Derren Brown - The Events

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 1:40 pm

Sue Sanders wrote: Well, you just proved it , didn't you?....so, deep down, you do know.

Don't tell me how I feel

Do I make you stick to your couch Sue?

Sue Sanders · Post by **Sue Sanders** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 1:43 pm

Jon Corby wrote:
Sue Sanders wrote: Well, you just proved it , didn't you?....so, deep down, you do know.
Don't tell me how I feel

Do I make you stick to your couch Sue?

Grrr - Mr Angry

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 4:41 pm

Really looking forward to tonight. I have actually never witnessed or been in a hypnosis and majorly want to see if it's possible. There's still not much evidence to show that subliminal advertising works so I still don't believe that subliminal coercion can be that powerful. Hoping to get proven wrong.

Chris Corby · Post by **Chris Corby** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 4:47 pm

Jeffrey Burgin wrote:
Hopefully there is some sorta video thingy though, this stunt kinda reminds me when I was 'hypnotised' to sort out who was most likely to play along the hypnotist guy did some thing where you make your hands stick together. Tbf that was genuinely weird, I couldn't actually unstick my hands.

He didn't by chance make you masturbate immediately before did he?

Sue Sanders · Post by **Sue Sanders** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:58 pm

Jon Corby wrote:
Sue Sanders wrote: Well, you just proved it , didn't you?....so, deep down, you do know.
Don't tell me how I feel

Do I make you stick to your couch Sue?

Well Jon, I, and a valuable 'second opinion' have given consideration to the question 'do I make you stick to your couch (,) Sue?' and concluded that it can only be interpreted in a way that I was wondering if you'd care to explain ????

Craig Beevers · Post by **Craig Beevers** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:45 pm

Heh loved that disclaimer there.

Apparently the subliminal film is high resolution such that if it ends up on the internet it won't work...

Craig Beevers · Post by **Craig Beevers** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:56 pm

What a complete load of bollocks.

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:00 pm

Didn't work on me. Pity.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:02 pm

I really wanted this work, but it didn't at all

When he was telling us how to sit and it was slowly zooming in on him I did feel sorta heavy, but that's probably just concentrating on how I was sitting or something.

Still, at least the tricks throughout the show were more interesting this week.

Craig Beevers · Post by **Craig Beevers** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:08 pm

The position itself is obviously designed to be harder than normal to get up from. Things like having your feet flat and having yours hands on your lap - I guess you're left using your core muscles to get up.

Innis Carson · Post by **Innis Carson** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:24 pm

Didn't work for me, or any of the 100-ish people in my block at uni. Guess we're not "creatively talented", or the TV resolution was too low, or we had a shred of doubt in our minds, or we didn't have the right seating position, or something.

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:45 pm

Checked facebook, I know 3 people who it worked on. Out of about 40 who have been on since.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 10:52 pm

When that girl had to pick one person out of 20 and happened to pick the "lose" one, Derren revealed beforehand which one it was. I found that really unimpressive!

Matthew Green · Post by **Matthew Green** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 8:38 am

I was stuck to my sofa. Here's why:

Peep Show
IT Crowd
Eva Herzigova on Jonathan Ross
Inbetweeners
No social life
Being a fucking lazy twat

Sue Sanders · Post by **Sue Sanders** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 1:53 pm

Matthew Green wrote:I was stuck to my sofa. Here's why:

Peep Show
IT Crowd
Eva Herzigova on Jonathan Ross
Inbetweeners
No social life
Being a fucking lazy twat

And maybe 'being legs disabled' ?

Rosemary Roberts · Post by **Rosemary Roberts** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 3:58 pm

Matthew Green wrote:Being a fucking lazy twat

Sue Sanders wrote:maybe 'being legs disabled' ?

I found myself looking for an anagram there

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 4:12 pm

Rosemary Roberts wrote:
Sue Sanders wrote:maybe 'being legs disabled' ?
I found myself looking for an anagram there

Sue - were you eating eggs whilst watching Derren perchance?

BEING LEGS DISABLED is an anagram of IDLE ASS NIBBLED EGGS. That will explain the reason why you couldn't stand up - too much protein.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:41 am

Gavin Chipper wrote:When that girl had to pick one person out of 20 and happened to pick the "lose" one, Derren revealed beforehand which one it was. I found that really unimpressive!

Yeah it was shithouse, wasn't it? It was much more impressive when he did the same sort of thing with the cards on the table, moments before, when there was a long pause in between her selecting the card, and ample opportunity for him to misdirect and switch it with the marked card.

Craig Beevers · Post by **Craig Beevers** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:03 am

He did kinda lead her when he asked for groups of x people to be eliminated.

Presumably there's some sort of predictable standard human response to this that mentalists have stats on?

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:38 am

Anybody getting excited about being a 'psychic spy' tonight?

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:10 am

Jon Corby wrote:Anybody getting excited about being a 'psychic spy' tonight?

Not especially, but I'm actually expecting it to be better than the previous two shows. Less hype, less disappointment I guess.

Matt Morrison · Post by **Matt Morrison** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:14 am

Kieran Child wrote:
Jon Corby wrote:Anybody getting excited about being a 'psychic spy' tonight?
Not especially, but I'm actually expecting it to be better than the previous two shows. Less hype, less disappointment I guess.

Down with that assessment. Actually thought the lottery one was ok, last week's was just annoying. Even though (as I think Jon pointed out somewhere) the 'time-filler' tricks were more interesting than the lottery crap, it just lost so much magic by having such a failure of an audience interaction thing as the main focus. So I guess this one could go the same way.

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:04 pm

< drew concentric circles. That was brilliant I thought.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:07 pm

Kieran Child wrote:< drew concentric circles. That was brilliant I thought.

I drew a duck walking away from a unicycle. Somebody on digitalSpy rumbled the "draw concentric circles" adverts. Not very subtle !

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:10 pm

Jon Corby wrote:I drew a duck walking away from a unicycle.

I wanna hear more about this. Did his face look dejected, like "2 years of practice and I've still not manage this for more than 3 seconds

"?

Sue Sanders · Post by **Sue Sanders** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:31 pm

Kieran Child wrote:< drew concentric circles. That was brilliant I thought.

'Look into her eyes, not around the eyes, into the eyes, look into her concentric circle eyes'. Pretty amazing that they actually reflected an additional circle right into her pupil so her eyes looked like her drawing. He's a shamen, man!

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:42 pm

Sue Sanders wrote:
Kieran Child wrote:< drew concentric circles. That was brilliant I thought.

'Look into her eyes, not around the eyes, into the eyes, look into her concentric circle eyes'. Pretty amazing that they actually reflected an additional circle right into her pupil so her eyes looked like her drawing. He's a shamen, man!

I seriously doubt this had much to do with it. Why would people only draw one eye when persuaded to draw two?

Sue Sanders · Post by **Sue Sanders** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:48 pm

Kieran Child wrote:
Sue Sanders wrote:
Kieran Child wrote:< drew concentric circles. That was brilliant I thought.

'Look into her eyes, not around the eyes, into the eyes, look into her concentric circle eyes'. Pretty amazing that they actually reflected an additional circle right into her pupil so her eyes looked like her drawing. He's a shamen, man!
I seriously doubt this had much to do with it. Why would people only draw one eye when persuaded to draw two?

Anybody who drew two eyes is not going to say, I drew two sets of concentric circles - well , that Derren Brown programme is a load of old bollocks.

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:51 pm

True point, but I still wouldn't call the eyes especially important. In tricks of the mind, Derren did a very similar set up with getting people to focus on a pair of eyes, and the answer was 'sugar'...
Focussing on eyes are just something he likes doing to create the illusion of psychic undertakings.

Jon O'Neill · Post by **Jon O'Neill** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 9:53 am

I'm with Sue on this one. Those eyes had me thinking concentric circles.

Jeffrey Burgin · Post by **Jeffrey Burgin** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 10:17 pm

Her pupils were also ridiculously diluted, she looked proper scary up close. I'd like to throw my weight behind the eyes/circles theory. I also drew a spiral, which I guess is a concentric circle. I'm sure it would be good enough for Derren anyway.

That other 'psychic' guy was hilarious as well, my mum was all like 'he said fountain!' then I was like 'yeah, he probably said a lot of other shit in 2 hours as well.' I was proven right.

Anywho, I say we burn Derren and his assistant witch, the woman with the weird eyes, at the stake or alternatively duck them in a pond.

Sue Sanders · Post by **Sue Sanders** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 8:32 am

Jeffrey Burgin wrote:Her pupils were also ridiculously diluted.

Dilated, maybe?? I was wondering is that one of those little mix-ups you've been making for years? Mine was invasive/evasive. I have to remember when talking to people about their garden plants, not to suggest some varieties may be trying to dodge the issue.

Jeffrey Burgin wrote:I also drew a spiral, which I guess is a concentric circle. I'm sure it would be good enough for Derren anyway.

I wondered whether the outcome would be affected by the drawing ability of the people involved. When asked to draw what comes into my head, it isn't likely to be geometric shapes. As a confident drawer, I draw actual things - so I drew a yacht on the sea plus seagulls, a horse pulling a gypsy caravan, a train coming out of a tunnel and a sweep of railway track, a desert island with palm tree and fallen coconuts, a duck walking away from a unicycle. And I think this choice of things that fill my head when I think about being able to draw the first things that come into my head would block out any boring old concentric circles and rectangular stones and lintels. I'm guessing the subject girl was not a very good drawer. However had she been.......did you notice the number of people who mentioned drawing horses? Hmmm.

Jeffrey Burgin · Post by **Jeffrey Burgin** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 8:49 am

Sue Sanders wrote:
Jeffrey Burgin wrote:Her pupils were also ridiculously diluted.

Dilated, maybe?? I was wondering is that one of those little mix-ups you've been making for years? Mine was invasive/evasive. I have to remember when talking to people about their garden plants, not to suggest some varieties may be trying to dodge the issue.

Woopsie, meant to say dilated but couldn't think of the right word at the time! I do this regularly, even in the show- at one point you'll noticed I got confused and said, "Not by a long chalk of the imag...yeah," and somewhere else I said, "You've got to be on your...guard," when talking about debating against the likes of Eton- I realised guard sounds like they're going to try and seduce you (they are Eton after all), I wanted to say mettle but that sounded like they were looking for a fight, when the word I really wanted was game. Dang.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:14 pm

Kieran Child wrote:
Jon Corby wrote:I drew a duck walking away from a unicycle.
I wanna hear more about this. Did his face look dejected, like "2 years of practice and I've still not manage this for more than 3 seconds "?

Yeah, he was definitely walking away specifically from the unicycle (as opposed to just having walked past it, for example.) I reckon he hadn't been trying anywhere near that long though, probably just a few attempts before realising it was impossible.

I was massively underwhelmed with Friday's show (again) btw. I just don't see the point. Okay, so he knew what was on the canvas (and furthermore what it was supposed to represent, I didn't look at her drawing and think "ooh, an aerial view of Stonehenge") and then tried to make us draw it. Only it's not very subtle just writing "DRAW CONCENTRIC CIRCLES", because someone rumbled that very early on Friday morning on Digital Spy. So I either obey that very explicit instruction, or I choose not to. He even then midway through the show showed us some drawings out of their box, of circles, a train, and something else, and then said "now draw again, and see if it looks like these"?!

Just... what?

And then we had the rubbishing of that other remote viewing expert, which would be fine, except it was juxtaposed with a nonsense video of him supposedly making someone steal a TV. The guy has completely lost his way IMO, I just find the shows baffling, but not in the way intended.

Jon O'Neill · Post by **Jon O'Neill** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 7:11 pm

Who says it was nonsense?

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:30 pm

Jon O'Neill wrote:Who says it was nonsense?

I just did.

Jon O'Neill · Post by **Jon O'Neill** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:37 pm

Now I'm saying it wasn't!

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:42 pm

Personally I'm waiting to see what Kieran Child thinks.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:25 pm

Jon O'Neill wrote:Now I'm saying it wasn't!

I'm gonna really stick my neck out here and say you can't make someone shoplift a TV by scratching your nose at the same time as them.

Jon O'Neill · Post by **Jon O'Neill** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:37 pm

Jon Corby wrote:
Jon O'Neill wrote:Now I'm saying it wasn't!
I'm gonna really stick my neck out here and say you can't make someone shoplift a TV by scratching your nose at the same time as them.

The problem with the Lottery shit is that nobody will take him seriously any more, so I understand your skepticism. But I think you can.

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:50 pm

The technique of mirroring was not just an act. It is known to cause positive reactions, and is used sometimes by psychological magic in order to get someone to be more susceptible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_(psychology)
It was used by Derren for a trick called "The Russian Scam" but for a much less extreme requirement than happened here.
Could it be used to perform the effect shown? mmmmmmaybe. But if so, Derren is the first person to have managed to use it this amazingly.

Rosemary Roberts · Post by **Rosemary Roberts** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 1:34 am

Kieran Child wrote:The technique of mirroring was not just an act. It is known to cause positive reactions, and is used sometimes by psychological magic in order to get someone to be more susceptible.

The same technique was demonstrated brilliantly on The Brittas Empire by Chris Barrie (Whom God Preserve).

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 7:59 am

Kieran Child wrote:The technique of mirroring was not just an act. It is known to cause positive reactions, and is used sometimes by psychological magic in order to get someone to be more susceptible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_(psychology)
It was used by Derren for a trick called "The Russian Scam" but for a much less extreme requirement than happened here.
Could it be used to perform the effect shown? mmmmmmaybe. But if so, Derren is the first person to have managed to use it this amazingly.

That's a nice wikipedia article, but surely only a complete penis would read that and conclude you could make people commit crimes against their will by copying their actions?

(The guy was also a really, really bad actor when confronted by the shop.)

Jeffrey Burgin · Post by **Jeffrey Burgin** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 8:20 am

Jon Corby wrote:That's a nice wikipedia article, but surely only a complete penis would read that and conclude you could make people commit crimes against their will by copying their actions?

(The guy was also a really, really bad actor when confronted by the shop.)

The big question for me was how did he manage to get so far down the street walking whilst carrying a heavy TV, being followed by at least two store assistants who were running? They were so slow to actually get out of the store as well, must have been on the computers looking at c4c.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 5:20 pm

Another shit programme from Derren. Shame.

Regarding the cafe piece - why did everyone come in and sit on the same table. Why did the woman just come in and sit down and read her paper without ordering something; isn't this considered rude? The thing that annoyed me the most was the guy who stole the TV. If you look during the time he is copying Derren, there is a guy at the front of the camera (another customer?) frozen. Why are the people outside moving and the people round the outside stationary?

That woman was gone for 4 hours it said. 4 HOURS TO DRAW 3 CONCENTRIC CIRCLES? Also Derren said nobody in the world knew what she drew except her but clearly Derren knew. Lies. I don't trust him any more.

Matt Morrison · Post by **Matt Morrison** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 5:38 pm

When Jono asked Corby "who said it was nonsense?" the other day, I had a little search on the little internet.
People are going off Derren brown FAST it seems, Corby included obviously, and quite possibly me too. He seems to be shooting himself in the foot with this series, critical reaction doesn't seem good.

A couple of the bits that stuck out:

"After his lottery nonsense, Derren Brown is now officially a dickhead. I would like to have him defend his perpetuation and endorsement of nonsense and pseudoscience." (some forum thread)

"Derren Brown went to grotesque lengths to make people more stupid tonight. He celebrated the vulnerability of his audience, revelling in the ambiguous zone in which his work exists. He reinforced beliefs in things that are demonstrably untrue." (an article that appreciates its own 'tl;dr' status in its title)

"I often worry that I'll bump into Derren Brown in the street and he'll force me to have sex with him. Not with his magic powers, just with a gun that I'm sure he carries with him." (a forum thread quite enjoyably called Derren Browns' "I'm annoying the nation" series)

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:14 am

Some interesting stuff you linked to there Matt. One guy in particular gets very cross about his "lies", and I found myself largely disagreeing with him. So it's a very fuzzy line about what the magician is/isn't "allowed" to fib about and get away with.

Ultimately, my problem with Derren now is that I just can't believe a fucking word he says. Not a thing. Which pretty much reduces every trick to me simply thinking he's achieved it in the easiest way possible, be this a camera trick, or a stooge, or whatever. He can tell me he doesn't use stooges all he likes, but I just don't have any reason to believe him. I discussed this briefly with my dad, who still claims that Derren is a fantastically clever guy who can memorise the London A-Z (I say he didn't, he simply has an earpiece) and work out what name someone is thinking of based on their unconscious facial movements (I say bullcrap), and he just messed up slightly with one poor trick (meaning the lottery one). I mean, he might be, I don't know for sure. But once you've broken that trust, it's gone.

Derren compounds this by placing his own nonsense alongside the image that actually he is a crusader for honesty and truth, rubbishing psychics and fake science. Yet he has clearly made many, many people believe that he can achieve all sorts with suggestion and/or reading unconscious signals. I don't see how this is any different to homeopathy practitioners making people believe their placebo is more than that, or even that remote viewing guy he junked on Friday.

Chris Corby · Post by **Chris Corby** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:22 am

Jon Corby wrote:I discussed this briefly with my dad, who still claims that Derren is a fantastically clever guy who can memorise the London A-Z (I say he didn't, he simply has an earpiece) and work out what name someone is thinking of based on their unconscious facial movements (I say bullcrap), and he just messed up slightly with one poor trick (meaning the lottery one).

I didn't want to say those things. Derren made me.

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:36 am

The London A-Z thing can be done genuinely. It requires a number of memory tricks that anyone can learn. Start off learning the 'peg system' and you'll find yourself able to memorise a list of 100 objects in and out of order. You will need some additional steps to get to the London A-Z, but maybe at that point you'll believe that it can be done. Could have used an earpiece though. *shrug*.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:55 am

Kieran Child wrote:The London A-Z thing can be done genuinely. It requires a number of memory tricks that anyone can learn. Start off learning the 'peg system' and you'll find yourself able to memorise a list of 100 objects in and out of order. You will need some additional steps to get to the London A-Z, but maybe at that point you'll believe that it can be done. Could have used an earpiece though. *shrug*.

Of course it theoretically *can* (memorising 100 objects + ?? additional steps ?? = memorising London A-Z) , but why fucking bother? My memory isn't as good as Derren's so I forget the exact presentation of the piece, but didn't it conclude with him tearing down some big screens to reveal the "recalled" location in 20ft high letters, and the exact page from the A-Z and stuff? Which all hardly suggests it was a simple exercise in memory skills...

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 10:17 am

No really, your memory CAN be that good.
Excel random number generator -
0.510032011109162734
Might be hard to remember, but I can recite it perfectly, and probably will be able to for a couple of days now. Because of this:
1=T (one stroke)
2=N (two strokes)
3=M (three strokes)
4=R (last letter)
5=L (50 in roman)
6=SH
7=K
8=F (can look like a flowery lower case f)
9=P (backwards)
0=Z (first letter)

Learn that phonetically, and then I read the number as
"Ocelots seem nice today despite shin-camera."
^ Which you can remember almost instantly. If you know the right tricks, the person with a self-proclaimed worst memory ever could learn the phone book.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 10:21 am

Kieran Child wrote:No really, your memory CAN be that good.
Excel random number generator -
0.510032011109162734
Might be hard to remember, but I can recite it perfectly, and probably will be able to for a couple of days now. Because of this:
1=T (one stroke)
2=N (two strokes)
3=M (three strokes)
4=R (last letter)
5=L (50 in roman)
6=SH
7=K
8=F (can look like a flowery lower case f)
9=P (backwards)
0=Z (first letter)

Learn that phonetically, and then I read the number as
"Ocelots seem nice today despite shin-camera."
^ Which you can remember almost instantly. If you know the right tricks, the person with a self-proclaimed worst memory ever could learn the phone book.

Another fantastic leap. Memorising one number isn't really analogous to memorising a phone book.

I also don't see how you get how your phrase from that number, but that's not really important.

Sue Sanders · Post by **Sue Sanders** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 1:23 pm

Kieran Child wrote:No really, your memory CAN be that good.
Excel random number generator -
0.510032011109162734
Might be hard to remember, but I can recite it perfectly, and probably will be able to for a couple of days now. Because of this:
1=T (one stroke)
2=N (two strokes)
3=M (three strokes)
4=R (last letter)
5=L (50 in roman)
6=SH
7=K
8=F (can look like a flowery lower case f)
9=P (backwards)
0=Z (first letter)

Learn that phonetically, and then I read the number as
"Ocelots seem nice today despite shin-camera."
^ Which you can remember almost instantly. If you know the right tricks, the person with a self-proclaimed worst memory ever could learn the phone book.

Kieran, pet, wait til you're over 40. You might be able to remember your codes but after a night's sleep you won't remember "Ocelots seem nice today despite shin-camera." I've come up with lots of little memory jogs to remember things by in recent years, but generally, can't remember them. Can't even recall any examples to give you.

Ben Hunter · Post by **Ben Hunter** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 1:56 pm

Kieran Child wrote:If you know the right tricks, the person with a self-proclaimed worst memory ever could learn the phone book.

Given there must be at least 50'000 numbers in your average phone book (and that's pessimistic), you'd have to remember that many strange sentences, which would be harder than reciting a massive novel (and you'd have to put a name to each sentence). I think there comes a point where some sort of natural capacity for memory comes into play.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 3:13 pm

I had memorised pi up to 257 decimal places at A-level and it was fun to recite it. I decided to stop there though as my subject studying was suffering. I believe people, with the right techniques, can remember things but Derren doesn't do this. He claimed to memorise the whole encyclopedia/dictionary or something in an episode involving a library and some dude chose a page and a line and Derren recited the words to him. He claimed it was memory from that morning but, again, it seems like he's using trickery to dupe some of us into thinking he is a memory master. I wonder why he doesn't hold many records for memorising in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 3:19 pm

Kirk Bevins wrote:I had memorised pi up to 257 decimal places at A-level and it was fun to recite it.

That does sound like fun.

Rosemary Roberts · Post by **Rosemary Roberts** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 4:04 pm

Jon Corby wrote:
Kirk Bevins wrote:I had memorised pi up to 257 decimal places at A-level and it was fun to recite it.
That does sound like fun.

Oh Jon! Now I don't believe anything you say!

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 5:04 pm

Ben Hunter wrote:
Kieran Child wrote:If you know the right tricks, the person with a self-proclaimed worst memory ever could learn the phone book.
Given there must be at least 50'000 numbers in your average phone book (and that's pessimistic), you'd have to remember that many strange sentences, which would be harder than reciting a massive novel (and you'd have to put a name to each sentence). I think there comes a point where some sort of natural capacity for memory comes into play.

For 50,000 numbers, that would be 25,000 sentences.
If you group them into songs, that is fewer than 1,000 songs.
I don't know how many songs you know the lyrics to, but I reckon you could get there.

JimBentley · Post by **JimBentley** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 5:16 pm

Kieran Child wrote:For 50,000 numbers, that would be 25,000 sentences.
If you group them into songs, that is fewer than 1,000 songs.
I don't know how many songs you know the lyrics to, but I reckon you could get there.

But surely you only remember the lyrics to songs because they're generally quite simple, follow logically and are combined with a memorable melody? You'd have to write 1,000 songs with good melodies and then attempt to shoehorn in all these meaningless sentences, few of which would make any sort of sense alone, never mind in combination. If you used existing melodies, it would probably be even harder as you wouldn't be able to get anything to scan properly. Can't see it, myself.

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 5:17 pm

Kirk Bevins wrote:I had memorised pi up to 257 decimal places at A-level and it was fun to recite it. I decided to stop there though as my subject studying was suffering. I believe people, with the right techniques, can remember things but Derren doesn't do this. He claimed to memorise the whole encyclopedia/dictionary or something in an episode involving a library and some dude chose a page and a line and Derren recited the words to him. He claimed it was memory from that morning but, again, it seems like he's using trickery to dupe some of us into thinking he is a memory master. I wonder why he doesn't hold many records for memorising in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Cool pi thing. I only know 50 places, which was best for my school, so I stopped. I don't know whether or not Derren uses the techniques I do. It would definitely be easier to perform it other ways, but it is possible. It sounds like the trick you're describing is something known as a 'book test' by mentalists. There are a couple of book tests on youtube but it looks like they all use the crappest method going, so I won't link to any of them. You are right in being suspicious. I have never seen a method for book tests that involves memory to the extreme degree that it appears to show.