In this, my first post here after Ian graciously let me loose as a contributer, I would like to take a moment to introduce myself, and also share my first ‘article’ on how keeping your gob shut when dealing with mouthy spectators is a good idea.

OK, firstly…

I’m Chris Jones, aka seige, and I run a magic shop called NothingUpMySleeve.

It’s not my ‘real’ job… by day, I am a web/graphic designer, and a bit of an entrepreneur. I live in the UK, and am married with no kids or venerial diseases. My wife, Deb, is my long-suffering magic guinea pig, and aside from regular grief about my chaotic opinion of ‘tidiness’, we get along like sparks and gas—I am sure married blokes know exactly what I mean.

I am mid-thirties as of 2007, and aside from being a computer nerd and magic geek, I am actually just a normal bloke—I wake up late, I fart, I shave if I need to, I work, I drink, I fart, I sleep. Nothing unusual. And yes, I have a life outside the internet… you’re not listening here to a spotty sun-deprived keyboard jockey… I am a real human being.

Anyway… as a kind of introduction, I would like to share a tale, and that is, how NOT to approach magic in an informal public house situation. Recently, this happened to me, and what started as a quiet few pints in our local town centre with a few choice tricks rapidly turned out to be a narrowly averted bloodbath. Read on…

Why do we bother… or, ‘I was pretty close to needing an ambulance’
So, it’s a typical Friday. Meet up with a mate, and get a cab into town, leaving our loyal womankind worrying about us—as usual. Armed with nothing more than a wallet full of receipts, a cashpoint card and a deck of cards and a PK ring, I was ready for the usual mind-battering overindulgence that a chap deserves after a hard week of work.

So, several quenching bevvies into the night—around 8.30pm/9pm—we finally break away from the ‘eye candy’ pubs that us thirtysomething blokes love… you know the ones guys… the ones full of young lasses, pissed-up lads and thumping beats. Crap weak lager on tap forces you to buy overpriced bottles, and try as you might to suffer this longer, you need to seek the solice of a quieter gaff with a pool table and a decent pint. And the bloody PK ring is a nightmare, every time you dive in the pocket for change, out comes a lump of coppers stuck to it…

So, into a more refined old-folks establishment… the stench of stale beer which has been stamped into the carpets, the ancient niff of nicotine in the now smoke-free walls, and a blessed selection of real ales on tap… no more ‘kids’ booze, we’re talking of unheard-of 5%-plus brews which you KNOW are going to hurt, but hey… it’s Friday…

Quickly settling into the warm climate of a real fire, sensibly volumed jukebox and proper pork scratchings, we finally sit down and reflect on the night’s events so far. Smalltalk isn’t an option—we’re way past that bollocks… this is manly talk about women in tight jeans, and how the youngsters of today don’t know how lucky they are. And that bloody PK ring is STILL picking up coppers every time I put the hand in my pocket. It’s now a topic of conversation.

Deciding to stay for one more decent beer in our cosy tavern before braving once more the sweat-soaked ferocity of the Friday night battlefields, I shed my jacket and pull out the cards. An old chum joins us for a while, perhaps on a similar journey as ours—making various stops at overcrowded bars on our mission to visit all the ‘old favourites’ and find somewhere to settle for a few after’s before making our separate ways home to our women.

Our chum is on fire with enthusiasm and the latest jokes, which frankly may be new to him—but not to us. He offers a round of drinks, as his glass is out of synch with ours, and with half a pint remaining—we gladly accept. It’s getting cosier and more like home by the minute in here, perhaps we’ll stay a bit longer.

The deck of cards I took from my pocket—for reasons of logistics rather than the offer of a trick or two—are looking dangerously close to being drenched in drips as our chum returns from the bar with three pints of beer. So I grab the deck to rescue it from it’s impending doom. As he deals out the beers—nudging our half-empties aside in the act—he asks the question I’d hoped he wouldn’t… “Oh yeh, do a couple of tricks, my mate don’t believe you’re a proper magician…”

It’s without even a chance to answer that he calls over his buddy… someone we knew of, but didn’t share a mutual amicability with. Matey comes over, reluctantly leaving his conversation at the bar. All of a sudden the warm cosiness of the open fire turns into a rising hot-flush, as I feel the pressure of performing to a non-believer coming on. “A proper magician…” is a bold title for me, as I’m hardly Paul bloody Daniels. In fact, competence wise I’m more a cross between Tommy Cooper and Jeremy Beadle.

So, clutching at straws for a foolproof fooler, I decided on the biddle trick. Matey chose his card, lost it in the deck, and grinned. Now, for those of you in the know, there’s ONE GOLDEN rule to the biddle trick which makes it work. And handing the deck to the spectator to shuffle is practical suicide.

But, if you’re resourceful—as I’ve learned to be—you’ll make sure you have at least one shortened card in your regular deck. Mines simply a card from a Sven deck, and it works just fine. And letting Matey choose his card by means of a riffle meant that forcing him the short card was a doddle. In fact, it was almost embarrasing that he thought he’d made a fair choice as I said ‘put your finger in the cards at any point’. Shameful, on my behalf.

Anyhow… after carefully scrutinising the one card in the whole deck which was physically different, and exclaiming that it was perfectly normal (!!!) he remembered the value. My intuition paid dividends—because predictably, after asking him to place the card in the deck after I’d dribbled about a half, he actually grabbed the lower portion and did exactly that… placing his selection in the centre of the lower portion and squaring it up, before placing it back on my hand.

And then, he said it… four little words which were a red rag to a bull. Four mono-syllables which straight away turn me from Mr Niceguy into Mr Flamer…

“I know this one”.

Yep… he broke the cardinal rule: Do NOT try to outsmart a smartypants. This was really going to be fun.

Without averting my gaze from his now smarmy grin, I asked “So what comes next?”.

And then he waved a second red rag… with brass knobs on…

“What comes next? Well, you were GOING to try and find my card!” came his reply with the smuggest of smug grins. For some reason, I usually find it very difficult to hate someone, but in steps of almost exponental multiplication he’d already dug himself deep into my shit list. And also, he had one of those faces you’d just love to punch.

Now… before we continue, I’d like you to bear in mind the following: Anyone who knows me knows that I’m actually quite pacifistic, and almost every fight I’ve ever been in has been solved with reasoning—something that your average meathead cannot handle. However… anyone who knows me will ALSO know that if push comes to shove, I am relatively psychotic, and obviously owing to hereditary genetics I can muster up a fairly devastating melee of blows which tends to take even the most hardened of knuckle-heads by surprise.

Ergo: I knew in this situation I could handle myself readily should the drunken knob-head take offence at the belittling he was now about to receive. Otherwise, I would have quite happily sunken back into the woodwork, and admitted defeat. I’m no fool.

On one hand, I wanted to drag my knuckles across his face and remove his tobacco stained grin. But on the other hand, the word is mightier than the sword—at least I had hoped so.

So… the Biddle trick is in mid-flow. The cards are back in my hand. I hand them to the pillock for him to give it a good shuffle. And he did. Enthusiastically good.

So, it came as no surprise that when I performed the rest of the Biddle trick within 5 seconds of receiving the well shuffled deck, and correctly showed his card in the end display, he was a little miffed. Of course, I got accused of using fake cards.

Unfortunately, a few ales had got the better of me at this point, and I decided to put him in his place.

“Well…” I said… “Trouble is, there is no easy way to say this, but that particular trick doesn’t need ‘fake’ cards—if there was such a thing. It works because certain people are so dumb that they spend more time looking for ways to discredit the magician than they do watching the magic. Therefore, what you get—typically—is the spectator missing the moment that I remove their card, hide it in my palm, and put it back in the middle of the deck upside down. Did you notice it? Nope… didn’t think so…”

And with that, I turned back to my mate and carried on talking.

Needless to say, Mr Neanderthal was left speechless. And the fact that people were now laughing AT him rather than with him seemed obviously alien. I knew trouble was afoot, but escaping at this juncture seemed too obvious, as there was still one-and-a-quarter pints of beer in front of me.

So, I sat, I talked to my buddy, and we drank. Quite comfortably. So much so that I forgot about the caveman incident, and started to enjoy myself.

However… it was when I stood up to go for the pre inter-establisment amble pee that Mr Domehead stepped over and whispered through his teeth “I’ll show you some f****ng magic pal… think I’m a soft c****t don’t you” or words to that effect. Frankly, I don’t recall the exact text as I was still walking as he spoke, attempting to ignore.

It wasn’t until he followed me into the toilets—followed closely by out mutual chum—that I started to realise he did actually intend to lamp me one. Which was really unnerving, so much so that the pounding sensation in my bladder of desperately needing to take a leak vanished quickly.

It was when he flat-kicked the back of my calf that I whisked around, to see our uno-brow village idiot being held back by our chum. “Come on, don’t be daft…” he said to the defeated heckler.

Standing there, trying to ‘fake’ a piddle, I waited until the coast seems clear. I walked out of the gents and straight to my coat—playing it cool—and we left the pub. But Mister Muscle hadn’t quite finished. And this time, he had backup.

It was about a three point four second decision to turn to the wind and walk briskly. We did so at a blistering pace, with shouts and taunts from behind which I won’t detail, but basically we took a full range of abuse—from accusations of incest, right through to questioning our sexuality. But we carried on walking.

It was a strange decision—but we decided to go into another pub. And of course, we were followed. Things were getting hectic. I would have—at this point—been quite happy to take one on the chin. But now, Captain Caveman had enrolled some more thugs—none of which looked more than 19-20 years of age, all ready for a ruck.

Hang on: this was because I was too cocky. Was it? Should I have kept my mouth shut?

I guess it was too late by now. Things were going to get ugly fast. Not in here… this is a nice pub… but outside, later, who knows. We tried to look calm as we ordered drinks. Now… whether or not it was pure luck, or whether the Gods were smiling, but my brother-in-law and his Sunday footie league chums were on the tiles. Fab. Consider that these guys are mainly mid thirties, and totally rock hard. And—what is possibly even more advantageous—their reputation goes before them. In other words, if anything was going to happen, I was now on the winning team for sure.

And the moral of this tale is…
Sometimes it is far better to keep your mouth shut. If you’re getting some grief, don’t be a smart-arse. I kid you not, and I am not making light of this, but those plonkers could have quite easily put me in hospital. But for what?

For me wanting to have the last laugh.