Naquada

Well tonight is my stag do, and we’re off for quite a fitting evening at Simon Drakes House of Magic in London.

Simon of course brought the wonderful and now cult following ‘The Secret Cabaret‘ show to Channel Four in the 1990’s…

The show was excellent, and featured a huge number of fantastic names, for years it was only possible to watch the series on tape if you’d recorded it, but last year Simon managed to negotiate the rights to his portions of the show to create a DVD of the two series.

The bad news is that for a number of reasons the license for this is coming to an end..

So again the Secret Cabaret will vanish, as mysteriously as it appeared.. However there is a plus point though… Simon will be selling the remaining stock of the DVD’s at half price (£12.50+p&p) from his website.

Tonight’s going to be great.. my friends.. Magic, Simon Drake and a few drinks.. I’ve never been to the House of Magic, but heard great things, and when I spoke with Simon he was all up for letting me have my stag do there, and have go out of his way to help us and be the ‘ultimate host’…

..you can’t ask for much more!!!!

Well we’ve been very very busy with the wedding and stuff and its amazing that we only now have about 9 days left.. so the titme of this article in today’s Reading Chronicle seems very fitting!!

We are featured in an article about Spice the society and activities group…

For the non keen of eye… that’s me and Michelle in the bottom left of the article.. It’s a fantastic group, and whatever it is you want to do.. from the simple to and just plain out of this world crazy.. They’ll probably do it…

The best events for us have been the weekends away.. The Halloween Ball at Clearwell Caves, or Invading Center Parcs.. If you do a search on the blog you’ll find my previous posts about these.. But their list of events cover everything from walks, special access to Stonehenge, Tank driving, sports, dinners, helicopter training, you name it.. they probably do it.. They also run the club UK wide.. so even if your not in the Thames Valley and Solent area, and you want to get a life… they can point you in the right direction..

You can click here for a full size image of the article..

The Berkshire Magicians are again holding a Magic Show - ‘An Evening of Comedy Magic. Illusion and Mind Reading‘, this time at Loddon Hall, in Twyford. Berkshire. You may remember we ran one of these events back in January this year..

The doors open at 5:30pm for close-up magic in the bar, and the show starts 7pm sharp.

Simon Alexander will introduce international Illusionists ‘The Molins‘, Simon Williams will present Comedy Magic, and Ian Souch will demonstrate his awe inspiring Mind Reading.

Clive Winterton and Robert Bone will provide additional closeup magic before the show and during the interval.

Tickets are £10 and full details and maps can be found at www.berkshiremagicians.co.uk

A clever way of getting your brand across.. and as I mentioned before.. It’s nice to see magic in demand for stuff like this..

Dynamo is one the UK’s young an bright magicians.. In huge demand for a number of high profile companies, he’s now turned his hand to helping Nokia with their new Nokia Connectors campaign

Both videos feature some nice magic with the Nokia phone’s

It’s nice to see magic coming back into the mainstream again.. and it’s nice to see it’s the UK guys working in conjunction with companies like Nokia to bring it to the public eye..

If you read my blog, you’ll be aware that Dynamo did his first UK lecture last year at the International Magic Convention in London

Today marks 10 years in my current employment with IBM, although not all my time has been with IBM, my acquired years still count, and hence I have received my 10 year service award.

It’s funny the things I have experienced in the last 10 years, the changes to both people and things. The people that have come, and gone..

Who knows what this year or next will bring..

..we will have to see.

iTricks ran a post yesterday about a debate that was running over on the View Askew message boards; a battle between the home-site favorites Jay and Bob and the Bad Boys of Magic Penn and Teller.

Today iTricks picked up my comic run of exactly how a Penn and Teller Vs Jay and Silent Bob run in would turn out…

The internet life’s been like a roller coast ther last few months.. Obvisouly my blogs been going for a good few years now, with intermittant random posts about just about everything and anything.

Then I started work on the Home Counties Magicial Society website, and then went from strength to strength, I then took over the Magic Convention Guide, which again has met with great reactions and feedback, after that I was asked on-board at The Magic Woods, a modern magicians forum, and then last week, Justin Robert Young over at iTricks asked me if I’d like to take up a role as a weekend poster for them.

Phew!!! between all of those forums and sites, I actually reach a huge number of readers on a regular basis, but it’s safe to say that I think now I’m full on the intenet writing side!!

It was a real blast, honor and somewhat nerve wracking writing this weekend writing for iTricks, I can’t quite remember how I found iTricks initially, but it’s been a staple part of my daily life for quite some time, reading the posts and listening Justin’s dulcet tones drifting through my earbuds from my iPod and now my iPhone on the train into London. So it’s been kind of strange sitting on the other side creating the content!!

I’d really like to thank Justin and the iTricks team for the opportunity to help out, and I hope that weekends will be just as good for the iTricks readers as weekdays are. Even if they do have to listen the slightly insane rants and babblings of an Englishman…

iTricks really does break some HUGE stories, and you’d be surprised who in the industry actually keeps a very close eye on them… so make sure you head over.. pick up the Podcast on iTunes and enjoy…

Yesterday was Marvellous 2008 down at Wellington Country Park.

Despite the forecast of rain.. the day was scorchingly hot and sunny.

Playing the tribute list were Bob Marley, The Gee Bees, T-Rex, Abba and Earth, Wind, and Fire.

We always love marvellous, its a great day out, and we get to spend the day with friends, drink wine and eat.. and you can’t get much better than that really!!!

It seems like not that long ago that I was rushing back from London to get to Marvellous 2007 , how time flies!!!

I took a few photos.. and ‘edited’ some as well…

We had a slight hang over this morning..

I’m not quite sure how I agreed to go to a Bon Jovi concert, except that Michelle loves them, and I love her..

We spent last Friday night at Twickenham stadium for the lost highway tour..

It was loud, and the lights were pretty..