Untitled - July 10, 2025

00:00:33 Speaker: There's a beginning. And an end. You're listening to 108.9 FM. Adjust your frequencies, fine tune your mind and brace as you prepare to fall through the trap. The universal dream is a dream of magic. You're listening to 108.9 Trap Door Radio with me, your host, Lloyd Barnes, here to pour the sawdust from my brain cells into your mind via the power and the magic of the internet. Thank you so much for tuning back in. This is episode five, episode five of 108.9. This is a jam packed episode. I'm gonna try and keep it to a tight one hour as best as I can, but you're listening to a late night radio show, and things don't always go to plan. But there is a lot of things that are happening this week, a lot of things that have happened this week, and I'm going to try and jam it all in here for you. So listen. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you about some new products that have been released and my thoughts and opinions on them. I'm going to talk to you about a the response I've had, the response to the person, uh, who we addressed last week, um, that made the the new or the, uh, clone version of Inject by Greg Rostami. So that guy has responded, and I'm going to tell you his response in full. I'm going to share with you a magic trick, a little trick that I've just been playing around with. I'm going to open up a fresh deck of cards and show you that trick. In today's episode, I'm going to teach it to you really quickly, and a couple of other interesting things that have been going on behind the scenes. But before we get into any of that, I, I, I, uh, I got a text message from my mum a couple of days ago and she said, uh uh. Morning, babe. I'm so sorry to let you know that Wayne Dobson has died. And, uh, and my heart broke because I've spoken about Wayne Dobson before on this radio show, even though we're five episodes in. That's how much, uh, I that's much Wayne Dobson means to me as a magician. Um, for a lot of our newer listeners out there, Wayne Dobson was a prolific, popular TV magician that had his own, um, number one show on a Saturday night on British television. Throughout the 90s, he performed at the Royal Variety Performance, a hilarious, extremely talented, extremely witty, uh, gifted magician that just sort of skyrocketed to stardom. And then almost overnight, his his, uh, illustrious career was essentially cut short because he was diagnosed with Ms., and it meant he was very quickly deteriorated and became wheelchair bound and um, for the last like 20 plus years, 30 years even. Um, he's, you know, his health has gotten worse to the point where he passed away. And the reason my mom texted me is because Wayne Dobson was a, uh. He's one of the reasons, one of the core reasons why I am here today as a magician, recording this show, even. And so, uh. And keep it short. My mom took me to go, and my grandfather showed me magic when I was really little, and I loved it. He taught it to me to help me with dexterity because I had, uh, atopic eczema. So I was told by doctors I would never use my hands for a living because of the severity of them. My grandfather had been on a travelling fairground for like 20 years, learned magic, and he thought he would teach me dexterity. So I was into magic at the age of like three, 4 or 5, very, very young. Yum. But then I started seeing this Wayne Dobson guy on TV as, like a five year old, six year old, seven year old. I thought he was amazing. He did illusions. He did close up magic, comedy. He had characters and things. It was just for me. It was just. It was just magic caviar for me as a as a kid. And it turns out he. Even though he was a superstar in the UK, he was playing a theatre show at my local theatre. So my mum managed to get us tickets. I was like 6 or 7 years old and she took me to watch the show, and it was the most amazing experience of my life because my grandfather showed me magic. But he wasn't a professional magician by any stretch. He was he was a tinkerer. And and so when I got to see this is the first time I'm seeing a real magician, a proper magician in the flesh. And I was young. I was really, really young. And I remember in the show there was this moment where he said, now, normally I would be doing this illusion all by myself, but, um, the next regional by myself. But, uh, I haven't disclosed this, uh, in the media yet, but I've been diagnosed with Ms.. So I'm struggling to move so much. And so he had help, and I was so young, like, I kind of didn't, didn't resonate with me. But I remember how shocked my mum was and being like, oh my gosh. And then to say how amazing he was regardless. So he did this, did the show. He did a card spring at the end, card stop, and I and I run up as a little little kid. I showed you an unreleased effect then, and I grabbed the cards like, I can't show those. I grabbed the cards off the floor and I held on to them. I had this tour was called It's a Kind of Magic, these black cards. It's kind of magic on the back. And I held on to them, and I got to meet him backstage and and as I was waiting to meet him, this, this mysterious stranger said, do you have playing cards on on you. What are those? And I said, oh, like looking up, stunned. Do you want to see some magic? Yes, please. And he put he he took four cards, two reds to blacks. You give the rest to my mum to hold on to. Uh, he gave me two red cards. He. He held on to black cards and they changed places. And it literally destroyed my idea of how the world worked. It was the moment, I think, where I definitively became a magician. Then I went and met Wayne backstage. He was incredible. He showed me magic tricks. And I sort of, in one sense, even, like, you know, not I don't mean this, but I went into that show, a boy, and I came out a man. Or at least I came out with a purpose in life. Well, thanks. Wayne Dobson. Strange how the world turns. Years later, I designed and created these expert at the card table poker clips, which have been recreated in many different ways now. But there were leather bound pauper card clips designed to look like the book of the, um, of the expert card table. Wayne Dobson emailed me. I was 21 years old. I love your card clips. How can I get some? So I just sent him. First of all, I wrote back. I found the program from the show. It's kind of magic. I was like, oh my God, I can't believe this is happening. This is a full circle moment. I just poured my heart out to him, and then he sent me back a box of everything, like all of his books and his material and and, um, it just completely blew my mind. And I've said this before, but A-list celebrities don't mean anything to me. They may not be anyone off the street, but there are certain magicians who are gods in my eyes and I cannot I I've talked about this many times. I cannot bring myself to speak to them. And there's there's probably five. And Wayne Dobson is one of those magicians that every convention. I was just too terrified to go up and be around him because I don't know, like, don't meet your heroes kind of thing. And I and so I would very politely say hello and and smile and have a little natter every now and then, but literally just too awestruck to be around him. And that's the same for a few other magicians out there that I just, you know, cannot bring myself to. Uh, that's how much he meant to me. And, and the strange things would happen. Like, he would post statuses about me, about how much you like my YouTube channel, about how much you like my magic and my products. And, and I would just screenshot that, first of all, obviously reply and say, wait, every single time it'd be like, dude, you don't understand. Like you are the reason I'm doing magic. And for every ounce of doubt that would build up in my mind about imposter syndrome, it would be those moments from pretty much like from Wayne Thompson that would be like I'd read that and go, do you know what? Like I'm meant to be doing this. Uh, I believe in myself and and to see my hero like. And the other thing is, uh, what I loved about Wayne Dobson. And it's only like, years later that I realized this, and it's not so much, you know, a direct example, but I got into magic through my grandfather because he because I was told I would never do anything with my hands. And it's the reason why, um, I do a lot of my sleights differently and a lot of the like my palming and my coin sleights, my coin moves are all slightly and not to the point where, like other magicians have a nuance on something, but I hold them differently. I palm differently because I couldn't do it the way taught, and I still can't because of some of the scarring left on my hands and the way that my ligaments move from, from, um, the way that my hands developed incorrectly. Um, so I adapted my magic to fit me. It's possibly why my style is a bit more unique. Everyone's style. I don't know what I'm talking about, but Wayne adapted himself. He his magic because he he what he couldn't no longer do in terms of being on stage and other things. He then developed, but essentially he was doing he came up with this entire body of work, of hands off, close up magic. Uh, routines. Hilarious routines you could do on stage, in parlor. Um, that could be done entirely. Hands off because of, you know, he adapted to a situation. And I think that's so such an important thing for us magicians to do. And I was talking last week to to Fredo, the wheelchair guy, and he said, I'm in a wheelchair. What can you do? What could I do to adapt my situations around me? And I spent a good, large portion of last week's episode discussing ideas of what Frodo could do, and I didn't even. It didn't even cross my mind to think, go and look up the mountain of work of Wayne Dobson. He transitioned from a stand up magician, close up magician and stage illusionist to a wheelchair seated magician that couldn't use anything other than, uh, than than his. That is effectively his brain and his wit to get him get him by and, you know, just phenomenal. So I feel like I have some sort of affinity with Wayne or I draw parallels. Obviously I'm not. You know, we're in the same category of of how, uh, you know, how how compromised I am by what I can do, but I totally I totally felt that, you know, as somebody who got into magic through disability and overcoming, having to adapt to overcome it, then, um, you know, he's a really special person and. Yeah. So, um. Just completely heart wrenching. Uh. Uh, yeah, I don't know. I really don't know what to say. I'm really choked up about it. But Wayne Dobson, absolute hero of mine. And to all you new guys out there, you've got a you've got a journey to go on of just watching his material, like watching his, his, uh, Royal Variety performance, his watching his, uh, finding out, tracking down clips of his TV interviews where this is the thing about Wayne Dobson. There are lessons to be learned just from watching the guy do magic. Not talking about secrets, not talking about methods, not talking about anything other than there are so many. I think this is a symptomatic of the modern era that we live in. Social skills are dying. People are not. You know, people spend so long looking at their phones and doomscrolling and not socializing that they forget to learn the the art of human interaction. Obviously, we're not all AI robots quite yet, although we'll get to that in a bit. Um, a lot of people are not understanding what it really, really, really, really, really means and how important it is that you have this human interaction. Uh, actually, I might if we have time, I'll bring up a a comment from Freddo, the wheelchair guy who responded to my response, and he talks about, uh, I think he might. I think it was Freddo. Or was it Michael? I may be wrong here, but I'll. I'll double check. But anyway, it's just about the comment was about, uh, how important it is to to interact. And when you, when you realize that your audience doesn't solely care about the trick and they care about being listened to. Um, then and what I'm listening to what they want and understanding what's good for them and what's good for you, what's more important to them and not more important to you. That's when your magic, uh, like. Yeah, it's only when the paraphrasing. But he says one of the biggest takeaways from your podcast came from earlier, an earlier episode, when you said something along the lines of if the spectators don't like you, they won't like your magic. And that really stuck with me. So I made an effort to learn their names, ask them about their cycling holiday, and didn't rush into tricks. I focused on connecting first. I say this because Wayne Dobson is the master of putting, uh, personality over effect. That was before anything to do with the disability. It's just just about holding the audience in the palm of his hands, like Freddie Mercury on stage, singing before he's actually got into a song before he's. You know, if the song is the trick and the audience interaction is the connection. Freddie Mercury is the. In my opinion, the greatest living rock star of all time. You look at Wayne Dobson, he didn't have to do a trick. And you would walk away from thinking he was the best magician I ever saw, just because of how good he is with the audience. So you have a if you haven't seen his body of work, go and check it out on YouTube. Really really, really, really, really heartbroken this week because, um, it's like, ah, I don't know. It's in a strange way. It's like as you grow older, there are certain things that like like as, like parts of your childhood, like wilt in a way. And for me, like Wayne Dobson was always like a it's always been a constant in magic for me and and. Yeah. So and I know, I know um, that it's not like I'm, I'm on the peripherals. I'm just a spectator Really? I'll watch, you know. You know, cheering and championing his life from the sidelines. There are so many more magicians out there that are being profoundly and deeply bonded and connected, um, by William Dobson, even like people like Joe Pasquale. I started, um, I'm a huge fan of Joe Pasquale's comedy. My family buy me tickets when he goes to the Swansea Grand Theatre. I've been going, like, my whole life. And, uh, he's a big friend of Wayne Dobson's, and you can totally see the parallels there. And I don't know, I could I could talk about this all day, but, um, yeah, very, very special person. And the world is, um, the world has lost, uh, somebody very, very, very important to a very to so very many people. And, um, yeah, I don't know, I just wanted, I couldn't I could not talk about this today. So I know a lot of you are here to listen about the new products and things like that. I should have had a picture of Wayne up on screen, but I was too. I was too, uh, down the rabbit hole there. Um, yeah. So. Yeah. Pay your respects to Wayne Dobson. One of the greats. Gone. Ah. But so but but okay, so I find it really hard to move on like mine, uh, their, uh, new products. It's so hard to talk about new products now. Um, new products. So, um, the first thing I saw was the this week was, um, uh, the tier no tier up and tier, no tier released by Nicholas Lawrence called TNT and and released by Theory11. And it's very interesting for for a few different things. Let me see if I can pull up a screen recording here. TNT by Nicholas Lawrence I'm going to play the trailer in the background silently. I hope I don't get caught in the early 18 by, uh, by YouTube or anything, but what it is essentially, to those of you that who haven't seen this yet is you have a, um, a playing card selected. You tell the audience, tear that card in half. All right. No switches or anything. Tear that card in half, and they just tear the card in half. Then you say in a moment I'm going to snap my fingers, or I'm going to cast a spell on you, and you are now going to lose your strength. And you do. And now you say, now try and tear it in half again. And they literally cannot. They cannot tear that card in half again. It's unbelievable. I said, I'll give you the pattern. Now you say, when I give you the power back, you're going to be able to tear it. And then they take it and they tear it to the card again. What the heck? And they say, now, again, one more time, I'm going to hypnotize you. And now again they can't tear it. And it's a it's unfathomable. And I believe then the final phase is you say like use your power back, tear it up and it's torn up. No switches. One card. Um, absolutely, absolutely insane. Absolutely insane. And, um, and yeah, I this, I like if this is the type of effect you want to do doesn't really get any any more real than than this version now. I was actually in Greece filming a version of Perseus Alchemist released a trick called week. Um, you know what I need to, like, look on my phone to see when I was in Greece. Where did I go? Athens. It's got to be Athens, isn't it? Oh, God. Nothing's indexed to my phone anymore because I'm on the iOS 18 software. Uh, I was in Greece, I don't know, 8 or 9 years ago. Seven years ago. Probably eight years ago. Uh, with Odyssey has an effect called week, where a spectator takes a card. We actually went to this bar. Um, not pretty, but it was another bar. And, uh, Perseus, uh, said, hey to his friend. Can you come down? I want to film a magic trick, but it's got to be on you. And he pulled in this guy who's a huge bodybuilder to do the effect on him, and he had the guy tear the card, and then he couldn't tear the card. And it was a really fascinating moment because this guy was immediately human like, like humbled by by a simple playing card. Perseus had this incredible script to it. Um, and of course, uh, tricks. Advance tricks. Move on. The trick by Perseus is phenomenal and very easy to make yourself at home. But what it seems like Nick Lawrence has added here is, uh, uh, no need for any switches, and you can do multiple moments of being able to tear and not tear, tear and not tear with the same card. And that is an advancement. Um, and again, by Theory11 now seems like there's some controversy going on around this, and I don't want to dwell on it too much. Um, but in in short, it seems like in Blackpool, uh, a guy called crave, uh, has a version called TNT, um, that was released in Blackpool, uh, sort of of this year. Uh, it's been on sale already. They sort of, uh, he's come on the Magic Cafe and he says, uh, Nicholas. Do you guys claim a million times Daniel has performed it and it's been on for five years. You were still aware that you're almost identical. Effect under the same name was released by us in Blackpool, 25 by DV magic and in development since 2018 and used by shows since then. Um, as your promises not to name exactly the same TNT by Marc Super has been forgotten again since Blackpool's perfect example of how big companies and big names and other creators and ethics do not matter when it's about your own pocket and it goes on right. Nick has then, uh, responded and he explains the benefits and the differences. And then theory 11 weighed in worm from theory 11 I love worm met William at Magic Live a couple of times. Great guy. Um, and they explained sort of the history of what's gone on, like the development from like November 2020. Um, then, uh. Refills. I think some dealer said, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna host this product on my site until this has been resolved. Uh, yeah. So we're not gonna. I'm. We've just added this to our store, but I don't feel comfortable until it's been resolved. Um, so crave comes. Crave comes back and says this has not been settled. And I think the fact alone that the exact same name for an almost identical product speaks for itself. Even though Theory11 has been made aware of this more than five months ago. Here's a great review of the product. In the end, the customer has to decide. And then there's a response from, um, Nicholas Lawrence. And, uh, and he says, you know, he says, thank you. It looks like it's been written by ChatGPT because it's got the, the if you know, when ChatGPT writes something, you know what it does. Um, but but it may not have been so just I'm just saying it totally looks like it. Uh, but he explains, like he signed the contract in 2020 with Theory11 for this. And and even though there are similarities, um. Something that hasn't been it has its differences too. And then he includes a full performance and goes from there. So it's a he actually approached them at Blackpool. Blackpool. Nicholas Lawrence approached him at Blackpool I was there, I met Nicholas Lawrence, Blackpool hung out with him. I was completely transparent about the product's completion, including the title, gimmick and packaging, and I disclosed the full timeline. This was a direct conversation witnessed by two respected members of the magic community, Ronnie Magee and Noel Coulter. Since then, the public tone coming from your party has been disappointing and accusatory, which, to be honest, hurts. As I've always tried to maintain honesty integrity in my work and releases, which is true. Nick Lawrence is a man of integrity and honesty, and I've known that through many, many, many, many interactions with him over the years. Um, yeah. So, so it's a very, very there are a lot of disputes in magic that are black and white when it comes to crediting and who's released what, and this, that and the other. And there are there are a lot that aren't black and white and a very much gray area. And this one to me. Now, look, I got to say, I'm friends with Nick. Me and Nick go back years. We even have a joint release called chroma for many, many moons ago. Uh, I really get on with Nick. Really? Really well. Um, so. So you have to know that my opinion on this is going to be, uh, it could be perceived as bias. I don't know what my opinion is. I'm going to kind of voice it out loud now as I sort of meander through this. But I do think it's I think I have to say that I'm friends with Nick. I am friends with Nick Lawrence. So, um, if my opinion ends up being on his side, please, I'm going to be as honest with you as I can, but I just have to be upfront with that. All right. So, um, gray area of this one because they seem very identical, very similar in aspects. And then also there are differences. Um, they have the same name, which is the name is kind of unfortunate. Nick says in his post. It's like the TNR if you call something TNR, it's it's just the it's just the initialization of torn and restored. This is to note that 110. Oh ten. They've all shortened it to TNT. It's not. It's not the hill that I would die on on this one. Uh, it seems to approach them at Blackpool and let them know about it now. That's the bit that depends on what people say at Blackpool. And everyone's kind of different. And there's no real right or wrong answer, um, for this kind of thing. If both of them have. This is the thing I think this is the crux of it is this if both of them have independently created it. Then. If they've both been independently created but they are different from each other, then it's very much, uh, they should both exist, I believe if they're if they're different, if the core concept is similar, but there are differences and they were created around the same time. It's kind of much a free for all, I believe. Not a free for all. It's kind of much a look just to let you like. Like it seems like like just let you know. I've also got this too. It's done. Finished product. Um. But it is different. Just giving you a heads up, to be honest. It's one of those situations where it kind of you would at the, at the other creator, or one or the other creator, you would wish to not have a similar timeline, but it is what it is. If, however, if however, there are they are identical, which doesn't seem to be the case here, then it's then for me personally, it's first to market. So if you're first to market, um, uh, unless there's anything underhand going on like, oh, I've seen this is the same, I'm gonna do whatever. That's not. It doesn't seem to be the case here. Um, both of them have worked on something similar. They deviate though. So there are differences. Says. It's kind of it is what it is. If, however, they are identical, then I generally go by the rule of first to market. And and you know, it seems like there was some open discussion at least. Um, I want to know what the result was at Blackpool. I spoke to you at Blackpool. I disclosed the full timeline, the name and everything. But yeah. So what? What does it say here? Uh, the project number. What? The countless hours. I want to see what the differences are. I'm saying there's differences, but I do need to be, like. I need to do my due diligence and look here. Uh, ready? Markets. And this wasn't a rushed product. Performing refined for years. Public transparency. Here's all the timeline. This is from worm, uh, production of the cards. When comparing both yours and Nicholas's trick, not only is the construction functionality, uh, and amount of gimmicks given very different. Well, you can take the amount of gimmicks given out of the discussion. That's irrelevant. Different. But Nicholas's version also allows for a second no tier phase on the same torn piece of the same cards edge. This opens up an entirely new layer of performance, a first of its kind. And as somebody who has flown to another country and filmed with an artist nearly a decade ago on a very, very similar or, you know, on the same plot effect, and I would assume the same core method, the core material construction method underneath. It's it's very important to to not understate that second phase is a game changer. That second phase that Nicholas has added is is the is the bit which takes it from like I've, I've sat down, I've watched the, you know, the week routine. It's called week not it's not a week routine. It's called week by Perseus being performed over and over again like I have, I have I have firsthand experience with this in a close up environment in a foreign country by by adding in a second phase, which seems like TNT, the other TNT doesn't have. And and from my memory, we didn't have it either. Because there was a I there's no switch because you do have to switch with weak that does that does up the ante significantly. And like when you watch the trailer um, the fact that they're like one moment they can tear the card, the next moment they can't. And it's the same sort of it's the same card that does like really like that does really make it a significant leap forward. Um, this and like I said, this opens up an entirely new layer. So so look, the crux of it is and again, like, I know, like last week I spoke about, what happened with Greg, and I'm going to bring up the response to that as well. Later on in this video. Um, so so it'd be, you know, I'm totally open if the guys from I'm calling him crave DV magic. It seems like here, um, you know, if this is the same, you know, if they are saying that actually the gimmicks are identical in every way and they can also do the same second phase, you know, and all that, then I'm if they send a statement or whatever, I'll, I'll read that out in the next episode too, because I think it's really important to be open and fair in all these matters. Um, but but I think it's really like to me, me to my opinion here. And I know, like I said, I'm friends with Nick, so a lot of people are going to go dismiss Lloyd's opinion because you're friends. But in an effect like this, where traditionally when my experience I've seen it, they select a card, they can tear it and then they just can't tear it. And there's some switching involved. It's a good trick. Eight, 7 or 8 years later, someone comes out, they take one card, they can tear it, then they can't tear it, but then they can tear it. Then they can't tear it and then they can tear it again. It completely, completely changes the, uh, the routine, the effect. And it seems like there's a completely different construction to anything, which doesn't make sense in that in that statement is, uh, the amount of gimmicks given, like, they could just add more or less like that's irrelevant. Uh, but I yeah, the name is unfortunate. Um, I would, I would imagine, you know, the one thing they could do is they potentially could have changed the name, but then they'd have to pay for all new packaging, which then would up the price and the price. The price of this thing is, is the only is the only real negative for this effect. Um, I think I read that it's 13 gimmicks for $50, which is about £35. Uh oh no, it says here you'll receive 52 Two gimmicks. 52 gimmicks. That's actually. That's really not bad. They're on, um, monoc red cards. So, um, I don't use those decks. That would be the biggest drawback for me. Um, I'm sure I read someone said 59. Oh, okay. Sorry. Okay, okay. It's €59, which I don't know. What's that, like, around £50. Let me find €59 and pounds. Uh, is that £50? So £50 for 13 with the DV TNT cards by Mark super. Um, that is kind of a lot, but they are handmade. But that sounds of things. So. Yeah. Uh, so you got, I mean, $50 for 52 gimmicks, which is £35. So less than a dollar, a gimmick, just less than a dollar, a gimmick or um, what's that? Maybe like £0.80 a gimmick. That's a really, really, really good price. I was under the assumption it was, uh, well, it's £50 for 13 for the other version. You know, you gotta being being part impartial to this. It's just not nice for the other company. And there's no there's been no, uh. No. What's the word I'm looking for? It seems like there's nothing malicious being done here with intent. They've both created a competing product based off another existing product. That's kind of like the main thing based off of a of an existing product. They've they both know about each other's releases. They have differences as well. One being, you know, a big difference that you can do the second phase. Uh, and then and then the, the one that's coming out with theory 11, which is a much bigger company, is is an incredible price versus the, the, the other one, which is not. And there's no I don't actually think there's any I don't there's any evildoers in this one. I really don't I don't feel like, like normally you can see when there's been something nefarious going on or malicious or there's been like, uh, theft going on or anything, but, uh, this just seems like a bit unfortunate. I would say, though, if you if you, uh, if you like the effect, decide who you want to support, I don't think I don't think anyone is going to be. I don't think because I don't think anyone's at fault here by from who you want to support on this one. And that's that's what I got to say on in it. But I don't want the, the, you know, the, the issues to surround this too much. This is an amazing piece of magic. Think about this piece of magic. Think about any effect that you do in any way, in any routine. This this could almost fit in to any any performance you do, whether you're a coin guy, whether you're a band guy, whether you do parlor stage, you can get so much mileage out of this effect from comedy, pseudo hypnotism, which is incredibly powerful. If you don't know, let me give you a let me give you some food for thought here. In terms of pseudo hypnotism, the best card to impossible location or best card to box that I have ever seen. And I mean this hands down, bar none. And I don't even think there is a second place in all of magic. The best card to box that exists in magic history so far. And you and most of you are not going to be able to perform it. Almost all of you are not able to perform. It is Derren Brown's. He does a live card to box twink to theatre audiences around the world, and he literally. Makes or convinces and he splits the audience, but he genuinely believes. He makes the audience believe that they have lost 10s of their life. And the way he does it, if you haven't seen it, it's it's unbelievable. And if I know laypeople that have seen it, I know magicians that have seen it. I've heard second hand evidence, I have read Reddit comments. I've seen YouTube comments. I've seen articles online in the comments section. Reporters, some people kind of who are very clued up, get it? And some people are just in plain disbelief. Like that just kind of happens. So therefore they must like the Ricky Gervais watching Blaine. Yeah, you made that card. Stick to the fan. But you must have done something. And then it's like, okay, either you've put a sword through your arm. Either there's a trick and it's a folding sword, or the sword is through your fucking arm attitude. So, you know, but by and large, people that come out of that show, they when they see the card box, they sway, or the large majority of them swear that they he he hypnotized them to lose 10s of their life. It's unreal. Right? And it's using a combination of deception, misdirection, pseudo hypnotism convinces a method. Right. And it's and it's it's it's a symphony of design and it's fantastic. That's aided that effect is entirely aided by throwing pseudo hypnotism into the mix. Right. James Brown is another person who does this? Um. And he mixes hypnotism with hypnotism. Uh, James Brown is another master of this. Pseudo hypnotism can take your magic to unparalleled levels. For example, if you're going to do a coin bend, right, you could either just say, I'm going to use magic to make the coin bend, or you could pseudo hypnotize someone first of all by thinking they can't open their fist and then they can. Right. And that's a whole pseudo hypnotism routine. You can go and learn so you can hypnotize people to do that. Then you can up the ante by doing something else. Then you can put the coin in their hand, and then you can hypnotize them to believe that their grip is stronger than they've ever been able to do before. You can talk about those stories that we've all heard, those legends, those folklore stories or legends where a woman sees a car trap and there's been a car crash and a car has trapped a child, and the woman's had the strength to lift the car off the child for moments and then drop it down, which it could be £120. The men who have had the strength to open a card, bend a card door with their bare hands to free a burning thing, right? These moments of superhuman strength. You can tell these stories. You can build a world inside their mind. You can create this illusion. And then you put the coin in their hand. They close their fist. You you use techniques. And then when they open it, they believe they've bent the coin. I'd argue that's a much stronger effect than you, just than the magician saying, oh, watch me bend this coin with my bare hands. Look how strong I am. Ooh! Well, if an effect like this fits seamlessly in there, I have the ability. If you believe in yourself, you can believe you are weak. Or you can believe. Sorry. You you can. You can believe in yourself. But when you don't believe in yourself, you are weak. And you can, you know, and then you can go into another suit, hypnotism and effect and you can give it a story, then you can do something else. And all of this is aided all these all these things are aided when they are believing what they are seeing. Seeing is believing. So if you were just to tell them, oh, feel like you can't like the old sort of foot stuck to the floor. Can't open your hand. Hypnotism. Hypnotism. Ploy. Well, you know, everyone else watching around them. I don't know, even the person kind of like, is in on it, but they're not in on it. That's kind of how like it works in a sense. So they can be like, ah, well, I don't know. It's just like I kind I was like kind of going along with it, but I wasn't. But the moment they actually really can't do something and this is the thing, this is real. It's not a, it's not a, it's not that you're really stealing their strength from them, but because of the way it's built, they really can't tear that card. But they have just seen that they can tear it when you're when you're telling the can. There's not really apart from the method, but in terms of a discoverability element to it. It's not really anything they can do to protect themselves from being deceived here. It is what it is. It's incredibly strong. So once you have a convincer that's this clean and this undeniable, it gives you credibility and authenticity for everything else. And once they believe you with this, then they're going to. Then those walls of disbelief are going to be very easy or much easier to to knock down. And now you can build entire universes inside their mind and then you can start to play. Um, so don't underestimate a trick like this and then think, oh, that's just that's just like, if you want to do a coin bender or hypnotism or, or if you want to, you know, like do a card to box where you, you know, you don't believe you can be hypnotized. Okay. Well, this card is going to end up in this box over here. I'm going to slowly take it and put it in that box. And I'm going to hypnotize you to to not see me do it right. So, look, first of all, I'm gonna start with some simple hypnosis. First of all, your hand can't open now. It can, now it can't. Now your foot's stuck to the floor. Then I'm going to take away your strength first. You can tear the card. Now you can't tear the card. Now at this point, you're like, Holy shit, I actually this is legit happening. Oh, fuck. Oh my God. Now I'm gonna make you bend a coin with your own bare hands. Oh my God, I actually see the coins bend. And whilst all this was happening, that card you signed at the beginning is now in the box. And somewhere throughout that hypnosis, I stopped time for 10s in your mind. And you created a black spot that you couldn't see. And you just used a simple card to box method. What the. What the hell? This is. This is to them. This is incredible. Like, you know. And that's just for card to box. Or if you want to do it on stage, you could do it as a comedy routine, you know, to, you know, if you wanted to do. I know it's 2025, so we'll get crucified, but it could be that you swap gender norms around and the man of the house. Or maybe it's a it's a father and son, and the father can't tear the card, but the son can or whatever. Um, so yeah, like, there's so many things you can do with an effect like this. You could have fun with it. You can get real with it. You can just simply do it. You can just simply do it on the street. You can use it as a bar bet you can come up with a pseudo method for it. The method could you could say, um, oh, have you ever seen this thing, this science thing? Because it's a science thing, actually. If somebody puts their hands out like this and you ask someone to push down on their outstretched arms, if you if you listen to this on Spotify or Apple. And by the way, if you haven't done so already, uh, hit that follow button on whatever platform you're on and hit the notification bell so you know when the next episode drops. Um, but if you have some put their arms out and you ask and you have somebody else come along and try and you try and push their arms down, it's incredibly hard. But if you ask that person who's got their arms out to put one foot on a step or one foot on top of somebody else's foot, they basically lose all their strength and you can just lightly tap their arm down. So you could say, look, I'm going to show you how I can take your strength away using this technique. And you do a body technique, right, which is just literally like a. um. It's not economical. It's another thing. Whatever. Right. But you just show them like it's a it's a tried and tested way. And now you say, look, with this playing card, actually, if I, um. If I pinch your elbow lightly now, you won't be able to tear it. And you could use it for a pseudo science demo biology demonstration. Or you could do it for, like, um, you know, for, uh, people who do like what they call it geek magic. So it's got the type of effect like this can because it's not a flashy piece of like, what's this, a coin, a bottle or. Look, it's a it's a whole peeling off a card or it's not like, um, the latest Occam or the latest app. It can quite often be overlooked. But actually this, this effect is kind of like the gold dust that that can be sprinkled in to turn your magic into magic caviar. Um, so a lot to digest in that, um, in that, in that discussion there. But, uh, um, I know Nicholas Lawrence. He has the best quality magic going. He's a man of integrity. I don't think anyone's been harmed here intentionally. I just think it's an unfortunate scenario or an unfortunate timeline. Um, but but there, you know, there's Perseus is weak. There's TNT by Nicholas Lawrence, and then there's TNT by Mark. Super decide who you want to support and go and pick it up if you like that kind of thing. The next product that I want to talk about is Airflyte by Mark Bennett. Now it's not a new product, but it's a new pickup by Alakazam. It seems like they've managed to obtain the exclusive rights to this. And I want to say it's it's I've filmed a performance as I did that, you know, I did the 3904 Best Tricks of Blackpool video. Uh, every year this is in my Blackpool video. And, uh, this legitimately is one of my favorite releases of the last, well, the last few years, really, because I love Ring Flight. Actually, I was hosted a competition on my on my Patreon a couple of weeks ago for Ring Flight I absolutely adore Ring Flight. I think it's such a great piece of timeless magic. However, pretty much all of the existing versions don't suit me. They're in in in in a inapplicable and inapplicable. They're inapplicable to me. I'm essentially by default ruled out for them because, um, for example, I have it right here, right? The best one ever for me up until up until, uh, you know, at certain point was Ring Flight Revolution by Dave Bonsall. In fact, the trailer for Ring Flight Revolution by Dave Bonsall, I filmed, I went to Prop Dog Warehouse. I filmed that all close up, and it's got the beautiful angles. I'm not going to play it on YouTube because I'll probably get copyright struck. Um, but yeah, I filmed the original trailer for this or sorry, the the rerelease trailer for it. I love Dave Bonsall and it's the it's the most incredibly well made product you'll ever see. He literally makes every single one by hand, and it's a process. You can go and watch the little documentary thing for it. Uh, the and the only reason I'm sort of ruled out by default is because as many of you that listen to me preach about my magic so often is I travel so light. I don't have a wallet, period. I don't have a wallet. My whole town is contactless. Apple pay I know cash is king. And that's a debate for another platform for another day. I do not have a wallet. I leave my house. I normally don't take my house key with me because Katie will be here. So if I leave the house, I will just take my phone. I very rarely carry anything more than a deck of cards and a couple of rubber bands. Um, I try, and if I go for a walk, I will leave my car key at home because it's a it's a car key. It's sizable. Right? And I literally travel so light that I just don't carry much on me ever. I was talking about this a million times. It's why I do a lot of improvisational magic to try and, um, make sure I don't have to carry loads. Uh, so I don't carry my car key with me at the best of times. I especially don't carry two car keys with me, though. And unfortunately, just for my personal usage, I don't care. I won't carry this anymore because I don't carry because it means carrying an extra car key. This is more for like the professionals out there, the people who are literally in the trenches doing 100 performances a night. Table to table running flights, table. Peace. You won't get better than this, right? So just I want to just clarify. I'm not dissing David at all. I just don't carry anything with me. I go out with my phone sometimes I don't even take a key. Like, I, I'm just I'm just very, very, very, very, uh, light on my feet. Catlike, almost. Um, but for the professionals out there, this is this is worth its weight in gold, right? Uh, but. Right. That being said, I, I, I'm always looking for the next ring flight that's actually going to evolve it into a, to a place that makes sense for newer people or people that are applicable. For example, a lot of people don't drive, a lot of people don't drive cars. So if they were, imagine they're going to their friends and family and they're like, uh, they're like to their cousin, yo, Dave, Jennifer, whatever. Can I borrow your ring? Cool. Watch it vanish. Watch that. I pull out my keys and it's on. You don't drive a fucking Audi when you when you have a car. Oh, uh uh, I don't like, unfortunately. I mean, most people drive, right? I drive, but I, I hate carrying my car key around with me. Um, my wife, on the other hand, she has a bundle of keys. Like a bunch of fucking bananas. I hate it, it makes me feel sick. And my mom, I don't know what it is. Their keys are like. They're like prison guards. Keys. That has the access to every single cell. They just love monkeys like me. Um, yeah. I will literally take a single house cat with me most of the time. Um, yeah. But like, for example, people, not kids, but people who are under the age in the UK. 17. They don't they don't have car keys on them. A lot of people don't drive. A lot of people have a car. Uh, it's just. Yeah. Unless you're performing to professional in a professional environment where these people are not going to see you again or not don't know anything about your life. For a lot of people, they ruled out by, uh, by default. If that's only if I need to state as well. That's only if you're the type of, uh, loser like me that cares about, um, people going digging, doing a bit of digging on you or calling you out. Like, I know those big, like, magic wallets that look like, um, a court summons size envelope. Uh, a lot of magicians carry. Those have no issues using them. They ain't They wallets. The spectator's. No, they're not wallets. You know, if you've got one wallet and you can't really get away with calling it your wallet, but people use it every single day in their performances when they're doing gigs, because it's just accepted. And it's kind of like that. If you, if, uh, if you, if you had be performing to people that know you and know that you use props, then like a car key is fine, or an extra spare car key if you don't drive, whatever is fine. I don't know, I'm digging myself a hole. Really. I just need to shut my mouth. I need to shut up. Revolution is absolutely incredible. I very rarely carry my car key on me. And the people I do magic for know me. They know that I have a certain car. It just. I just don't carry two car keys. So I'm always looking for a ring flight. I should have just said that. I feel like I've just. I feel like I've been too critical of ring flight Revolution when it's so phenomenal and, uh, like. So please, if you're listening, don't, like, clip out anything before this or anything and try and send any I fucking love reply Revolution I just don't, I just don't want to carry two car keys with me. God damn it, Lloyd, I should have just shut up. However, I do have airbags. I got too many AirTags, actually. Um, Mark Kirstein actually has two AirTags on his keys, which I think is cool because if one runs out of battery, which is quite clever thing. And um, so yeah, I carry AirTags. This is the perfect evolution for 2025, at least for for ring pulls, ring flights. I think it's phenomenal. And um, so so it's been re picked up Repromoted it's back on my radar again. And I didn't pick it up at Blackpool because I was rushing around the dealers hall filming and filming and filming. I was at Smoke and Mirrors. I asked to buy one like two months ago, didn't have any in stock, and I wanted to buy it there. And then because I watched Mark perform it and just crush people with it, like, literally crush people. In fact, there's a really good performance of this on the magic. The Magic Cafe, let me just show you the reactions to this performance. And what's beautiful about this is that it's a really unique routine that makes sense because of the new innovation with this. And that is Mark has and you get this for free, a custom app. And there's nothing better when the spectators get to the conclusion themselves. Uh, for example, when I do lottery, I have a lottery ticket prediction called six. And um, I never I give them something to hold beforehand. A lot of lottery ticket predictions. The magician will say, I have a lottery ticket printed here. Inside the envelope is a lottery ticket. And then they say, what are the numbers going to be? They pull it out and it's like, yeah, that's what I expected. For me, I give my wave and it'll probably be the always will be the way I present the lottery ticket prediction. But I hand them something in an envelope. I start to talk and I come back to it later on when I've kind of, I've kind of misdirected the conversation away from that envelope entirely. And then I, uh, and then I say it comes up, but I won't even go into my thing. Right? But eventually, after they've selected, uh, or chosen the, their lottery numbers, I'm like, okay, so so you've picked, like, these six lottery numbers at random, completely fairly. Your choices, each one was picked by you. Um, do you remember I gave you something and told you not to look at it earlier, and you see the penny drop you see in their mind. And what happens is they connect the dots of what's going to be in the envelope, like seven. What's in the box? Uh, they connect the dots like no and they say no. They say no fucking way is it going to be a lottery ticket with the numbers on? They come to the conclusion themselves and then they're in disbelief because it's just too impossible. What Mark has innovated here, which is so brilliant, is that he the routine. I'll explain the routine. I'll play it in the background. Right. I'll play it silently in the background. I'll jump through it a little bit. So it's kind of in line with what I'm saying. Um, he takes a key. He takes a ring from someone and holds on to it. He says, you hold on to my keys for a minute, because if I lose this, use this collateral with my car. So it's good. It makes sense, right? Um, you're going to come to it. It's collateral or my house keys or whatever. Then he makes the the ring vanish and it's gone. And then he brings out his phone and he puts, uh, find my devices on. So, you know, the Apple thing where you do find my. Like, for example, if I bring up find my for my AirPods, it'll say they're in the bedroom because I was listening to an audiobook to fall asleep last night. So does the whole find my nearby thing. Right. So he brings up his, uh, Skype signal. I'm not located right now, but. But it brings up is. It is find my device. And it's like a text to text, text, text. And it points and it finds it points to the hands of the spectators holding the key. And you see this moment where everyone does the same thing. No, no. And they and they, they start to connect those dots together. And it can't be there. It can't be there. And then the reaction from it, ah, I'm going to play them unfiltered. So you can see you can hopefully hear this on Spotify too. So watch it brings out his phone. That's okay. Brings up the Find My app. I sort of lost my keys. I know you guys. Keys. My keys. Oh God. Thank God for an AirTag. Oh how do you do that? He, the guy got to the conclusion before I completely forgot you guys before Mark pointed it out. Oh God, thank God for an AirTag. Oh, how do you do that? Holy fuck. Look at the reaction to this. Oh, look at the woman in the background. Holy fucking ho! Oh, my. I was thinking I was literally thinking, Holy fucking fuck. Is that noise? It makes me feel physically sick. It makes me feel. It makes me actually feel physically sick. The woman behind said, I really hate that. I can't watch it anymore. I've got to go. This is gonna kill me. Look at them. They are. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Look at him. Look at that reaction. Look at that reaction. It's amazing. Oh, my fucking God! Oh, my fucking God. They have no clue. And it's all thanks to Mark's brilliantly clever routine in where, um, obviously putting the keys in someone's hand before the ring vanishes is is, uh, years and years and years and years and years old. Right? The clever part is the inclusion of this app to me, which, um, where where it starts to detect and look around the room for for his AirTags. Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee points. And suddenly it's that. It's that moment where like, you know, where like if you're watching a movie and the and the and it's like a horror movie and then suddenly the corridor just starts going past someone's head and they realize everything that comes to that culmination, that crescendo moment. That's the that's the bit. And you can see the difference in the reaction. People are like, they get there on their own. You don't have to get there. And then you show that it's on there. Um, and, and again, that's his normal set of keys is day to day usage keys. And all he needs to include is a tiny little AirTag, which most of us or a lot of us have. Some of us have two on them every in everyday life. Um, I just think I just think it's. I just think it's so clever and and it couldn't have existed without, like, the forefathers coming before it, like, uh, Dave Bonsels, um, ring flight revolution. Of course. Rinky dinky came out years ago. Um, which which again was a was a really clever like, car key thing. And then the original one which was in the, in the wallet. Um, what's that called? I always forget it, but you know, so, so there's no dirt being rubbed in those faces. I feel such a little tangent earlier. Revolution is so good. Um, but but now AirTag exists. Alakazam have somehow got the rights to it exclusively, I think. Or you can possibly buy it from Mark, but. And it's it's only Pound. It's only £52. I can't, I can't I can't hammer that home enough. Think about this for an effect. This is a this is a piece of magic, right? You borrow someone's ring, you hand them your car keys or your house keys, or you say, look, hold on to my keys as collateral. Because if I lose this, that's a couple of thousand pounds I need to make up for. I don't have the cash. Whatever you employ is going to be. Or just, um. I'm gonna hold on to this ring. In fact, empty my pockets over here. Here's my phone. Here's my keys, here's my wallet. I don't want to come near it. Watch. The ring vanishes. Gone clean as a whistle. Now, let me detect something. Watch. Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee bing. They all go. The wind is sucked out of the room. The ring is on the keys. Everyone can see it. Hand it off. We know the method. We know the method as magicians. Think about this from somebody who's never seen any live magic before. And the way you routine these things is that they they will mix up the memory. And you could also do a good like I remember if you watch Wayne Houchin talking about um, he does thread from the eye and he also does swallow in the thread. Uh, and then and needles and it reconnects. And so many people walk out of his show believing that he swallowed the needles, put the thread in his mouth, and then pulled the thread and needles out of his eye. Because people people will always misconstrue the method. Well, the beautiful thing is like this. You can, you can, um, socially engineer or mentally engineer them to, to construct the routines slightly differently. So you can say, um, because, because you say so because the ring doesn't vanish until after they have the keys afterwards. When you're when you, you can, you can say just before the moment of magic is about to happen, that you're set up there holding the keys. You apparently have the ring, right? You could even if you want to. You could even put a like if it's a general silver or gold wedding band, you could have a duplicate on you so that you can do a false transfer. Um, so, so so I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, but essentially, you can do this. You you you have the key in air quotes. You have the key in your hand, the ring in your hand. Sorry. They have the keys. You can say, now, look, I want you all to watch this and remember this before we begin the effect. So you tell them the trick hasn't started yet, and really, you're actually 80% the way through. So before this trick starts, I want you all to remember something very important. You're holding my keys from before it begins. Is that true? Yes. Well, you've told them the trick is only starting now. And they're holding the keys already. So that is actually a true statement, which they which they can't really renege on later on. And plus anyone watching peripherally, like the woman in the background who is like, oh my God, oh my God. Don't forget, a lot of people are coming into the performance sporadically. Some people have just seen it from the sidelines and they're not following it directly with the fine tooth comb. So I want you to remember before this trick begins, you're holding on to my keys. True? Yes. Because you told them. It only begins now. I have your ring. Yes. Isolated. You are holding my wrist? Yes. Okay. Watch. So now, when they recount it later, this is what they'll say happened. And you can also you could also throw in things that didn't happen. But they can agree with you holding on to my keys. Yes. You've just given me your ring. Yes that's true right? I'm getting into more nuanced magic stuff here, which is the kind of stuff that I love. But they did. In theory, that person did just give you the ring moments ago, which is true. Um, you're telling the trick started now. He's starting now, and so they're they hold it on to the keys before it begins. But what the clever bit that you can see is because you're framing it differently. You're saying. You're saying that they're holding onto the keys before the trick begun. Yes. True. It's kind of like a dual thing coming up. Now you're saying. And you've just given me this ring. True, true. Well, it is true. You're also confusing the timeline slightly, and you're being economical with the truth. But when they recant it later, because they're also witnessing the magic trick, they they most people, some can. Everyone can work out a magic trick, or everyone has the capacity to. Or most people do. Some people I don't know. But because you are giving them soundbites and you're and you're giving them things that are easier to follow than what's about to unfold. They will they it's kind of like one on one basic performance technique, but they will then this will then become the truth for them. So because the reality is this you've taken the ring, you've you've obscured the ring. And then you hand the car keys to someone, and now the ring is going to apparently vanish before it appears the car keys. But the new truth you're telling me is so. So the new truth is this. I'm going to. Can I borrow you a ring for a second? I'm going to hold it over here. Actually, you hold on to my car keys. Now, before the trick begins, I want you all to remember this before we started. You're holding on my keys. True? Yes. You've just given me your ring. Yes. That sounds like I've given you the keys. And then you've given me the ring, which is completely different story, but neither here nor there for the moment, right? Because they don't even know the ring is they. They don't know what's going to happen. So right now this is like both things are true. Yeah, not a big deal. Okay. I'm on board with that. I agree to everyone else. If the people involved are agreeing now as well, it's sort of solidified. And maybe I'm maybe I'm enjoying the smell of my own farts too much here. So, you know, just let me ramble. But again, all that's true. You're just kind of being economical with the truth. And and you're laying out the blocks in a different order. Although the blocks are real, they're just not the right places. That's all right. That's our job. Misdirection. Subterfuge. Okay, so I'm going to take a ring and place the ring in my fist after you hold on to my car keys. Okay, we're about to begin, but I want to. I want to emphasize something before we start. You've got hold of my car keys. True? Yes. And you've just given me your ring? Yes. Okay. Hold on to my wrist so it can't go anywhere. And watch as I make the ring vanish. Gone. So now to everybody. They've been holding the keys since before I was given the ring by that tiny, tiny change in script. With a true statement in the wrong place. Now, when you bring out your phone to go beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep, most people think the ring is going to appear on you or in your pocket. If you've ever seen Tobias Dostal's optics, where he makes the phone appear in the spectators own hands. Uh, if I was to tell you before seeing that, that people don't realize why they're holding the keys, or you tell them it's for collateral, they don't put two and two together. A lot of you wouldn't believe it if you don't have much experience, but you can go and watch something as bold as the ultimate bolt effect, where they're literally holding and recording on their own phone and they don't even realize it. That's how when you start to understand how far you can get away with this, or how much you can get away with this. So now you go to your phone. They all think the ring's going to appear on you. No one's really thinking it's going to appear on your car keys because it's so abstract. Then the pink moment comes up. Now you see the results. No. What? It's not going to appear there. And that's what's so clever about this. Using the app to find it. It makes it forces them to come to the conclusion on their own, which is such a tweak, such a small tweak, but it's such a big difference. As you can see in the reactions. You don't get that in other things, and you don't really have to say a word either, because the app is doing it for you versus what the alternative is going to vanish. A put the ring in my hand. You hold on to my car keys, watch the ring vanish. Where could it go? There. But now, suddenly, there's this moment of confusion. Everyone's looking around the room. It's a small tweak with a big difference. That's where again, I keep using it. That's the gold dust in magic tricks. Look as he brings that phone out. Watch again. Okay, look, let's bring it on. Let's find out where this is gone. Let's find out where this is. Right. He brings up the thing. I don't want to wait. Look, look, the guy's following. Where is it? What's he looking for? The guy's following around the room. I thought I lost my keys, and now. Now the moment of realization. My keys, my keys. Oh, God. Hang on for an AirTag. How do you do that? Holy fuck. What the fuck? Holy fucking fuck! Holy. That's what I was thinking. I was literally thinking, Holy fucking fuck. Um, so yeah, I, I, I am, I am just a I mean, I have to say, I have to say I use Mark Bennett's Bar to film a lot of the, like, Murphy's products. So I film I filmed the savant deck in his bar, the Atomic Deck in his bar. Lux had performance there. I'm a friend of Mark's. We go. We go back years and years and years and years and years. I think you all know by now that on this channel, I am just a fan of of fucking good magic. And yeah, I don't get anything for this. And I know Mark's a friend. It's a very important to remember and point out. I have many friends in magic. Many of my friends have very new releases. It's I don't know. I'm pointing out the stuff that I absolutely adore, which I think is magic caviar. It's ring flight, which is one of my favorite ever magic plots, and it's a ring flight that I can finally use every day. It has to be. It has to be magic caviar for me this week. It's just so head to, uh. What is it? Alakazam. Head to Alakazam. I think they have an American site, so they. I think I'm pretty sure they distribute from America as well. Had Alakazam £52 is is a bit of a pathetically low price. I would urge them to put the price up on this, but also keep the price down so that more people can get it. But it really is. It really is a no brainer price. If you've got the money, obviously, um, it means you can carry your your authentic, normal car keys with you and you can do this ring flight with so many other things as well. Get creative with it. So Yeah. It can't. It can't really, uh, I can't really give it any higher praise than that, you know. Well done, well done. Mark Bennett, a real step forward, a real innovation. Um, and something which it also means if you don't try, you know, younger kids can do it. Uh, teenagers can do it. People who don't drive can do it. People who don't want to carry an extra car key with them. Like myself, I am. I am that person. Anyone can do it now. And uh. And yeah, also, you know, um, the clever thing is, I think, is that a lot of people have ear tags on them. If you spot that your friend has an ear tag. Maybe you could switch it out and put that on there and then make the ring light appear on their keys. I'm an amateur magician. I get to do magic my own way. I don't need to repeat the trick ten times at a table. I can set things up weeks in advance and get clever with it. Um, Yeah. So there's there's that. The best thing. The best thing since sliced bread if you're asking me. All right, let's get into, uh. And you know, the worst thing I don't even know. When did I start recording? I don't know how long this has gone on for. Uh, when did I start recording? When did I start recording? Since. Oh, we've been going over an hour. Over an hour? Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. Okay, so I need to before I. Before I close out the show, I'm going to try and have to squeeze through as much as I can here, but, um, uh, I was going to show you guys the Batata prediction keychain. Um, but really, I wanted to point out that, like, I seen this thing, it's $10, and I don't think it looks legit. I don't think it looks very realistic. Um, but I don't really want to dwell on things that are not cool, as I say that as I get on to the magic drama section of the episode, So. But yeah, I wanted to point this out. I feel like I was going to talk about, like, sometimes it feels like the magic is being created around the around the technology, not the technology around the magic. And this feels like they've gone, oh, look, let's find a way to make this into a trick. And I just think, ah, it's not for me. But they do have some other great stuff. So whatever. Um, last week I spoke in depth about Inject and Greg and that, um, inject has been sporadically going up and down online and offline and, and it, it was victim to an attack by people to take it forcibly offline. And also somebody recreated a, a version of inject or a rip off version of inject called goo charged an astronomical price for it. And I felt like everyone I feel like everyone should support Greg on the matter. I'm only here to be open, honest and fair. And I want to, um, I want I've had a statement from the, uh, the person on the other side of the argument, Rottum Ackerman. And so I'm going to read it in full. I'm going to make sure you guys can see it on screen. I'm going to move myself to the side slightly. I'm going to go there. All right. So this is what Rottum says. And, uh, I'll give you my thoughts on it afterwards. So a personal note about goo and inject. Please read. Hey everyone. I want to take a moment to publicly address some concerns and backlash I've received from members of the magic community regarding Goo, the Google Peek tool I created, and its relation to inject, originally created by Greg Rostami over a decade ago. First, let me be 100% clear. I have never reported, sabotaged or attacked Greg in or inject, and I never will. Greg publicly implied that I was the one reporting inject. That accusation is false and I believe he knows it isn't me. Unfortunately, that accusation has led to malicious attacks on Goos server Personal attacks on me, including offensive, threatening emails and DMs. Google users being targeted with disturbing messages. Here's an update. I verified that every Google customer to date already owns inject. Going forward, I will only sell goo to verified Inject users. For those who don't own inject but want goo, I will offer an $80 discount on the condition that they purchase inject first. That way I'm supporting Greg's business, not harming it. That's really interesting. Why did I build goo? Back in late 2024, inject had been down again for over six months. No explanations, no updates, no updates. In January, I personally reached out to Greg and offered to help get inject back online. I was ignored. With no alternative available and knowing how valuable this tool is to perform, I started coding from scratch. Within three days, a working version was live. Google was born not out of greed, but out of necessity, to fill a gap that shouldn't have existed for so long. To be clear. To be clear, goo is inspired by inject, just as inject was inspired by earlier ideas like Mark Kirstein's early products. But goo has a different infrastructure. It is built entirely from scratch, includes exclusive features not found in inject Costs More, which contradicts the idea that it's a cheap clone. If someone thinks goo is just a knockoff, I genuinely encourage them to try inject instead. It's cheaper, and if it works for you, that's great. Let's also talk honestly about inject. Yes, Greg was first. Yes, he deserves credit. But inject has suffered from years of instability, repeated outages and a lack of transparency when things go wrong. Recently, the, the platform vanished for over six months without a word. That's not fair to customers. It's not okay to leave the community in the dark. And I wasn't the only one frustrated. I'm not out to replace Greg or steal his work. I build tools for magicians because I'm passionate about magic and technology. Just as no one owns thumb tips, nail writers, mental dice, impression pads, or confabulation wallets, the idea of a Google Peak isn't sacred to a single app, especially when others can do it better, faster, and more reliably. The bottom line. I'm not the villain here. I simply saw a problem and fixed it openly and transparently. I will continue to act ethically, respectfully and supportively, even towards competitors. If you use inject and it works for you, I truly celebrate that. If you choose to use goo, know that you are using a stable, evolving premium grade product backed by real time support and care. I love this community. I'm open to dialogue, I'm open to growth, and I'm here to make tools that help you amaze with respect and love. Rottum. Creator of goo. Uh, again, it looks like it's been written by ChatGPT because of the Hyphenations, but that's just me being picky. Um, I think there's some really interesting things there, you know? But, you know, saying that he wants you, you have to verify that you already own injected support. Greg. That's you know, it is like I it seems on. Look, I'll tell you in this situation, this is what I would have done. Pardon me, but regarding the price, um, in this situation, it really is like you can't nitpick and say that there are other versions of facts that use Google as the peak thing within it, but really inject is about the Google peak. And if you're releasing something which is also just mainly about the Google peak, although this sounds like there's new features added, it really is Greg's territory. And if Greg, the onus was on Greg to grant you permission to if he couldn't get his up and running for whatever reason. I know he didn't respond to you, but he's a very busy man. If I was rottum in this situation. One thing I appreciate before before anything I want to say, I appreciate that this this, the willingness for him to, to be honest in his beliefs, open in his beliefs, and very willing to hold a discussion. A lot of people do these things, and they and they and they are just try and bury their heads in the sand and they don't acknowledge it. I think he's I think it seems like he's got his stance on it. He has belief in his stance on it, and he's willing to stand up and speak it loudly. Uh, and with, uh. Um, with passion. Right. Like, he. I don't think rotten believes he's done any wrong here. I really don't think from what I can read and what I can see, he really stands behind it. And his decision to put the app out. That being said, uh, there are certain, like, for me, as a long time guy in the magic industry and sort of like, you know, responsible for some apps out there, I think this I, I don't think it's as black and white as this. There are certain unwritten laws and understandings and agreements that are unspoken in magic, um, that sometimes don't translate in that online, this new online world. And maybe I'm in the wrong for that. Maybe I'm the dinosaur So maybe these traditions should should be eradicated. But in this situation, like let's use uh. I'm trying to find a comparative. If bicycle playing cards if their factory burnt down. Right. So in this situation, inject is the factory bicycle playing cards, factory burnt down. And for six months they couldn't produce. Ride back red Ryder black play ride it back playing cards, uh, consistently. So you get them in drips and drabs like injected sporadically online and offline. And then a a a company like legends playing cards or Card Shark reaches out and says, hey, bicycle. Uh, we can print your rider box here for you. Um, and as long as people prove they've bought rider bikes in the past, we'll gladly sell them. You know the stock is going to be better. Stock can be higher grade finish more premium box. So they're going to cost $20 deck instead of $5 deck. Um, well, first of all, first of all, they reached out to bison saying we're willing to print your cards. Bison never responds, right. So then a couple of months later, another magic printing company comes out and then starts making rider packs much higher quality. Apparently, I can't speak. I don't know if it is right, but let's just let's just go off what we got on the surface here. Come out with a premium boxes, better quality finish, blah blah blah blah blah. But it's three times the price. So $15 a deck, $220 a deck. And then bicycle comes out and says, yo, what the fuck? Like I didn't give you permission to do this. Um, and yeah, there are other playing cards out there, and some of them have used design elements like the layout or the circles or similar imagery to the filigree and the angels on their back designs. And yes, you have added something extra to it. But on the surface of it, that is our fucking ride. About design. That is the core of this. Take it down. And again, this is a a nuanced discussion with many factors involved and many people customers involved. But if that's if that comparison holds true and I may I may be off. There may be things like, oh, well, you're forgetting this, you know, but uh, blah blah blah. Uh, it's like people's bicycle cards actually disintegrating in their hands. So they want better ones, I don't know. But if that was true, then it's very easy for me to make my mind up and say no. Yeah, just literally just take the the the replica offline. They didn't get permission. It's as simple as that. Um, but the one thing I'd say is about the pricing. Like if you are, if it is your true intent to offer people who already own inject a, a a version which is going to replace, um, Greg's whilst it's in the interim of being up and down and it's got genuine intent, right. Even though I don't, I don't agree that it should be there. The price should be close to free. Hey guys, reach out if you've got inject, show me. I've got to charge you. Now, I don't know a lot. I know. Well, I do know a fair bit, I say I don't I always downplay I've been I, I created Cypher with Will Jones, I created Tempus, I've released Cognito. Uh, one of the best selling magic. I know the numbers for most apps and the best selling magic apps of all time. I've released, uh, quite a few things. I do know a little bit. I, you know, I downplay it, but I do know quite a lot. Um. That price tag is not covering, You know, the cost of maintaining that site for the users. I just think I I'm happy to be proved wrong. Um, but I don't think like that $300 price tag is paying for maintenance. If the intent was true, to just be like, look guys, I love inject. I'm with you all. I just want to work a version with some extra features. Uh, send me a receipt that you own inject, and I'll charge you 20 bucks for this. In the interim, I think. I think that would have. I think that would have sort of negated and averted 9% of this controversy. But it does, rotten man. It does look like a cash grab. And I'm saying this as a neutral. Like I understand the industry and I don't think it should be up there. But if it was I would be like, look, right, I just, I just I just genuinely want to support this industry. And, you know, inject is kind of like Greg's territory, man. Um, you know, so I, I personally and I have no ill will towards you whatsoever. Um, I'm sure I'm missing points as well. I've just read your statement. I've taken your statement as it is. Uh, personally, I would have been like. Look, prove to me you have inject. I've made something. It does cost me a little bit to get it up and running and to keep it running. Give me 20 bucks each and your receipt for inject. And there is. I know, uh, you know, you should have you should have permission from Greg. But I'm saying, like, at the very lowest point of the discussion, if, if, if you're that intent on keeping it up there, then I would do I would handle it that way. I, I think I think what it comes down to is, is like people look at, if you're genuinely trying to provide a service for the better, for the, for the community as a whole, because you are like saying, look, I empathize with you. I can see you all. I'm one of you. I'm one in jacked up and running. And then you come out with it. With it, then you. So then you recreate it and you put a huge price tag on it. It does come across as disingenuous. Um, I don't want to get into war with anyone. I'm just saying that, like, that's what it seems like on the surface from reading what you say. I don't I don't feel like you are disingenuous, and I feel like you stand behind your beliefs and I feel like you are your intentions from your point of view feel honest. I'm saying from the community's point of view that it seems disingenuous. And it feels it does feel like from an outsider, that it's a cash grab and not offering a genuine like solution. For example, using the fires and warehouses, uh, the vanishing egg warehouse burnt down in America and Murphy's Magic allowed them allowed Andy and Josh to store their stock, the remaining stock in the Murphy's warehouse and distributed there for. I don't get this wrong, but I'm pretty sure they just allowed them to do it for free. It was like, look guys, just whatever you need, we're all in this together. Use our use our warehouse space to do that. I think I'm pretty sure that's what happened. I hope I'm not wrong. Um, because that's magician supporting magicians. And I think that's kind of where this entire thing has fallen down, and people are not going to get on side with it. If you're like, look, it's magician supporting magicians. Inject is currently going through its warehouse fire. You know, metaphorically, I've got a spare warehouse. It does cost me money to rent it. So cover my costs at the cover, my flat rate costs and go. I think that's when people would be on board. But to give it, like, a $300 price tag for some new features, um, and not get permission as well. I think it's the combination of not getting the permission and then the price tag on it. I don't I don't realistically ever see you coming out as the good guy here. Although I believe like you are from what you're saying. How, how, how much you're open and willing to be to hold a discourse about this. I don't think you see it as you. You're doing wrong. I'm explaining to rotten why the perception of the industry is this way. But anyway. Yeah, so that's what it's at. Um, we are way over overdue on this, on this discussion. Um, I was gonna I was gonna get into, I want to say wonder and co in, um, in Scotland is closed down. It's Scotland. Uh, Glasgow I believe. Only magic shop. And, uh, unfortunately it's a brick and mortar store and they've had to close down because, um, sales are struggling. It's a really, really tragic state of events. Um, it's the world we live in right now. So go and support your local brick and mortar store. Go buy something for a couple of bucks. More expensive because it helps. Okay. Please go and do that today. Go. And you can go to actually what's their website address? Let me find. He's got a 25% sale on the website. Um, so you can go buy everything. 25% off to help with his stock. It is wonder wonder wonder co. So wonder co w o n d e r co.uk dot yeah wonder co.uk. That's it. 25% off everything in the sale. Look you can get invoke there. Um you got loads of Murphy stuff. Oh Matchbox penetration. That's a good trick. £20. Is that 25% off on top of the £20 as well? Wow. Uh, or is that 25, £20 is a good price. Yeah. Go and support them. Go and clear off. Clear out their shelves and tragic thing. And then also support your local brick and mortar. You never realize when they could be closing their doors for the first time. I actually found a local like mystic tarot reading shop for the first time in my hometown this week. I went in there with Kaylee. Turns out the guy was a magician. Used to be a blue coat at a Pontins. Um. It's been in my town for five years. Never went in there. And now they're closing down and I would have spent so much money in there over the years if I had just decided to go in there and support them once. So go and do that for yourselves, y'all. I was going to share with you all a quick trick, um, before rounding up the episode. Um, so if you haven't done so already, hit that follow button. Hit that like button, subscribe on YouTube and share it with your mates. Tell people about this show. I'll show you the trick. I haven't really fleshed it out that much. I'll show you the trick and it's just a freestyle thing, but just a fun thing to help you. I know a lot of people are interested in estimation in magic, or trying to get better to estimate where the deck of cards this is probably going to go wrong. Um, but I'll just show you something I've been playing with a little bit lately. I was jamming with Brandon Ellis on YouTube. Uh, go and watch his liquid, uh, deck effect. His liquid. I think it's called liquid. The liquid deck or liquid glass coin through an entire deck into a glass. Beautiful. Brandon Ellis on YouTube, though, and I was showing him this thing that I've been using lately. So first things first, you get a card selected. So if I bring myself up here, let me see. So let's say we get a card selected. Remember that card? It happens to be the jack of clubs. I'm going to bury that jack into the center of the deck. And then we're going to ask somebody to name a number between 1 and 52. Hopefully this will focus on me. Uh, one of 52. So I'll use my Siri. So name a number between 1 and 52. Okay. Three. Sorry it said three. I'm not allowing it to say three. So I'll say Name a number between 10 and 40. Oh, it literally said ten. So okay, let's just go for ten. Look at that big sorry. There's a big wet ink mark on my desk if you're watching this on YouTube. Um. Uh, that's not part of the trick. So, um, my Siri said ten. And this is the simple idea that the the jack of clubs was selected. And I say, look, I'm going to deal down to the cards and you tell me, stop when we see your cards. So we'll go one, 234, five, six, seven, eight, nine. And it's ninth. Okay, so it's nine cards down in the deck. And, uh, where's my focus on this? And the idea was that, uh, let me, let me, let me, let me try and do this again because I'm all over the shop. I needed to do something extra as well. So. All right, we'll start again. At least you know this is all one take. No edits, no nothing. We have a card selected. So if you're watching this on YouTube. So, um, go ahead and say stop. Let's say they stop me on the nine of clubs. Daniel Madison's favorite card, I believe. Why is my focus up there? Anyway, the nine of clubs gets buried into the center of the deck, and that will use Siri to select a card. So a number name a number between 10 and 40. 18 okay. Perfect. So the number is 18. And this is what we're going to do I'm going to the cards lost somewhere in the middle I'm going to deal cards while the spectator is going to deal cards until they see the playing cards. So it was the nine of clubs and the number is 18. So we'll go 123, four, five, six seven, eight 910 1112 1314 1516, 16. Okay, so the card, if you can see, was 16th in the deck. So not quite perfect. Not quite perfect. But let's think about this. You picked any playing card you named any number. And it wasn't at your number, but it was lost in the deck. Either way, I made a prediction in my pocket before we began. If I pull that prediction out, it's a piece of torn card that says off by and it's pointing at the value of the two, and it says off by two. If I can show that anywhere on there, it's not focusing. It's annoying, but it says off by two. See, um, it's really, really, really, really, really, really stupid trick. And I and I've forgotten to do one extra thing, which was. Before I begin, I've got a prediction in my pocket. Um, which I should have said, but the method is basically it's just a way to give you, um, some experience in using estimation without worrying about failing. So, uh, what you do is you say before you begin, I'll tell you the method. So this is the method. Say, um, before you begin, say I've got a prediction in my pocket. Okay. So I'm just two hands in the air. Got a prediction in my pocket. Now select a playing card and you can do some fun things here. But but really I'm just going to get a card and I'm going to control it to the to the top right. So whatever method you like best have a card selected. I hate to focus on this camera. So in this case the ace of clubs and it goes and gets controlled to the top of the deck. And now you ask them to name a number between 1 and 52. I always say like somewhere near the middle, right? If you can get them to say somewhere near the middle, you can like roughly accurately cut half the card. It's easy to cut half the cards, but whatever. So in this case it said, uh, Siri said 18. What I did, I literally roughly gauged about 18 cards from the back, dropped them down my thumb and cut them to the top. Okay. Uh, so in this case, let's get another number. Name a number between 10 and 40. Okay, so the number says 37. All right. So 37. So the card is on top. I need to place that card 37 down. So I'm just going to roughly cut about 15 cards from the top and cut them to the bottom. Okay. I think I may have been exact here, but we'll see that. Remember that card was the Ace of Clubs. So now I'm going to deal and ask them to tell me to stop when they see their card again. That cut is sort of done on the fly. If I have another deck here to show you, you do that cut, um, as a pass. Like an invisible cut, like just as you're toying with the cards. But I'm going to deal two cards with 37, so 123456789. Ten. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40. Ah. So the card. The card was at the 40th position. Meaning there was 39 cards on top of it. Right. So there's 39 cards, and then we hit yours. And then I pull up the prediction and it says off by two. Right. And again you could you can change this up. The secret is this in my pockets I have off by two on this card. I'm not wearing jeans. I don't have back pockets. I have off by two on this card. Off by four on this card. You can see there. And then on my jeans. Normally I have off by one and off by five. And because you get away with off by two, the second way off by six. But you can just you can basically have the off the. Ken. Ken. Ken to napa's colossal killer instead of using colossal killer for multiple outs. So you'd have off by two, you'd always be off by one, and you'd have multiple outs of the cards. I'm using multiple outs of the of the off by and it means, just for a basic example, I can roughly estimate a card and that range can be off by eight. Off by four gives me a range of eight cards that it can be off by. Which is which is eight cards one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. That is an eight card range. If you look in on YouTube, right, which is a pretty big range. And then I put off by two, which means I can be I can be anywhere sort of in that range. And then off by one and off by five means it goes up like this because it's either side of the card as well. So for example, if the card If. If the card is in the. If they need the number eight. Let's say the card gets cut to the 10th position, right? So I'll do this I'll do this on you. So card gets cut to the 10th position. 123456789 1010 123123123. Yeah. So five diamonds. It's selection. It's in the 10th position. And let's say um I was aiming to well let's say they said the number 12. Well straight away I'm I'm correct. The number worked perfectly because I I'll say tell me when you see your card. Oh it was at the 10th position. Damn. What number did you name. 12. Brilliant. Off by two. If they said the number was eight and I cut it to the 10th position. Well done. I'm now off by two. If they said the number was, um, uh, if the number was 14 and I cut it to the 10th position. So if the number they named was 14 and I estimated it and cut it to 10th. Now great. That works, I get it. Oh, it comes in the 10th. What number do you name off by four. Wow. In my pocket. As I told you, I had a prediction that it would be off by four. Again, if it was, if they said the number six and it's in the 10th position, then again, it's the deal. Down cards. Oh, it's not, it's not there. Number six. Let's just keep going until we see it. Oh it's a 10th. Damn. But I did tell you I had a prediction in my pocket. Boom. It'd be off by four again. Works just like that. So it's just a little stupid thing. But but it does two things at the same time. Or it does two things and you'll get a shot from one other thing. Uh, this reveal is stupidly powerful. I mean, if you do Colossal Killer anyway, it's stupidly powerful. But this trick, when you do this trick, it's in. It literally gets bigger. There are certain tricks that get bigger reactions than they should. For. For example, sponge balls in the hand when you put two sponge balls in someone's hand. I don't like sponge magic, right? It just doesn't suit me. Carrying balls of sponge around. It's undeniable. The trick gets like world class reactions. We all know it. You can't deny it. This isn't going to get world class reactions. Maybe, but it gets bloody better reactions than it should, which is annoying. But the other thing is, it teaches you how to do estimation on the fly. It teaches you your estimation on the fly, and it means you can go out and you can perform for a couple of months, and you will just automatically get better and better at estimation, but without having to worry, without having to worry about failure. So put off by four, off by two, off by one, off by three, off by five. Whatever. Put them. Put one in your wallet. Four in your pocket, one in the back of your phone case. And now you can be off by a sizable chunk either side of the number. And you have complete freedom. And it's going to open you up to a lot of jazz style magic, uh, with no fear. And eventually you'll be able to get good at estimation and hopefully nail it all the time. So I do should I try? And I'm going to try and just do an estimation here and I'm going to screw it up. But let's see. Give me a number between 10 and 40. A random number between 10 and 40 is 29. I'm going to try and cut 29 cards. Exactly that many. Uh, no, I'm off by two, I think. Let's see. 123456789 1011 1213 1415 1617 1819 2021 2223 2425 2627, 28, 29, 30. There we go. But with my outs, I can present that as an effect. And the kicker is even stronger. So there's a little trick for you all today. In today's episode, I hope you all enjoyed it. Um, hope you all enjoyed today's episode. Tune back in next Thursday for another episode of what, 8.9 Trapdoor Radio? I've been your host, Lloyd Barnes. Thank you all for tuning in and I will see you all very, very soon. Oh, also, if you have reader's questions, I know there's been a few emailed in. I'll get to them next week. Um, email them to hello or send them to Instagram or on Patreon. And uh, and oh, there's been some updates made to the Aiken app as well on the Patreon, but I'll talk about that on my YouTube channel probably soon either way. Have you been rambling? I hope you've all enjoyed this episode. I'll speak to you all very, very soon. Peace. There's a beginning. And an end. You're listening to 108.9 FM. Adjust your frequencies. Fine tune your mind. Embrace as you prepare to fall through the trapdoor. The universal dream is a dream of magic.