There Goes My Hero

Derren Brown is the coolest guy on earth. Way cooler than Keith Richards or David Bowie or … House. Who is he? He’s an illusionist/mentalist/psychologist/sceptic and unprepossessing genius whose TV shows, from first minute to last, teem with drop-jaw, freaky amazements. He’s a guy, yeah, but you have to understand that he is not a regular-human-being-type guy. He is some sort of wizard from the future, gone on holiday to twenty-first century earth to amuse himself for a while, fucking with people’s heads. I can’t prove it but since almost everything he does is plainly impossible, it’s the only conclusion I can draw.

Now, look over there in the opposite corner – that’s American ‘psychic’ John Edward, the biggest douche-bag in the universe. He was voted thus on an episode of South Park. (And there were some mighty big douches from many distant galaxies nominated.) When talking about that episode recently, South Park’s Trey Parker said, ‘We literally did decide this guy was the worst. He was the worst guy in the world. There’s nothing you can do right now that’s worse than this.’

Blowing up innocent people is worse, but I know where he’s coming from.

I see a heart problem with a father-figure in your family, a father, a grandfather, an uncle, a cousin... I'm definitely seeing chest pain here for a father-figure in your family.

Edward pretends he’s talking to dead people – specifically, the relatives of the depressingly gullible who go to tapings of his TV show, or attend his concerts, under the impression that they might get to catch up with the late lamented.

I sense an older male figure in your life, who wants you to know whilst you may have had disagreements in your life, he still loved you.

It’s called cold reading; fishing about until one of your suggestions somehow strikes a nerve with someone in the audience.

Did anybody lose someone they loved with the name Andrew or Anthony … I’m getting an A. It may be a relative, maybe a friend.

When a hand goes up in the air, Edward will home in shark-style, prodding and poking until he’s virtually telling the person what the person has just told him.

He makes this shit up, of course, and the amazing thing is, he’s not even that good at it.

I see a woman that isn’t a blood relative. Someone around when you were growing up, an aunt, a friend of your mother, a stepmother with blackness in the chest, lung cancer, heart disease, breast cancer...

Here’s a perfect Edward moment. Enough already.

The audience is, to a man, and to a woman, credulous of course. And it’s fucking hard work for Edward, by the look of it. Agonisingly concentrated, he’ll maybe guess that your gran is either dead or not very well, or that someone called Rob or Robbie lived down the street. ‘He passed away, yes?’ ‘Yes, John! He passed! How could you know that?’

Oddly, and this is something sceptics find especially risible, including me, these wafting spirits hanging out in Edward’s incredible supernatural mind don’t seem to have surnames.

Numerous Marks, Mikes, Martys, Marys, Steves, Stefans, Staceys and Stans. But psychics have an answer for the surname conundrum, and here it is: ‘It doesn’t work that way.’ It doesn’t WORK THAT WAY! Could anything be more bogus? Could Edward undermine his abilities more comprehensively? He is a fucktard. A smarmy, snake-oil peddling, exploitative piece of shit. On every level, he is obnoxious. If he were here in the room with me, I’d smack him in the face with a frying pan.

Now, back to the personable Derren Brown and his cheerful, astonishephenomenality. Depending on how interested you are in the incredible weird talents of Derren that are revealed on the links herewith, you might lose a day watching him on the YouTube.

So, let’s peruse a few quick clips to whet your appetite. Here’s Derren cold reading. He makes Edward look ridiculous. If only they could go head to head.

So, how did he do it? That elevator thing! What the fuck? Well, he ain’t gonna tell us. Now, witness this minor, lo-fi moment in which he ‘reads’ David Frost’s mind. And, remember, there are quite a few cities in the world. Milan? Milan!

Derren Brown could probably sell himself as an overlord, and rule a large part of the planet. The more superstitious the folks he’d talk to, the more Godhead power he’d accrue. He would make Christ’s interventions (especially these days) look like the shonky work of an underachiever. A guy who said he’d come back soon, but just keeps everyone waiting. ‘It’ll be ready by Tuesday.’ Yeah, right, JC.

Here’s Derren in a nightclub being a bit sleazy. (It’s okay, he’s gay.)

What he’s demonstrating here is super-hero power. Spider-Man might be able to walk upside down on the ceiling but he wouldn’t get laid half as much as Derren could if he wanted. Spider-Man couldn’t knock on your door, look into your eyes, ask for your car keys and drive off in your car.

What about money? In one Derren night, he could bag a million at least. Check this out. The lucky guy he takes under his wing is having the time of his life. He’s not a bad thief either.

Unlike that carping twerp James Randi and other over-excited doubters on the many geeky poorly-designed sceptic sites on the web, Derren Brown is able to debunk and mislead and frighten, I mean, really frighten, people routinely, and with ever more entertaining set-ups. Randi might have been able to show how Uri Geller bends a spoon, but that’s it. Derren can tap you on the shoulder and make your legs stick to the ground. Then tell you your mobile number. But that’s chickenfeed.

On a trip to America several years ago, Derren tricked, baffled and exposed the buffoonery of many an aficionado of ghostly paranormal activity, as well as various church leaders, UFOlogists and other wack-jobs. He says at the start of that USA program that if ANYBODY asks him if something fishy is going on, he’ll say, ‘Yes, I’m just an illusionist.’ Not once … NOT ONCE was he asked if he was cheating, or doing the stuff of a showman. Not once was he asked if he were possessed of the very earthly gifts of advanced hypnotic manipulation. No sirree, Bob.

Here’s the US show in eight parts. For the VERY fascinated only, I expect.

Now and then and, of course, far too infrequently, Derren explains how he does stuff. A rare example of him fessing up is when he challenges to play against him nine mega-boffin chess heavyweights, including two grandmasters, and some other champion egghead boffs. He sits them down and plays them simultaneously, wandering around from game to game with a louche nonchalance, sliding pieces into places the poor bastards who are so used to winning haven’t thought of, or prepared for. It’s here that we discover just what a phenomenal memory Derren has. So, check out how he whips the chess champs. Oh, and in case he feels we’re leaving with some knowledge of his tactics, and that it might give us some ideas with which we can begin to decode his tricks, Derren caps the exercise off with a coda that is, as always, casually, staggeringly, scarily and completely impossible. I feel like my brain might detonate like that guy in Scanners if I watch too much of this. What a fucking smart-arse.

Here are a few more highlights of Derren Brown on the net.

1. Co-creator of The Office Stephen Merchant is made thoroughly depressed after succumbing to a very simple and incredibly frustrating ruse involving two cards. And a thousand quid.

2. Almost cruel, this one. You could hardly fuck with someone’s head more comprehensively.

3. Now, of course you and I would see an abandoned wallet on the footpath with a big yellow circle around it. Wouldn’t we? Surely we would.

4. Derren makes a chap drunk sans alcohol. It’s laugh out loud, readers. A good hypnotist can make a volunteer act drunk while in a state of suggestibility, sure. But this guy’s wide awake.

5. Here, the kid taking the penalties knows less about where the ball is going than Derren does. When he predicts the ball hitting the post … for fuck’s sake. Boy might have taken fifty penalties? Nah, too easy. He is far too impressed for it to have been a handful of guesses.

6. ‘The System’ was a hugely entertaining special episode where Derren set out to prove there’s a system that can be used to pick winners at the races. It’s in eight parts on YouTube, each about six minutes long. If you can’t watch the lot, then parts two and three should just blow your minds. He tells us how he did most of it but, of course, the really weird bits he won’t share at all. How did he know which horse would win the last race.

At some point I intend taking Derren hostage and, while waving a hot poker in his face, enquiring about how his dazzling set pieces are achieved. In a microsecond, of course, he’d have the poker in his own hands, and I’d be tied to a chair in a busy street with no trousers on.

All I want in life is to know how Derren Brown does this stuff. I want to know this more than I want to sleep with Monica Belluci, more than I want Australia to win the World Cup. Have me resemble the Elephant Man, but just tell me how he does it.

Ultimately, I’m forced to concur with Stephen Merchant, who, after his card debacle, says, ‘I’ll be emotionally scarred, for a few days. I’ll be angry, frustrated, then I’ll just go back to my sad, pitiful life.’

Mate, if Derren Brown calls, JUST … SAY … NO.