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As I'm sure you're all aware I've just come back from Iceland and have been having the time of my life with the exceptionally friendly Icelandic magicians ring.

Whilst there I had the great honour of staying with Iceland's premiere magician Baldur Brjánsson, who I had met twice before at the Blackpool Magic Convention. Apart from being one of my favourite chaps in the world and a downright good egg, Baldur is something of a phenomonen in Iceland. Thirty years ago this year he made his name by debunking psychic surgery at the height of it's popularity amongst the country's rich and famous. On Icelandic TV he peformed a flawless psychic operation performed in front of one camera and recorded in one shot to prove that ill people were being conned out of their money by unscrupulous fraudsters. The highlight of this performance is the beautiful production of an egg from his "victim's" stomach.

This was recently voted as one of the three most influential of TV moments in Iceland's history, and is something that has firmly implanted itself in the consciousness of those who saw it. Having watched the original video, it is very easy to see why. One lady I talked to said that she remembered it from her childhood and her father (a surgeon) had been incredibly excited that someone had bravely exposed this fraud.

And this was only one person, wherever I went with Baldur he was recognised by people and often had people come up and shake his hand, even though he retired from performance some time ago. Of course one of the things that is most interesting is that his fame is quite localised to Iceland and that he is relatively unknown in the magic fraternity worldwide.

I know he's going to hate me for putting this post up here as he has no need for further publicity, but I feel that his incredible story warrants a mention in Talkmagic's Hall of Fame for Magicians.

I have found a clip of him on youtube, which I think is talking about the 30th anniversary (sorry I don't speak icelandic). Somewhere in the middle there is the original operation itself, unfortunately the modern day tv company has added their own fades and cuts to shorten it for the interview, but please be assured that this was not the case in the original.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiL2oQ2wecM

I know that Jonni, Gunnar, Bjarni and the rest of the Icelandic Ring think the world of this man and I hope that one of them will take some time to write more about this master magician's career on this forum (or find some more footage of him to amaze us with). For my part I am just honoured to know him.

Thanks for posting that. I was especially interested to see the interview. A big shame I couldn't understand the language, but enjoyable nevertheless, especially for the performance clip alone.

I have met Baldur a couple of times now at Blackpool, and have always found him to be a real gentlemen of magic. He is a lovely guy and is full of passion for the art.

I have always thought of him as being the equivelent of Paul Daniels in this country. What a wonderful opportunity to stay with him.

I speak Icelandic so I went and wrote up a transcript of the interview. It's a fairly rough translation but should be good enough to give an idea of what they were talking about. Baldur came off very well. Seems like a really nice guy.

Anyway here goes:

Interviewer - Welcome, Baldur

Baldur - Thank you

I - It's safe to say, like Thorhallur said with in the intro, that this was one of the most memorable events on TV. I was 7 when I watched it and I still remember it. Could you now talk about about how it came about that you were asked to to do the 'surgery' on TV

B - Well it was the case, that it started really when there were lots of articles from The Icelandic Soul Research Institute and others who were having talks about this Phil Sync [I'm not sure I got the name correctly] who did the psychic surgery. It was a hot topic 30 years ago.

I - People had differing opnions on this

B - Yeah, and then Omar Ragnason had a show on a Friday and phoned me up and said he had new film from abroad and wanted my opinion on it. I went there and watched it and said that it was just illusion and magic trickery. I recognised all the movements and said it was clearly nothing but standard sleight of hand. He then asked me if I thought I could do this and I somehow said yes.

That was that, this was on a Friday, on a Sunday I'm woken up and the phone didn't stop - "you said you'd do it so you just have to". I said ok, and he said that they'd be filming on the Wednesday or Thursday with the show airing on the Saturday and you'll have to just show up.

So I just put my thinking cap on and figured out how I was going to do it and it went really well.

I - We'll show the clip very soon but first I should explain that there was a bunch of Icelandic people who went abroad and really believed that they'd been healed. I have here an article where Heba Jónsdóttir, who was a travel guide talks about this and how the most impressive thing she saw was when the psychic surgeon opened up the chest of a man with heart disease and they'd all seen the heart beating. Then the surgeon hit the guy behind the ear and dragged out infected glands which he said was the reason for the heart problems.

(some more stuff on what the psychic surgeon was supposed to have done and how everyone believed it)

I - So did people get angry when you then claimed that the whole thing was fake

B - yes, people phoned up from The Icelandic Soul Research Institute and others saying that I had no idea what I was talking about and were really angry at me.

I - Right lets now see the 'operation'

-------------------------
They show the clip

Male Interviewer - So how did you do this?

Young Baldur - Well I'm not going to say. But it's all just trickery

MI - So you're certain that the magic doctors in the Philipines are effectively stage magicians

YB - Yep

-------------------------

Back in the 'present'

B - heh, I've not changed at all!

I - Yeah! You look exactly like you did 30 years ago But that was really well done, it looked exactly like you had your hands inside the belly of the person

B - Yeah it worked really well, I asked specifically that my hands would never be out of frame when they were filming. It would be just the one camera that was constantly aimed at the main area, 'cos if I'd messed up my career would be gone.

I - yeah you couldn't mess up

B - Nope it had to be a solid 10

I - This was got a lot of attention and a lot of talk,

B - yes and it completely killed the psychic - surgeon thing dead. People stopped going on about that completely

I - did you get phonecalls after that from people saying they'd been healed.

B ö yeah people phoned me up and congratulated me on exposing these fakes. But this got so much attention, last year a publisher got in contact with me and wanted to write a book about this,

I - what about you, do you still perform?

B - Yeah, I'm retired, don't do it anymore

I - You've not completely stopped though, have you, you're in an Icelandic magic society and some international ones too, right?

B- yeah, but it's mostly just to make the grandchildren smile. I also regularily go abroad for conventions and shows, trying to see what the young whippersnappers are up to.

I - But this is in the blood
B - Yeah, I think so, once a magician, always a magician

I - can I fool you into doing a small trick now? Are you always ready to do something?

B - Nah, I've got nothing, I don't know what to..

I - I was going to try to get you to make a table fly but you'll maybe do that later, oh so what do you have there?

B - I have a bill here, heh I've not done this with Icelandic currency before but you can see how it obeys my commands, it folds itself up for me.

I - wow, mine doesn't take direction nearly that well, so do you have any cards or anything

B - Ah lets just let it be

I - ok lets skip that then, it was fun going over the story with you and thank you for coming

B - Thanks

The woman was a bit annoying towards the end, wanting to push Baldur into performing when he clearly wasn't really prepared and didn't particularly want to.

Wow thanks for that!

Excellent translation and Sica even felt the aggrivation of the news lady at the end, trying to push Baldur into performing a magic trick, obviously something she had not prepared Baldur with before, just plunged it on him in the interview. And mind you... the interview was live, not pre-recorded. IBM Ring 371 - aka. The Guild of Icelandic Magicians, had a video night the same evening and Baldur came 20 minutes late, because of his TV interview

Wowsers now I know why Baldur and I get on so well we both use the word whippersnappers!!!!

Thanks for the transcript old bean, I owe you one...

This week, Baldur Brjánsson was awarded Presidents Citation from the President of IBM (International Brotherhood of Magicians), Philip R. Willmarth.

The picture is of Baldur (on the left) and the President of IBM Ring 371 in Iceland, Jón Víðis Jakobsson.

Hey cheers for letting us know Gunnar.

Please send my congratulations to Baldur for his award and to Jon for keeping those magnificent whiskers in fine fettle.

The book I have been writing for over a year now, about Baldur Brjánsson, was published yesterday. It's 352 pages, but unfortunately for most of you, it's all in Icelandic (aaawwww ) but below you can see the cover page and one of the picture pages, showing our very own Flashy, Bananafish and Mandrake. Yey!

Nice one Gunnar!!