My name is Alan. My last post was on 21st January. I’m very ashamed of myself. I’m going to try regular posts for a while – but obviously this could be the last one for another 3 months so who knows. Anyway, just added a new comment to my site for a nice job I did in Oxford – I’ve put it on my Oxford page (where else?). I just wanted to write and thank you for entertaining us all at the Finance & Commercial Forum in Oxford last week! With over 80 people to please the magic you performed at tables between courses worked really well and the show after dinner was a great end to the evening. Feedback from all attendees was excellent, would definitely book you again. Rebecca Henry, Siemens PLC

A nice email just came in – and I know you all like to hear it here first…

“Alan, just a quick thank you note to say well done and many thanks for keeping our large team superbly entertained with both the close up magic sessions and the group show. We have had great feedback from the team and no doubt we will see you in Manchester in due course.” John Sodhi, Cooperative Financial Services, Manchester

“Hi Alan, I wanted to write to you to say how fantastic you were at our wedding – literally everyone has been talking about it! It was really excellent and god knows how you do everything but it must be magic! I am sure that my father has been in touch with you as he was talking about his 60th in May that he was interested in … I shall leave that to him to organise ! I am so sorry that I have taken so long to write to you – excuses range from honeymoon, christmas and generally being a little rubbish. But better late then never. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend you to people in the future, I am very glad that we got you – you were brilliant.Thanks again and happy new year” Camilla, Chiddingfold, Surrey

More Haste Less Speed – I forgot the date – MONDAY 3RD DECEMBER 2007

As a special blog friend, you are invited to attend Hush Hush. A new alternative cabaret evening featuring magic, music, comedy and burlesque style performances. Rob James and myself decided there was nothing like this in Hull so we’re doing it ourselves. Tickets are £6/£5 and should be a great night. We’ve booked top acts from all over the UK including magicians, singers, escapologists and a burlesque striptease artist- and we are personally very excited about it. Tell your friends and feel free to dress for the occasion… Haworth Arms, Cottingham Road, Hull – Doors 7.30pm/Starts 8.15pm

Hello, my name is Alan. I am a blogger. It has been nearly one month since my last blog. I thought I’d kicked the habit but…..Yes, I’m back. I’ll try not to leave you for so long again. There’s too much stuff since the last one to put it all here, but heres a couple of highlights. I performed at a trade show at NEC for the Dental Showcase BDTA – also there were fellow magicians Phil Jay, Dave Vegas, Steve Faulkner and Sam Strange (Oxford magician who I’d never met before) . I performed at Jason Manford’s (TV comedian and all round nice guy) wedding – lots of comedians there who watched (and largely enjoyed) my magic – so that was nice. Went to the Magic Circle Magic Dealer’s Day in London and also saw a nice show with a fair few magicians in it (along with a singer and a man who proved how good he was at getting an edited music track together) with the 2 Magicians (Barry and Stuart) and Pete ‘Firmski’ Firman who were excellent. Also on were Christian Lee and Lee Hathaway.Also in October I performed at the Hull Comedy Festival in a show called ‘Live Naked Idiots’ – a sketch show with lots of Hull talent and me doing my act just before the interval – went well I thought. Anyway, normal service will now resume with hopefully a blog or 2 a week. Keep it real, keep it here, till next time……

A thankfully quiet week this week. Next week is completely full so am enjoying the rest. Heroes, Prison Break, Curb Your Enthusiasm – they won’t watch themselves you know. I did one job on Sunday in Sedgefield near Teeside. I was performing alongside 3 other magicians. It’s always interesting to work with other performers and see how they go about things. Magicians tend to work out a plan when they are working together at the beginning of the evening to make sure not everyone is doing similar (or exactly the same) tricks, to divide the tables up to make sure everyone gets to see magic etc. Think of it as a plan to go to war – a battle plan.I was working with 2 magicians that I’d never worked with before. One in particular was very interesting. He decided to change the agreed plan for his own advantage using, what we call in the trade, ‘dirty tricks’. To ask the audience to clap and cheer and bang their hands on tables to create the illusion you are going down well, is in my opinion, bad. Even more interesting is the fact that the magician in question is a very good magician with a good image – he has the whole package. So why he feels the need to go down this route is beyond me. Anyway as I said – always interesting to work with other magicians.Foot note – If you ever see me at an event, I will guarantee that the audience reaction I get will be 100% genuine. I won’t prompt them to cheer or clap extra loud – they will do that if they enjoy what I’m doing. Good, strong, direct tricks and funny lines gets the reactions I like – no need for the ‘dirty tricks’.

Just received this nice email

“Hey Alan, Rob and I just wanted to thank you for your amazing performance at our wedding last Friday. You were the highlight of our day, everyone there was baffled, amazed, kerfuffled, and thoroughly enjoyed your show, so thank you very very much for making our day so memorable” Becki & Rob Stiles

Well what a week it’s been loyal blog fans. Monday saw me in Oxford at the Keble College. I thought this was going to be a tricky one as everyone was sat on benches on just a couple of long tables (not on round tables, which gives me easy access to my adoring public, and is definitely my favorite set up for close up at dinner). Been the consummate pro that I am, I started at the ends of the tables (easy access) and tried to make everyone jealous that they were missing something special. Well to my genuine surprise, this actually seemed to work and people were actually turning round to invite me to perform. Quite good in the end. On Wednesday I went to Uxbridge for the Brunel Uni Post Grad Ball – was ok. Outside under a small marque – my fingers got cold. But students are my favorite audience as a lot seem to react to my tricks like I’ve asked them to ham it up for TV special. After Uxbridge I drove to see my friend Sam (self named ‘Handsome Sam’). We went for a drink in trendy Camden and in walked Amy Winehouse. She’s quite small I seemed to remember. Quite nice seeing such a current A-lister in the flesh though. Normally I just see people like Big Brother contestants or Norman Collier who was big in the 80′s for having a broken microphone.Thursday – did a close up magic gig (show, performance – can anyone come up with a better word than gig? Not sure it’s befitting. Oasis do gigs. Amy Winehouse does gigs. Not sure if card tricks at a posh hotel really fits in with them) with magician Dave Jones. Dave is a good magician but hasn’t got a website so I find it difficult to pass people on to him if I’m already booked. He is good though. Anyway we had a lovely time at The Grove in Watford for 200 people as some business thing (it was Dave’s gig – so I’m not even sure who they were. It was mainly men though). After Watford I drove home having been away for a few days. Always a pleasure to come back when you’ve been driving round the country. Alas, I was performing in Lancashire the following day so no time to appreciate the good home feel. Another wedding in Immingham on Saturday and finished off with a 20 min slot at Oulton Hall in Leeds. I do realize that one problem of doing a blog is if I were to ever lie on my tax form about the number of shows I do. Luckily for me I am very honest and would never do such a thing. Also my accountant is too much of a wimp and too scared for it not to be 100% correct.

Don’t worry – a new post is on it’s way. Was going to do it now but am to wait till tomorrow (well later on – it’s 1.26 am). Some good stuff on my travels this week…

Just received an email from the show I did on Saturday night in Cardiff – always good for the ego…”Morning Alan You did what we have failed to do in 14 years – you actually kept everyone sat in there seats after the meal had finished!!  In previous years when the entertainment starts guests prefer to leave the banqueting hall and make their way into the bar!  Not one person left the room whilst you were on stage!! You also eased the awkwardness of people on tables who had never met before and gave them all something to talk about with your magic!! Every conversation I’ve heard this morning is about you and about how you do what you do!! A massive thank you for making the night that extra bit special. Hopefully work with you again soon. Kind regards and thanks again.” Julie, Willmott Dixon Limited

I now realize the problems with blogs. The blogger (that’s me) feels a certain duty to his readers (reader) to come up with something interesting to blog about and if nothing interesting has happened for a few days then it gets quite tricky. However, I’m not going to fall in to that trap. I’ve decided to blog every few days regardless of anything good to say or not. So, some of these will contain nothing and some will be gold. This weekend I was working in Cardiff for a construction company at the Marriot hotel. Cardiff has an incredible one way system that got my Sat Nav in to a right tizzy. Almost all of the roads seem to be for buses only. My Sat Nav is a be a bit of a rebel and was challenging me to go down these roads. I resisted and annoyed it by going about 2 miles round the other way – only for it to challenge me go down a No Entry street. I won in the end. Next day was weddings – one in Cambridge and one in Ware, Hertfordshire. Both good fun and nice people and I enjoyed them both (I know I enjoy a gig when I start to do ‘jazz magic’) but as I mentioned earlier, nothing out of the ordinary as far as our intrepid magician goes so writing anything about them would be contrived. Tomorrow I’m in Oxford, I may purposefully antagonize people or mess up or something just to have something to blog about. Going to have my tea now – till next time… 

Just in case you are wondering – and by you, I mean Dave, no I haven’t given up already on the blog. I just haven’t done any jobs to tell you about recently. Last week I went to the International Brotherhood of Magicians convention in Southport (Southport – also known as God’s waiting room). Although it looked like been a cracker with a top line up it was actually quite disappointing. I’m not going to write a full review on individual acts as they are fully reported elsewhere. However I should mention on the last night Paul Zenon performed – he was the best I’ve ever seen him and showed us all how it should be done. Good comedy and good magic. Annoying brilliant and one of the best magicians in the country. Anyway, this is just a short one to let my blog fans (fan) know I’m still here. Next week I’m in Cardiff, Oxford, Uxbridge, Ware, Leeds, Immingham and a few other places. You’ll know what happens as soon as I do….  

Hello blog followers. I know you couldn’t wait a minute longer so here it is. Currently watching the repeat of X-Factor on ITV2 (much better than Dirty Dancing 2  - a call back there for regular readers). Am now in a Premier Travel Inn – decided to treat myself after the Travelodge last night.Tonight I’ve been in Chichester (West Sussex) for Michael Robinson’s 60th Birthday Party and a joint 21st Birthday for Michael’s 3 children. The marque looked great with star cloth ceiling, dance floor and beautiful people. Quite strangely a lot of the guests remembered me from 4 years ago and requested a few tricks that I did then. I hadn’t realized how much my act had developed since then and did have quite a bit of new material for them. There isn’t a magician on this earth who could perform some of the tricks they were asking for – I’ll let you in to a secret….. When people remember a trick to tell their friends they often change the story to make it sound even more incredible (maybe not on purpose – sometimes they just misremember the way it actually happened). If they tell the story enough times the trick gets so impossible that there is no way I could do the trick as explained. Anyway, all went well, everyone laughed and clapped at the right times (mostly) and I had a good time. One more gig tomorrow then a day off. Boom!

Well blog fans, it’s time for me to do this seriously. I’m currently watching Dirty Dancing 2 in my luxurious Travelodge room in Reading – which reminds me, I had an email recently saying “I bet your talent takes you to some great places” – if only he knew. Tonight I was at the Forest Hotel in Dorridge, Solihull for a birthday party for a guy called John. The party was lovely and the magic seemed to go down well. John asked me if I could do a special trick for his friends who play Bridge. I don’t normally like to do bespoke magic as it’s always weaker than the material I would normally do. However, I got a pack of cards shuffled and the deck was then dealt in to 4 piles (one for each of the players). The other 3 players looked at their hands. When I showed I had Ace, King, Queen of each suit (and a Jack of Spades for good measure – the perfect hand) – it got a terrific reaction. I then had several invites to be permanent Bridge partners. I still say my other material is better though.

Tomorrow I’m in Chichester. It’s a re-booking from about 4 years ago – thank god they probably won’t remember that most of the tricks will be the same (at least I hope they don’t). I’ll let you blog fans know what happens.

In case your wondering, Dirty Dancing 2 is awful

Just received this lovely email – thought I’d add it here to get my blog up and running. Seems a bit naff only having one post – but now I’ve got two! We’re in business…

“Gem and I just wanted to drop you a line to say what fantastic feedback we’ve had on you from our wedding! I love magic and, while I’m utterly pathetic in execution, know some of the mechanics of how tricks work, but you were seamless. It wouldn’t be a lie to say that for many you were the most memorable part of the day! You fitted in really well – thanks so much – we will be recommending you to every future wedding we’re invited to and will ensure you get some additional business!! You made our day truly magical! Thanks again.” Guy & Gem Moss

Well this is my first blog post – just to see if it works really. The new website went ‘live’ (as the industry insiders say) last night so if you’re reading this today (Wed 29th August) you are one of the first lucky people in the world to see the new site. Any thoughts on it? Let me know