48 members and visitors turned up to meet and greet Jahn Gallo and his wife, Gunn, on their lecture tour around the country. Jahn explained that his mentor in magic in his early days had been Gentleman Jack, well known in this country as a pickpocket. He learned that, contrary to his early beliefs, complicated magic is not the best, simple magic is. And so saying he produced 3 bank notes from his empty hands. This was achieved by having a photocopy of his hand attached to the back of the copied bank notes, so that it helped hide the fact that he started with these in his hands. He had spent 10 years cruising, which he thought gave him a wonderful life. Besides needing 6 acts, he also had to get on with the guests on a daily basis as they were always around. He learned how to improvise; and gave as an example a time when they were arriving in Egypt and the entertainments manager wanted to put on an Egyptian evening. He adapted his props to suit the occasion. He also said that it taught him to always get the audience to like you as if they do they are less likely to be troublesome. Stating that he needed one bank note, Jahn produced one from his empty hands. Then another appeared; then another, and so on. All to the story that he only required one bank note. He finished the story with his arms out wide – a natural cue for applause. His wife said that there was no problem with too much money and promptly took it away. This led Jahn neatly into asking to borrow £10 to show how he performs the burnt and restored £10 note. Actually as he pointed out he no longer burns the note due to the number of smoke detectors around. Instead he has a shredder into which he puts the envelope for destruction. The production of the bank notes was achieved by folding the notes into quarters and then placing each behind one fold of the previous notes. Saying that he liked card tricks, he took a ring and rope from a jumbo card case. He used a lady volunteer – he always uses ladies as they don't want to show off, unlike many men after three beers! This was a very good ring and rope routine which had many in the audience baffled by some of the moves, particularly after he had cut the rope and had his assistant choose the longer rope after he had shown clearly which it was. He also stated that he often borrows a gents tie and a ladies bangle and does a ring and rope routine with these. As he goes to return the tie to its owner he asks if the tie is silk or synthetic. It doesn't matter what the answer is, he wraps the tie around a thumb tip and then pushes a burning cigarette in, much to the concern of the tie's owner. When Jahn started in magic, he was usually asked 'how short can you make your act?' 5-7 minutes? Nowadays it's more likely to be 'can you do 50/60 minutes?' In these circumstances Jahn feels that it is asking too much of most audiences to sit and watch for an hour. Audiences have to concentrate to watch magic, unlike a singer where they can talk at the same time. His answer is to put a non-magical funny item in the middle of his act. Steve Naylor was then asked to write his favourite drink down on a piece of paper and screw it up. Jahn put this into a shaker (pea can). He borrowed 20p and placed it on the top. Asking what the drink was (lager) he poured out a drink from the pea can. Steve tasted it to discover it was water. Jahn's reply was 'what do you expect for 20p!' In his act he keeps the money. Again an almost non-magical funny item for the audience. Next came an Ambitious Card routine, ending with the cards attached to his hand by a rubber band. He slammed his hand onto the table and the ambitious card ended up on the back of his hand, the remainder of the cards on the table. This was followed by a cards across routine with a difference. A chosen card stayed in the spectator's pocket, the remainder passed across to the other spectator. Mark chose 1 card from a red backed deck. Jahn counted out 12 which he spread face up. He got Mark to place his chosen card in face down. This was placed in Mark's top jacket pocket. Jahn took out a red card and gave it to Mark to hold to remember that this was a red backed deck. This was repeated with Michael and a blue backed deck. As stated, the cards all changed places, except the chosen ones. Jahn did this by putting 11 blue backed cards on the bottom of the red deck and placing 1 red card below. This was repeated with the red cards in the blue backed deck. He took out 1 pack and had a card chosen. When he counted off the bottom 12 cards he reversed their order so that the odd coloured card was at the bottom. The chosen card is placed therein. When the packet goes into the pocket he pulls out the card that matches the back of the chosen card; the remaining card are the other colour. Jahn received a long and appreciative round of applause. | 
