Hello Wizards, Well we're into a New Year and a new heading. Do you like the caricature? It's taken from one that Keith put into the Billet a few years back. Originally, it was drawn by a caricaturist we had at one of our Dinners. Anyway, I thought I'd do something with it. I thought Henry did a superb job with the December Show, under considerable pressure as two of the acts chose to withdraw at the last minute! Colin Cough did very well as he more that a little under the weather. The show seemed to be very well received by the audience, as was young Ross Risdon who performed his audition before the whole audience. This was not mandatory, by any means. Keith and I thought it would compliment the show. And the Committee members present afterwards went into the back room to discuss what they'd seen as usually happens with auditions. He certainly had no fear of the audience. Well done, Ross. I hope you all had a nice Christmas, with many happy memories. Some of you may have seen the generous array of magic across some of the channels. The three channels I know showed some magic or other were channels 4, 5 and Sky One who one evening had a three-hour magic night. The bits I saw were Magic Unmasked, in which rather than reveal how tricks work they explained how they work. While they gave away some smaller secrets of magic, plus one I'd rather they'd kept quiet about on a larger scale, a good amount of magic was shown and not revealed. This program was a prelude to the three hours I mentioned earlier on, which began with some mentalism from Gerry McCambridge. Some of this was recorded in the streets of America with Gerry performing some mental feats to the general public including a very convincing blindfold scooter ride through the streets of New York, during which he stumbled over some rough tarmac and even crashed into the back of a van! When not in the streets, Gerry performed before a studio audience and put many of them to good use. On my first viewing of the program, I was certain of the secret behind just one of the many experiments he performed. The second program was T*H*E*M*, or Totally Hidden Extreme Magic. This was a hidden camera program in which the victims fell prey to stunts performed by magicians. There were some good effects, with one person apparently finding a screwdriver driven through his-arm in an accident. Another had his head slip down a third of his body length having sneezed. There were some clever ideas but for me the program was spoilt by the magicians announcing as their catchphrase as they confessed to the set ups, that they were "one of T*H*E*M*'. Had this been broadcast once or twice throughout the show, it would have been sufficient. But at the end of every stunt shown, it proved repetitive and irritating. The last of the programs that evening was Chris Angel, Supernatural. This program followed Chris around the streets performing some bizarre magic often of a gothic nature, with him suddenly walking up the side of a building or swallowing a marked coin only to have it slide down his arm beneath the skin and retrieved by him cutting into his hand. Set pieces from his celebrated stage show saw him being sawn in half in a beautifully crafted routine. Equally unusual was his version of Interlude/A-Frame, which re-worked the illusion. A fast Metamorphosis and a couple of others led to his being set on fire without the aid of a special suit. Upon the fire being extinguished by his crew, he turned out to be one of the team! The last thing I saw was Magician Impossible, which was an interesting program with unfortunately the worst get ready for the Classic Force I've seen with the finger break being generously caught on camera. Some of the effects were good however especially the bullet catch which I thought was particularly well presented. All in all though it was good to see much magic on the T.V. among the bits I missed were an evening of Monkey Magic and some repeats from Derren Brown. The A.G.M. is next month; please let me have any proposals for President Elect or other offices or matters for inclusion in the meeting as soon as possible. Please note that you can only propose someone who is agreeable to take the position. That's all for now. Thanks for reading, | 
