A lot of unconfident kids do tricks because it's the quickest route to impressing people," he explains. "You can stand behind something amazing and people think you're amazing.

When [the magician] clicks his fingers and cards change to the four aces, we know we have experienced sleight of hand. Real magic would not be quite that quick and easy. Real magic would take investment. Real magic would draw you in, and make you nervous.

Seems the seance has become the most complained-about show. It received 700 complaints. I might add that the prospect of me blowing my head off on live TV last year attracted only twenty. Fair enough, I suppose.

Have your cake and eat it... there's no other reason to have a cake

Magic is not inherently anything. It is what you sell it as.

I’m a big fan of parrots - I think they’re fascinating creatures. Many of them live for longer than us humans and it's interesting to me the way they learn to mimic human voices even though they don't really comprehend what they're saying.

To impress people as much as we would wish, we would first need to successfully adopt each of their value systems