Thirty members turned up on Friday 31 March to see and listen to a new lecturer to the Bradford Magic Circle, Trevor Duffy. And what a lecturer! Telling us he came from South Africa and how cold it was in the UK, he rubbed his hands together, producing smoke from his hands. He then showed how he produced this smoke from various other objects and removed his jacket to explain how the effect was produced. Without going into the details, suffice to say that ammonia and hydrochloric acid played their parts, you may even remember your schoolday chemistry lessons to work this one out! From this moment on, Trevor had the audience on the edge of their seats as he demonstrated a variety of effects in the first half of the lecture, all of which our members were quite capable of reproducing. "The Future Trick" was a card effect whereby the audience was taken on a time travel. A card placed into Trevor's left hand trouser pocket at the start of the routine was found, at the end, to be the same card that a spectator signed afterwards and Trevor placed in his right hand trouser pocket. Trevor placed a drop of liquid on Mark Waddington's arm, which Trevor told him would deaden the pain in his arm as he took out a knife. Mark didn't appear too happy about this, so Trevor gave him another drop of the liquid to deaden the pain even more. It seemed to work as when Trevor rubbed the knife along Mark's arm, there was plenty of blood, but no cry of pain from Mark! Trevor also showed a 3 card Monte routine for corporate entertainment; 6 Card Repeat routine ending with 14 cards (will Stevie B be using this in future?!); a card routine whereby a chosen name appeared on the back of the chosen card; and his award winning routine entitled "Minds in Focus". After the interval for our usual cup of tea, Trevor gave us a talk on how to add more impact to your performance, which he calls 'Crossing the Fine Line'. This was full of sound advice, largely based on psychology, on how to add that 'WOW' factor to your performance. Trevor covered this through a number of headings covering aspects of each performance. From his experience some of the items magicians need to concentrate on include looking at their 'Attitude' (how do you deal with the situation in a restaurant where you are mistaken for a waiter? 'Rapport' (do you treat each table in the same manner regardless of the people on the table?); 'Coincidences' (take advantage of them); 'Knockout Routines'; 'Dress' and 'Practice'. With this latter he gave suggestions which any magician should be able to follow to improve their skill. One was have a deck of cards, coins or whatever you are working on next to your bed. When you go to bed, stop and put in 10 minutes of practice. 10 minutes every night is better than 70 minutes once a week. It is a profound thing that skills increase and develop between in-between practice sessions. In amongst giving out these nuggets, Trevor showed his "Happy Birthday Card" trick which is useful in restaurant work where it can be introduced at any time. He had a card with Happy Birthday printed on in his shirt pocket. When he found someone at the table had a birthday, he forced the matching card. He got this to the top of the deck and placed the Happy Birthday card on the bottom, prior to revealing it. Several gags which can be used as useful fillers at any time during close up work went down very well. One that we all liked was when he put his finger through Stevie B's T-shirt. Trevor retired to a well deserved long round of applause. As he packed away, members left the meeting commenting what an excellent lecture they had seen. For those of you who did not purchase Trevor's lecture notes, there is a copy in the library. Ask Peter to borrow the notes, they are well worth a read. | 
