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Well you wait for a few days, then the same letter you sent to him will come back, magically filled with an entry pass, evening show ticket/s, receipt, and even a map.

I have a question. What does the "Close up" part consist of?

What does the "Close up" part consist of?

The large lecture room will have four tables set up, one in each corner, and there will be chairs set up around the tables for the audience.

Four magicians, Paul Daniels, Oz Pearlman, Roy Davenport and one other (either the winner of the Ipswich Magical Society Close up competition to be held on Oct 2nd* or Matt Edwards)

Each Magician will perform a close up set at one of the tables for about 14 minutes before they move to the next table. This is repeated uptil they have performed at each table.

*Incidentally if anyone wants to come and watch the close up competition on Oct 2nd please get in touch with me.

Got my stuff! Thanks Fishdude!

Steve

I am tempted to come to this convention. However you will all be glad to know that I am also trying to resist temptation and I expect I will succeed.

Embrace the temptation and give in to your craving!!!

I would have to come a long way so temptation is easier to resist.

I would have to come a long way so temptation is easier to resist.

Compared to a journey to the stars the distance is but a stones throw away.

You should come - it would be great to meet you and my wife can ask you all sorts of things about the state you have left Canada in. You know you want to, and you are due a holiday after all.

Perhaps you could also persuade she who cannot be named to come with you as a travel companion (that is if He who should also not be named would allow her of course)

I would even let you have a small dealers table so you could pitch a few sven decks.

It is imperative that you delete all reference to that womanly person. Or at least remove her name and that of her husband. She gets very irritated if she is mentioned in the same breath as me. She deems it very bad for business. If my name is mentioned her eyes glaze over and it is as if a deer has been caught in the headlights. She may even deny knowledge of me in the same way that spies are sometimes abandoned by their governments.

I refer to her on the internet as "she who cannot be named" and she doesn't even like that. The last time she got mad she deleted my entire website which she is in charge of.

It may be wise in a day or two to make this entire conversation vanish as if it didn't exist. Otherwise I won't exist either.

With regard to your suggestion coincidentally I received a phone call from London yesterday from the person in question and asked her what you suggested. I received an emphatic "no!" She is not quite as enamoured by the UK as she used to be. Her actual words were "I have had quite enough of Blighty" I told her that the novelty would wear off eventually because it is a bloody awful place. I think she is speeding back to Vegas as we speak.

As for Canada that is a bloody awful place too with people chewing gum all the time in a most disgusting manner. Fully a third of the population is chewing the disgusting stuff and it makes me want to leave the country. Singapore had the right idea of banning the bloody stuff.

I don't think I'm coming but if I did I would bring a Canadian mentalist friend who for some strange reason has become quite fascinated with Paul Daniels who is appearing at your event. The daft thing is that my friend never saw Paul in his heyday and thinks he is a bloody awful performer but he is fascinated nevertheless.

I must say that I find Canadians to be a rather odd people.

I'm coming

Good to hear

As for Canada that is a bloody awful place too

You definitely need a break from it.

Fully a third of the population is chewing the disgusting stuff and it makes me want to leave the country.

And what better place could you go to than a magic convention in Suffolk, where gum was banned back in 1672 when drake brought it back from the New World.

I would bring a Canadian mentalist friend who for some strange reason has become quite fascinated with Paul Daniels

He is indeed a fascinating gentleman. Who is your mentalist friend by the way? Anyone we mortals may have heard of?

If you do come make sure you bring a few copies of the long and short of it. I am sure they would sell like hot cakes.

now if only we could get Craig and Opie to come...

I did not say I was coming. You are using the old scam where theatres would put selected excerpts from negative reviews outside the theatres for advertising purposes. Thus a review would say something like "dreadful production full of bad acting and is a superb example to audiences of how not to put on a show" The theatre would then put out in the lobby the words "superb example to audiences" -Daily News

They would of course leave out the rest of the review.

Incidentally I see that you have left out the name of she who cannot be named but have left in the name of he who should not be named either. In actual fact he would be even more eager than she to have his name disassociated from mine. His sales would go down. Give the guy a break. He needs to earn a living without being tainted by Mark Lewis.

As for the mentalist in question it is the irrepressible Paul Pacific who I think is the best Canadian mentalist. He has seen in the past the old TV shows of Paul Daniels which have been shown on Canadian TV and was never impressed with them. I told him that he has to see Paul Daniels live to really appreciate how good he is. I told him that he has to see his stage show not his TV work. I raved and raved about Paul.

Accordingly our curious mentalist purchased a DVD showing Paul Daniels doing some kind of Malini show. He reported to me that the DVD was horrific and Paul was bloody terrible and that I was going senile raving about how good Paul was.

In a spirited defence of British honour I stammered out that he was not to watch silly Malini impersonations but that he should see Paul's actual show where he does the chop cup, the electric chair etc;

Accordingly he went to a magic shop and purchased another DVD this time with Paul's actual show on it recorded in Edinburgh. I asked him what he thought of it expecting him to rave and rant about how good Paul was. He didn't. Instead he smirked and said "I am not going to comment. I want you to watch it and tell me what you think"

I did watch and was mortified at how bad Paul was. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It wasn't the Paul Daniels of old. It was a rather badly dressed and inferior version. I cringed and thought perhaps it might be time for this formerly wonderful performer to retire. "Gone at the game" was the phrase that constantly ran through my head and the horrible realisation went through me that it was going to happen to me very soon too and it scared the hell out of me.

I have seen this with many entertainers who go on too long. They get crappier and crappier as the years go by. Age is a terrible thing.

I didn't know what to say to my mentalist friend except "don't gloat. You will get old and c*** (not the best) one day too, you know-just like me and Paul Daniels"

But then a strange thing happened to my mentalist friend. He was offered the loan of a biography of Daniels and refused to read it. However the magician who owned the book insisted that he did.

And he did and was fascinated and amused. He then overnight became a fan of Paul Daniels because of this book. He then went and purchased the marketing DVDs that Paul made recently and listens to them for hours and hours on end. Not for any business advice. My mentalist friend has no interest whatever in any kind of promotional activities. No, he is just amused at Paul's way of expressing himself.

He has become a major fan of Paul Daniels and doesn't think he is any good.

Figure that one out.

Ahh Paul Pacific. I was hoping it would be him.

Well I have seen Paul Daniels live twice now, and have to say I was very impressed. It can not be denied that he entertains an audience with much aplomb (a very underated word).

I have heard very good things about Mr. Pacific and feel he really should meet Master Daniels in person. (I use the term Master in the Maestro sense of the word obviously) as only then is he truly qualified to express an opinion.

How about James Biss. Couldn't you bring him over with you as well? Did I not read somewhere that Paul P. and him are also good friends?

And whilst you are contacting these people could you ask Patrik Kuffs and Gary Kurtz to join you all. I assume that they both still reside in Canada.

I would of course also suggest Mr. Sankey as well, but fear he and Oz may still have some indirect issues that may yet to be resolved, so perhaps we could leave him for another time.

All in all though Mark, I am sure everyone going would agree it would be nice to meet you in person with or without your entourage of people that can and can not be named.

Sorry to change topic slightly, but my better half is asking how the seats for the show are allocated and whether she'll definitely be able to see the close-up magic if she doesn't make it into the front row of chairs.

Oh and will Michael J Fitch be attending?

For the close up there are 4 tables, and all you need to do is make sure you get into the room relatively early. Normally there is no problem getting seats at the front. To be honest though there are no bad seats really for the close up session.

Fitchy will be there, he says he is looking forward to it.

Ah I was just wondering on a couple of things.

Would it be possible to get some of the performers to sign a photo or pack of cards, etc?

Also would I be allowed to use my camera in this place, for the purpose of videoing(sp?), or is there only certain things that I am allowed to film. (Like stevebo's magic. XD)