here, and then that's a separate item. So the final one, and the sort of magic-y side or trick side, is a ring of the PK variety. So a PK ring for, again, any sort of non-magic-y kind of people out there is a ring that will assist in doing a bunch of magic. It'll allow you to do vanishes, productions of coins or small objects or that kind of thing. There's a whole.
Speaker 1:There's been a couple of projects out there that over some routines with a PK ring, and all of them have been slightly lackluster. I at some point I'm going to sit down and I think it'll be a book. I'm going to write down a bunch of the routines that I've got with this thing. I've got I think it's a hundred different routines with a PK ring. I love the thing and it's one of the things I really never leave the house without. If I don't have a PK ring with me, I have a thing that I have made called a stinger, which turns a normal ring into a PK ring, if that makes sense. And allow me to do the same routine. I'll have that on me, one of the two because it's just such a versatile little prop. It's underutilized, man, I'm telling you.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm going to be devil's advocate with it. I'm going to be devil's advocate with it. I'm going to be devil's advocate here and say, because it is something that can be used as a utility item, if you could do one routine. So if people were going out there and they picked up this item and they were going to do one routine, what would you suggest they do?
Speaker 1:So I think a lot of people would think that I would say my matrix. But there's a different story on that that I can't tell here because on the show that's not what was used. There was a different reason why I had to choose Yield on that one, unfortunately. But I guess it could be moving things, pk sort of wise, like taking a fork or something and placing it on top of like a bottle and having it spin or move over, that kind of thing. I think doing that kind of thing with it.
Speaker 1:If I could only do one thing, it would be that purely because of the impact of it, because it means I don't need to worry about adding anything thread wise to the list or that kind of stuff, because you can do something in a similar vein with that. Now I mean I could have added I mean I've got my own thread field and a bunch of work with that I could have added that to the list but with the PK ring for most of the routines that if you wanted to get the same impact and style routine, you could do it with the ring as well. So that's why I would probably stick with that and the peeking moving things well, it's a great list.
Speaker 3:It's very, very organic. You know, we've gone from a coin trick we've got a linking key. We've got your wallet there. We've got the deck of cards uh, you've got a watch rubik's cube. Now we've got a ring. Obviously, the only non-magic, uh, the non-organic prop there we have was the akito box, but you're using that with an organic prop. So it's fair to say that a lot of your magic now is just organic in in its process oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Um, even with your keto box as well, there are some vaseline tins that you can get and like pound land and that kind of thing and use as an acuto box. If you wanted to have it be organic, you could use those for the show I'm doing. I just like a little brass box because it ties in with the character I'm putting forward. But I've always been slightly organic in everything that I do for me before I started using that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:If I ever felt too much that something I would have saw on the TV in the 80s, like big bunches of flowers appearing canes and that kind of thing it just I don't dislike it. It just doesn't fit my style. I try to keep things as organic as possible and if it's not, if I know it can't be as organic as I want it to be I tend to kind of lean into it a little bit. It's going to look magic-y. It just needs to look magic-y, it just is what it is. So I try to lean into that slightly. So, yeah, I tend to be more organic but I can be.
Speaker 3:Well, that leads us into our brand-new controversial item. So this is the Banishment. What did you banish onto your island?
Speaker 1:Smoke, smoke and smoke devices, um. So when vapes initially came out obviously it was said before that I built a gimmick, um called smoke, which just allowed you to produce a puff of smoke for your mouth seemingly out of nowhere. A lot of people don't know that back then I'd done some work for a company design wise, designing a part of the atomizer that all those smaller ones used. So I was in the thick of that one. I kind of knew those were coming before most people did, and back then it was great. Now do I still use Smoke? You'll notice I still call it Smoke because of its name. I do Now and again I'll use it. However, it is very few and far between now, because it just isn't as impressive anymore with how vapes have came. It's not. It's something that people can piece together quite easily now, no matter what you do or how you retain it. Unfortunately, now, this is why I've also barreled in most other smoke devices, like ones that are hidden elsewhere, because even though a participant doesn't know where it's coming from, they know what it is. They know that half the front row will be carrying something that can do it too, and that bothers me, which is the reason why I would quite happily just let it go the other side of smoke as well is because the second name of it was just smoke. And I have a six-year-old who is now going on to Google and all that kind of fun stuff. I don't want to get to a point in my daddy daycare career where I turn around and say I'm not smoking as bad and he goes well, why, hey, hold up here? How come I can find you all over the internet Linked to a thing called smoke, with smoke coming out of your mouth. So I've got a responsibility now that I didn't have back then. That I'm trying to negate as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, smoke devices the go on end of it is. I think now most people know what they are. I think now most people have an idea, albeit vague, of what it is and how it works. Don't think it's impressing most people anymore, and if people are really responding to it and Don't think it's impressing most people anymore, and if people are really responding to it and overreacting to it, I think it's because they like you a bit more than the trick. They've bought into your character a bit more than the trick. I'm not saying they can't be used to good effect. It's just very hard to find a situation where the good effect would be.
Speaker 3:It's an interesting one because, like I say, I remember that trick so vividly. I remember that you sent me one of your prototype ones, so this was one of the very, very early ones that you had, before you sort of batch produced it, then you batch produced it as schmoke and then obviously you had it sold through. I think it was theory 11, wasn't it? Or was it illusionist? It was theory 11.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I've sold the rights to it to someone else. Someone approached me and says, look, I kind of want to do this so I can. How would you work it? I was like we'll just buy the rights to it then. And he's like, sure. So anyone contacted me just now saying, can you maybe? Just? I know you don't sell them anymore, but can you make me a sneaky one and have the rights anymore? I've sold the rights, so I can't. I'm allowed to make them for myself and one for me, and that is it if I ever want to use it. But back then these things just weren't known at all, like the initial prototype I sent you. The branding that was on the side of that unit was the company that I was doing r&d for, um, so I was getting it directly from them.
Speaker 1:I can't discredit what it is and what it was. It will still be used, it will still get a good reaction here and there and I still do carry one with me. But where I used to use it every second table, Now I'm using it maybe every second week, maybe every third week, just because the situation needs to be absolutely perfect for me to know that it's going to have an impact.
Speaker 3:Well, we have banished all smoke devices onto your island. Now that actually does you a little bit of a benefit, because when you're stuck on that island and you're trying to get help, your smoke signals are going to be tremendous.
Speaker 1:It'll be great. It'll be like lost, which I recently watched again. I binged the whole thing again just to see if I was too young to get the point. There's still no point to the ending of that show. It's still rubbish.
Speaker 3:Well, that brings us to your book. So what did you put in your book? Position Complete well, volume one.
Speaker 1:I love this thing. Again, I'm one of Roy's boys, as I recall. There is so much good material in here that you can tell where I'm at. I still have the bookmark in here for something that I'm reading. There's so much good material in this book. If you only got one book on Card Magic, if you got this, you'll give yourself a lifetime worth of material. There's three volumes of this as well. I've chosen the first one, maybe slightly for the nostalgia in it, but just because there's still routines in here that I'll perform daily. It's a stunning book.
Speaker 1:So the complete Walton volume one, if you can find it, I could copy all of it. It has been sort of reprints. I would recommend trying to find one of the originals, if you can. If you can, there's just there's something about it. I don't know what it is like. For me, old books have got a feel and a texture and a smell to them that I like I don't know. It just turns my brain on to learning a bit more for some reason. If you can't get those, you can get the newer ones. But Complete Walton, volume 1, I think I'm going to choose 1. If the devil's advocate would come in and let me take it as a set. I would take Volume 1, 2 and 3.
Speaker 3:If you were to take one trick from the book, is there like a standout routine for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, PLF, the Carl Fong trick. So there's a convention that happens up in Scotland every year in October time.
Speaker 1:I say convention. It's a a magic day filled with talks. A casual day filled with talks is how they would brand it. It's Neil Sturton and Peter McClann who put it on, and Jack as well, of course it's named after this trick. Basically it's a card location with dice is the easiest way to put it without exposing anything. Dice help you find a card in the most impossible way. And the reason I like it is there's just a lot of scope in it to have a bit of by-play with your spectators and to script around it when the description has its routine in there. There's a lot of good and easy ways to add a story to it, which I like. I've said this in a few podcasts and stuff before.
Speaker 1:But Roy Walton literally did save my life, absolutely. I was getting ready to go home one night and do a very silly thing and when I went into the shop on the way back, roy noticed there was something up and he handed me. It was card work. At the time he handed me a minute, come back next week and do it for me. I was like, alright, cool, and I went home and I just didn't think about the other thing, thankfully and went and learned the routine and went back. He spent way too much time with me that day just making sure that I was in a good spot before I left, so I didn't do something really stupid. So I came back done card work, it was all good. And then at that point I was like I want to learn more. I was like so what do we have?
Speaker 1:And that's when I bought that book. It was the first book I bought from him. He signed it for me, which was nice. I went home and started learning a bunch of routines from that. So over the years I bought all three and obviously six years ago I had a kid and Spencer got to my initial copy of Cardwork and my initial copy of Complete Walton, volume 2, with pens and crayon. Before he knew the importance of, like some books, daddy's got in his room and that kind of thing and absolutely annihilated them. So sitting there I was like great. So the version of Card Warp that he's destroyed is fine because that's the unsigned one I had to. I had one that Roy had signed to me and then this is that one. It's all fine, although the complete Walton is stuffed.
Speaker 1:And then I discovered I couldn't find the original cardboard either and I'd forgot that I had lent it out to someone and I just never got it back. So I was a bit down on that and I spent a couple of years in all up to six now to try and find like replacements. At this point I didn't care if they were signed or notated or that kind of stuff, or if they were signed to someone else, as long as it's just the original one. So a couple of versions of cardboard popped up on ebay a couple of months back and I thought, cool, I'll grab it. So I paid the money, sent it on over and then the seller sent me a message back, says, look, I've refunded you. And I was like, oh, did you not have them in stock anymore? What's going on? So no, I've sent them out, but I've refunded you. You'll understand when it gets there.
Speaker 1:So the card warped, arrived and I opened it up and it's like two allen, it was my version of it, so I had lent this thing out and it went around wherever it went around. This dealer had found it, picked it up and I'd managed to find it again and try and buy it without knowing. And he sent me a note back just saying I think this rightfully belongs to you. And he gave it back, which was real nice. So it was a couple of months later, complete Walton, volume 2 pops up and it says inscribed. The guy said he had two in stock, both inscribed to someone, and the picture showed one that was inscribed to Scott da, da, da, da, da da. I was like that's fine, it'll do, I don't care about the name on it, as long as I replace that book. It's important to me. So I spent the money and I think I paid just a little bit over the normal market value, as you would, but sentimental value, you just do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:The book arrives and it opened up and it says 2 Alan on it. Now I know, fine. Well, it wasn't this Alan, it wasn't me that this was signed to, because I've still got my Crayola penned version of it with my signature on it. But this was just signed to some other random Alan. So I've got a pristine copy of that now with my signature on it, which is great.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so the card warp style thing, my initial copy that was sent to me I gave out to someone and then I bought another one at some point and then the initial one came back. Like you could not, I don't think I could explain the happiness you saw in my face when I opened that thing up and I was quite happy that the dealer at the time as well was quite nice and realised and went no, no, here, just take it. So no complaints. That was a little joyous thing. I had a month or two back and I still have.
Speaker 1:I still have the card where. Where is it has a little note in there saying no, no, this one's yours. With a little letter. It just says no, I believe this is yours. So yeah, you should have this. So I can't complain. And he sent me another non-signed one as well, just so I'd got a backup, which was quite nice. And if you want to know, I have that image. I know you can see this. I know you out there can. It's just a version of Card Warp. It's a picture from the back of the manuscript. I've got that tattooed in the back of my leg.
Speaker 3:Well, it means it was meant to be. It must have been meant to come back to you. It had to have been meant to come back to you.
Speaker 1:It had to have been. So when it came in, my wife came in and she said, oh, you found it. I'm like no, I was like I bought one, remember. She's like huh. I was like, yeah, it's found its way back. So, yeah, serendipitous, I guess it's never leaving this bookshop again, it's just staying there.
Speaker 3:Real magic. There you go. That does bring us to your item. So what did you put in your non-magic item? My phone.
Speaker 1:It's my phone. Come on now. My phone is a notepad and pen. I'm big into music. I've got headphones with me everywhere. I play a bunch of instruments. I need my music with me, so my phone does all of that. No devil's advocate can come out here, shut your mouth. It does a bunch of magic stuff as well, if I want it to. I'm stuck in a blooming island. I have a thing that has GPS on it. Now find me, do you know what I mean? My phone. I never leave my house without my phone.
Speaker 1:Like two weeks back I'm getting a bit passionate here because I've realized that how much of my life is on this thing. A couple of weeks back, um, in fact, ever since mobile phones became a thing, I've had pretty much one every second, third year since they were a thing. Right, I have never smashed a screen on one of them until about two weeks ago and it fell off my bedside table and just hit the brick of my laptop charger and just shattered it. And I was like and these phones nowadays, they're not cheap to replace the screens anymore. So I was like, do I replace this myself or do I try and find someone that can do it? And I panicked for a minute because I just I realised everything is on here my bank cards, pictures of my kids that I won't be able to back off, like everything my life is on this phone, a bunch of my magic stuff. I see kids like I've got more than I have one kid, a single one. And thankfully I found a guy locally, a guy called Ross Giller, who was like I can get this sorted for you for tomorrow. I'll come pick it up now, picked it up, came back, dropped it off that's the price gave me the money and it was sorted.
Speaker 1:I had it all running again, but my phone I don't think I can live without it. See, if I just go from here to the shop to buy something and I feel that it's not in my left pocket, I need to go back. I can't just get to the shop, get on and pay with my card and go back. I need to go get my phone. I'm properly addicted to it but, for reasons I'd said, there's a bunch of magic stuff you can do with a phone as well. You can use it as a notepad and pen, you can watch movies and then you can listen to your music and all that good stuff with it. So a phone with a sword bank plugged onto it, just in case you don't have power and I'm golden.
Speaker 3:But it's a great list overall. Obviously, we've gone through it earlier on. We've gone from coins, keys, we've got the Akita book, we've got the akita box, we've got cards. Rubik's cubes rings um. Your banishment was smoke devices, your book was complete walton and your item was your phone very organic, alam there was a couple of close contenders.
Speaker 1:I won't go over what they were, but there were a couple of of things that were like maybe I should have this in there, like, like my. In fact, I'll say one my non-magic item was going to be a fountain pen of all things, and I carry a fountain pen with me everywhere I go now, and it was one of Roy's things actually. Anytime he would sign something or write something. In fact, the initial Devil's Play things and the initial books, he hand wrote them in a fountain pen and then they were typed up later on. Anytime Roy would sign something for you, it would be in his fountain pen. It was like a tradition of his and his reasoning for it that he told me was it takes a moment.
Speaker 1:Like a fountain pen is very unforgiving, so you need to understand your penmanship to make it look nice. Where other pens are a bit more forgiving, however, it takes a minute. If you write something in fountain pen, you have to wait a minute or two for it to dry and if you don't, it's just going to smear that signature away. So if you're important enough for a person to come up and ask for a signature and they feel that they need to have your signature. It's only a minute or two, but it makes them earn it slightly, like it. It means it's important to them. You know it's important because they're going to wait for that to dry, not to smudge it and keep it good, and you can't get water on it and all that kind of stuff. It just it adds a bit more importance to it, and so I've been doing the same for a little bit now.
Speaker 1:I carry a fountain pen with me everywhere I go. Um, my wife always loves and she can always tell when I've refilled it, because I can downstairs with ink everywhere. Um, but yeah, it's.
Speaker 3:That's became another sort of snobbery kind of thing well, if people want to find out more about you and maybe get one of those signatures from you, where can they? They?
Speaker 1:go, you're not going to get a signature. No one wants my signature, let's face it. But the easiest place is alanrurisoncom. You can go there. You can find me there. I'm alanrurison on most things, so on Instagram it's alanrurison, on Facebook it's alanrurison. I don't mess about with the branding on that side of things, it just is what it is. So you can go there on YouTube as well. At Alan Orson you'll find me.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, alan, for finally coming on here.
Speaker 1:It's been my pleasure. Ever since you pitched this to me I've been looking forward to it and I think it's because the list came in my head so quick, I was like no, no, I know what I want to say here and I kind of knew the smoke would probably get the response that it did and probably will from the listeners like we've all got to grow up at some point. Alright, and again, much to Jamie's delight. I am sure you have noticed as well that I have been very polite with my language, because I'm usually slightly more colourful. I've just grown up a little bit. It's been my pleasure. Doing these kind of things is always something I enjoy.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you again, and thank you all for listening. Don't forget, we do have Stranded with a Stranger, which is your chance to send in your list of eight tricks, one banishment, one book and one non-magic item. Send it to sales at alakazamcouk with the subject title my desert island tricks that way it comes through to me of course, include a little bio and why you chose those tricks. With that being said, we will see you next week.
Speaker 2:have a great weekend, goodbye hi peter nardi here and I really hope you enjoyed that podcast. I just wanted to make you know that Alakazam have their own app. You can download it from the App Store or the Google Play Store. By downloading the app, it will make your shopping experience even slicker. At Alakazam, You'll also get exclusive in-app offers and in-app live streams. So go download it now and we'll see you on the next podcast.