Numbers

So it's 09/09/09, and Derren Brown just correctly predicted the Lottery. Yes, I know it's a trick, and it's unlikely that he really did 'predict' it earlier in the day like he claimed . . . but then again . . . He'd written it on plastic balls, admittedly facing away from us until after the official BBC announcement, but he had them in full view of the camera for the whole show. There didn't seem like any opportunity for sleight of hand. He was chattering away for about five minutes or so, and there is no way that BBC has that kind of delay on the Lottery show, even if it wasn't live to the second like he claimed. If there was some form of delay, then the BBC would be first to call him a fake, as they're a rival channel. He seemed genuinely terrified that it might not work - he looked physically sick at one point. There was nobody, apart from the cameraman, in the room - no smoke, no mirrors, no cutaway.
And yes, aspects look suspicious. The apparent claim that Channel4 wouldn't let him buy a lottery ticket, in case people claimed he had unfairly led to a loss in their winnings - well, I suppose that is something they would do,but it would have made the trick a hundred times more impressive if he'd had that winning lottery ticket in his hand. And not being able to show his numbers until after the BBC had chosen the balls? Well, I suppose there may be a legal rule about who annonces the Lottery, but if he was actually making some form of educated guess I doubt they would sue him for it . . . it would have helped the BBC show ratings no end.
And then there is the usually taken for granted 'fact' that the Lottery cannot be predicted. Otherwise, surely, someone would have done so already? Yes, Derren may be a very clever man, with an incredible brain capable of learning huge quantities of information, and he may well have spent the whole of the past year working out some giant mathmatical formula of probability, but to get every number correct on live tv?
So what to think? I've recently become a little suspicious that Derren's 'explanations' are just as much as part of the trick as the stunt itself, so I will almost guarantee that whatever he says on Friday won't be the whole truth, and might not be the truth at all. Sometimes when he gives one of his 'here's how I did it', where he claims to have used some subliminal sign, or pattern of speech, or to have learnt some seemingly impossibly large quantity of information, I can't help but wonder if it was, at least in part, a far simpler use of traditional 'magic', or at least a good dose of hypnosis. This obviously isn't the case for all of his tricks, some can't be explained without his famous 'power of suggestion', but I do think he makes things seem a little more complicated than they are, and that is why we marvel at him. He is a true original, and one of the greatest showmen in history, even if we can't always trust him.
My theory? He'll claim that it's due to some formula, and 95% of me will be desperate to believe him. He's very difficult to dislike, or to believe capable of staightforward deception, for all his mystery. But there will still be a part of me that will believe it was a different type of trick, some form of projection or inner-writing mechanism on the plastic for example, or even a frozen split-screen like someone on YT just suggested, that meant the numbers could be added seconds after the BBC anouncement. I think part of the thrill for him is making us believe that he is capable of mental feats that seem almost impossible.
Here's the link, I don't know how long Youtube will keep this footage up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG-5qebwflA

In other news, I ordered two $9 Threadless t-shirts today, which made me very happy :) And the JFK stuff is already pretty interesting.