Not such a clever titled blog this week. I'd love to pretend that this is a clever political blog about our crap Prime Minister's failing at keeping the country from heading speedily towards a massive recession, but its not. Even though that is something that I have felt particularly string about since seeing my accountant this week and finding out exactly how poor I'm going to be for a while. No this blog is about the mental damage inflicted on me by seeing clever magic man Derren Brown's live show last week.

Since last week I have done some nice things, including spending much time in the sunshine lapping up the rays, opening the door for all the sunburn and inevitable skin cancer that I'll be rewarded with. Despite how nice all of this is, as I lie back into the sun, or in fact do anything that allows my brain to churn the same single thought has been popping into my head. This thought is simply 'How the f*ck did Derren do what he did do in his show last week?' Now its rare that I will rant on about a show like this, but I could well be brain washed to this week.

Now obviously I can't tell you what he did 'cos that would ruin it in case you go, but it was stuff that was truly truly brilliant and also completely baffling. The only time I've ever felt like this before is when I saw his last show, where, upon leaving, neither my girlfriend or I could talk for about 45 minutes because we had felt, for want of a better term, well and truly 'mind-raped'. God knows how the people involved in the tricks feel. During neither of these shows was I picked to go on stage, which is something I've been very grateful for. Derren's technique for choosing 'volunteers' was to fling Frisbees into the crowd at random so I was very careful to duck my head at appropriate moments. I truly enjoyed being able to sit back and watch Derren's show knowing fully well that I would just be a non-critical punter looking forward to some crazy trickery. Sit back I did, for about 5 minutes, until he first screwed with our brains and then I was on the edge of my seat hoping that at some point he didn't turn us into his zombie army through subliminal messaging. Well that's not strictly true. He is a brilliant showman making the whole room feel very comfortable about being there, even though in reality he probably had 500 little zombie army helmets backstage.

I've got no clue about magic at all. I once learnt a very crap card trick, spent most of my eighth year of age trying it out on family and getting it wrong over and over again helping to increase their boredom with my antics considerably. So having remained mainly ignorant to it all, I still marvel at great tricks. As far as I'm concerned it makes me feel like a kid again, and I am fully willing to be sucked in to thinking that the magician I am watching could be the child of Gandalf and that everything they do is all real. Its the same for music, because I am musically inept, and therefore a great live band is astounding to me. Whereas comedy, with some exceptions, has slightly less wonder about it because even though there are many amazing stand-ups out there that I don't compare to, I know how they do what they do. I did a bit painting and artwork when I was younger and as arrogant as it sounds I get the same knowledge awareness when I walk through even the most impressive of art galleries. "Mona Lisa? He just did that with oil paints on canvas then copied her face didn't 'e? Easy bloody peasy I tell ya.'

So after Wednesday's show I have decided that Derren Brown is a wizard and should probably be burnt alive or something. Either that or he should stop pissing about and just rule things by making people do what he wants. He seems like a nice bloke, or so I think, when infact he's projected that thought into my mind against my will. Even so I reckon he'd be a great PM, well, better than the other Brown anyway because even if he stole all my money in tax payments I'd be mind-wiped to enjoy it. I highly recommend going to see 'Mind Reader'. There's not really anything else out there at the moment that manages to capture that old fashioned vaudevillian show style while at the same time being genuinely impressive magic. Just maybe wear a tin foil hat so that he can't enter your brain and steal your memories. Or something.

By the way, despite the respect i have for the man, I still love the Daily Star's inspired genius when he came out as gay a few weeks ago. Headline of the article was 'Derren is a mind-bender'. So wrong but so funny.

See what I did there with the title? Do you see? I was proud of that I have to say. Apologies in advance for any non London readers who will either find this dull or hilarious as you mock the idiocy of London voters. Ok ok, I know this is going to be a much over talked about subject for the next four years at least, but how the hell did London as one of the greatest cities in the world let Boris 'massive twat' Johnson in charge of mayoral duties? I honestly didn't think we would let it happen. I knew people were bored of Ken, and I knew there were many things people wanted to change, but Boris? Fucking Boris?

'Oh won't it be funny if we vote for that racist, homophobic rich bigot? hahahahah bloody ha.' What many people failed to see is that that such joke will now make an impact on our city and the way we are viewed by the world for much longer than most punchlines. I understand people's 'serious' reasons too. Congestion charge complaints (although it has made a massive difference in traffic in Central London), policing issues, spending large amounts of money on crap like the Olympics (especially as the British won't win any of the golds) etc etc, but lest we forget that of all the people that may remedy or attempt to remedy such gripes, Boris is the man who backed Thatcher on the poll tax. Anyone remember that? Strictly speaking I don't because of being of a young age at the time which meant that I only really hated Thatcher for taking away my milk at school. However I didn't hate her as much as the kid with a severe calcium deficiency who broke three weeks later while playing 'tag' on the tarmac. Despite this I do know from latter knowledge that poll tax was an invention of true evil, that deserved its welcome demise after crippling many working peoples lives.

Oh well what about bringing the people of London together? Creating public unity on the city's streets which is what we need in such a hostile time? Well I'm sure the Johnson with his homophobic views, public verbal bashing of the poor and well known racist remarks is the man for such unity creation. I could happily quote things that he has said and done, but it his backing of Section 28 is not by any means hidden knowledge, nor is his recent attack on the people of Liverpool or general use of such racist terms as 'picanninies'. Its the equivalent of voting Prince Phillip in, only if he had the stupid blonde hair of a some sort of seventies Swedish porn star. To be fair the thought of that is perhaps even more terrifying than Johnson himself.

Also, on a childish level, Johnson is one of many slang terms for 'dick', a fact that is especially well known to any fans of the Big Lebowski. Admittedly, Paddick also has 'dick' in it and 'Livingstone' sounds like a Golem, mystical and dangerous beast of stone. Those would be suitable London mayors either, but all in all its a rather silly null point. Boris also looks uncannily like Patrick Marber. No point there, just something that bothers me.

What I find fascinating is that nearly everyone I know that voted, did so for Ken to make sure Boris wouldn't win, and yet he did. So where are these many voters who are intent on the decline of London? I really don't know and as much as the whole thing angers and frightens me, I don't care. Its been done now and I suppose the only benefit is that (as I saw on someone's facebook status and will not claim the thought as my own) there will at least now be four years of easy material for comics everywhere.

I'm not a political comedian at all. Not because I don't want to be, but I never feel that I have the knowledge or skill to make such farcical events funny as this blog happily proves. However I managed to write a couple of bits on Boris on Thursday day, the day of the elections. As such since Thursday I haven't gigged in London once and the material is now a tad stale. Its a shame because topical gags work that on the basis of freshness of gag, even if its less well thought out that the rest of your material. There is something so exciting about news gags and yet so sad when they disappear like a really shit and poorly written moment of sharp wit. One of the gags I was most proud of was to do with a train crash that happened near Reading when a man parked his car on the tracks. Not a massive subject for comedy I agree, but there was one caption in a broadsheet that sad 'On impact the train had twisted like some sort of metal baguette'. Now it just so happens that the suicidal chap in the car used to be a chef, and so I merely commented that a 'twisted baguette' was perhaps what he would have wanted. I was damn pleased with that. Two weeks after it happened no one cared about the accident anymore enough for the gag to work. So not fair.

I can only hope Boris screws up so massively both for the benefit of London and for my gags to last that little bit longer. Is that so selfish?