I once had an idea I thought would make a great book.
To be honest, it was a book I wanted to actually read rather than write. I assumed a book on this topic existed, and did a search in the usual places, but no luck. I thought maybe there would be a PhD thesis on the subject, but all searches were in vain.
To me this meant that perhaps a book had been written and was such a success, or failure, that no copies were available, even second hand. Or maybe no-one had written a book, because they hadn’t thought of it or they had and realised it was not worth the effort. Or maybe my Web searching skills were not what they used to be.
It was on a subject I had always been interested in, vaguely, and wanted to know more about some aspect of it. Maybe it wouldn’t make a complete book, but whatever, it would be interesting to research.
The topic? MAGIC.
To be clear from the start, stage magic or rather stage and tv magic, you know, the kind of stuff Paul Daniels or David Nixon did. Not juggling, escapology, acrobatics, not side show acts like sword swallowing, just plain stage magic, like pulling a rabbit from a hat.
Now, if you are one of those people who thinks ‘Oh my goodness, so boring, waste of time, rubbish…’ then don’t go away. You are absolutely the person I am interested in.
It seems to me there are three groups of people, those who enjoy magic and perform tricks, those who watch it on tv and on stage and clap politely after a trick, and people who find it stupid and whose hearts sink when someone brings out a pack of cards and says they will do a trick.
