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CreativityTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:05 Well, we're now about halfway through Mind Control Night, so hang on in there.
00:09 In the last show, you would have seen me suggest the Seven of Hearts to that chap,
00:14 and I'm sure you picked up on the gestures that I used to do that.
00:17 In the next show, I do the same thing with the croupier, only more subtly.
00:21 I'd like to do this with you, Cher.
00:23 Notice how the placing of the four cards suggests a fifth, the number five,
00:28 and how I use my hands, five fingers, to suggest the same number.
00:32 You don't know if I'm going for a straight or a flush or a high or a low card, you don't know,
00:35 so you can't work it out.
00:37 What I want you to do is to just let the image of a card come to you.
00:41 You'll know that it feels right.
00:42 I should point out that I don't condone gambling of any sort,
00:46 unless you can cheat very effectively and stack the odds at least 90% in your favor,
00:51 which is essentially what I'm doing here.
00:54 [music]
01:18 At home, if you're wearing a watch, cover it with your hand now.
01:21 This won't work if you're wearing a digital watch.
01:24 In fact, take it off and pop it in your shell suit pocket.
01:26 You look at your watch on average every 20 minutes.
01:28 That's 26,000 times a year.
01:31 So you'd absolutely know whether or not your watch has ordinary numbers
01:34 or Roman numerals or just dashes, wouldn't you?
01:37 Can you tell without looking?
01:39 Okay, have a look and check, and then cover it again.
01:42 All right, you've just looked at your watch,
01:44 so you know whether it's got a second hand or not, surely.
01:47 And what about this?
01:48 What's the exact time on the face?
01:51 [music]
01:57 Memory tricks, amongst other things which I'll show you,
02:00 have got me banned from a lot of casinos in this country.
02:05 This is my most ambitious project so far.
02:08 We got a casino's permission to go inside and secretly film.
02:12 Neither the gamblers nor the croupiers know we're using hidden cameras and CCTV,
02:17 so no one knows I'm in there to scam them.
02:22 The object of blackjack is to get your cards to add up to a higher total than the dealer
02:27 without going over 21.
02:31 If you can keep track of the cards which have been dealt,
02:34 you have the advantage of knowing if the remaining cards are of a useful value.
02:39 As a child, I learned to do this with a single deck,
02:41 but casinos shuffle four packs together,
02:44 so I had to keep track of the cards of three other players.
02:47 And that's £150 to me, right there.
02:53 As the game progresses, I'm following each player's hand
02:56 and keeping track of each card that's dealt.
03:00 Player one on the right gets a ten to add to his queen, also worth ten,
03:03 a total of 20, he won't take any more cards.
03:06 Player two has three, plus two is five, another three makes eight,
03:09 and a queen makes 18, he'll stop there.
03:13 But look at mine, a six and a queen make 16,
03:16 if I take another, it can't be over five, or else I'll go over 21 and bust.
03:20 Would you risk it?
03:22 I've got a good sense of the deck by now, and I take it,
03:25 it's a four and I'm on a very good 20.
03:27 He gets an eight, and sticks on 18.
03:32 The dealer has to beat my 20 to win, a six, a nine, a ten make 25,
03:37 she's gone over 21 and busts, and I win the round.
03:41 I've got £300 to me now, and I keep playing like this
03:44 until I feel the croupier gets suspicious.
03:47 It was amazing, every hand he had 16, and it was either a four or a five each hand.
03:52 He'd done a couple of thousand off my table, never seen it happen before.
03:57 I can't be that lucky, I don't know, that's just far too lucky.
04:01 Luck certainly helps, but here's exactly how I do it.
04:07 In my mind, I'm in a sprawling Florentine house,
04:10 and in that house is a series of memory rooms,
04:13 each yielding information I've placed there to remember.
04:17 When I play cards, I visit the card room on the top floor.
04:21 In it, I have a collection of 52 objects, each with a mnemonic link to a playing card.
04:29 The clock set at seven in a dome, for example, represents the seven of diamonds.
04:36 To play this game of four-deck blackjack, I've attached three stickers to each object.
04:41 As cards are dealt on the table, I move quickly to the relevant object and remove a sticker.
04:50 If a card comes up four times, I remove the object entirely.
04:55 After a while, I can see at a glance which cards are left,
04:58 and then I know when to play for high stakes.
05:02 That's about now. I'm confident enough with the remaining cards to play for big money.
05:08 The other players do well in this game.
05:10 Player one gets 21, player two gets 18, player four to my left already has 20.
05:15 I'm on 11, which means if I want, I can double my stake,
05:19 but if I choose to double, then I only get one final card.
05:23 Now, with only 11, I'd need a very high card for this to be worth it.
05:27 But if you never take a risk, you'd never win anything,
05:29 and I have stacked the odds heavily in my favor, so I double,
05:33 and that's now all my chips on a high card.
05:37 2,600 pounds. The most any other player has won at the table is 350.
05:43 He shouldn't have been getting the cards that he won.
05:45 He should have been going over and losing his money, but he wasn't.
05:48 If he had been taking risks, then he would have lost as well as won, but he just won.
05:53 He won two regularly, but just to be fair.
05:57 So he was obviously doing something, but no, it wasn't luck.
06:03 I can see why he's bad from casinos. I think he'd be asked to leave politely.
06:08 They couldn't afford to have someone like that in the casino.
06:11 Bob Matthews is a runner who has set 22 world records and was a pioneer of the Paralympics.
06:25 Because he's blind, I know he'll unconsciously pay more attention to what he can hear,
06:30 subtle shifts and inflections in my voice. I met him at Crystal Palace.
06:35 Bob, very good to meet you. Thanks for taking the time out for this.
06:39 Can I just ask you to verify from the start that we've set nothing up,
06:43 that you've got really no idea what it is we're going to do?
06:45 I can say quite honestly that I haven't got the foggiest.
06:48 Perfect. I'm going to give you an envelope to hang on to.
06:50 If I give you that in your left hand there, that's perfect.
06:53 You can hang on to that for me. We'll come back to that later.
06:55 You've achieved some fantastic stuff and you've got a passion that has taken you all over the world.
07:01 What I'd like you to do for me is to think of one place that you've been,
07:04 nowhere where you think I might just guess, but somewhere that you have positive memories attached to.
07:09 Is there somewhere you can think of?
07:11 Okay.
07:12 You've got somewhere?
07:13 Yes.
07:14 Great. Now I'm going to ask you to create a scenario in your mind and I'll ask you some questions
07:17 and just answer those questions in the way that feels most natural as we do it.
07:21 Imagine for me that you're going out for the evening in this location that you're thinking of.
07:26 We will make it a romantic date.
07:29 The first question is, is this with wife or girlfriend?
07:34 I'm going to write this down.
07:35 Okay, wife.
07:36 Wife. Fantastic.
07:37 We'll just home in on one aspect of the evening.
07:40 You're sat somewhere with your wife. Are you indoors or outdoors?
07:43 Indoors.
07:44 Indoors. Inside.
07:46 We'll say this is a restaurant.
07:48 Are you drinking red wine or white wine?
07:50 Red.
07:51 Red.
07:53 Now, as you're sat there, you're aware of a cat walking behind you.
07:57 As it walks behind you, it gives out a little purr.
07:59 All right.
08:00 Now tell me, what's the cuisine of the restaurant? What nationality?
08:02 Thai food.
08:03 Thai.
08:05 Excellent.
08:06 As you go in and sit down, the waiter comes over and takes your order.
08:10 Now, it's a waiter, not a waitress.
08:12 And as he walks away, you're aware of a specific piece of music playing in the background.
08:18 What do you think the music is?
08:22 Jazz.
08:23 Jazz.
08:26 I'd also like you to be aware of an aroma in the restaurant.
08:29 Now, this is something specific, and it could be coming from flowers or something from the kitchen.
08:33 Tell me what it is that you can smell in this restaurant.
08:36 For some reason, I've got sandalwood.
08:38 Sandalwood?
08:39 Yeah.
08:41 Sandalwood it is.
08:43 All right. Do you walk home or get a taxi?
08:45 We get the taxi.
08:47 You arrive home before midnight or after?
08:49 Before.
08:51 And finally, will you tell me where all this is happening? What's the location?
08:54 It's in Hereford.
08:56 Hereford?
08:57 Yeah.
08:58 Anywhere in the world you'd choose Hereford?
09:00 Yeah.
09:01 Nothing wrong with that.
09:02 Good memories for me.
09:03 I'm sure. Well, it sounds absolutely charming.
09:05 Were you thinking a lot about the answers or what was going on in your head?
09:09 I was trying to give you what came into my mind first.
09:12 What I want you to do for me is to open up the envelope that you've been holding onto all this time.
09:17 I'm going to do that now.
09:18 Yeah. I would like to show the camera that this really is genuinely sealed, which if you feel me well--
09:22 I can verify that it is sealed, yeah.
09:24 Genuinely sealed. If you undo that for me, this side up here--
09:27 Yeah.
09:28 --and take out what's in there.
09:30 Blow me.
09:33 Got it?
09:34 Blimey, it's bright.
09:35 Got it. Fantastic. Just read that out for us.
09:39 It says, "Dear Bob, I'm writing this about an hour before I meet you.
09:46 If we don't meet again, I'll always picture you and your wife--
09:58 Blimey.
09:59 --and your wife enjoying a glass of red wine with your tie.
10:10 While Jazz--
10:13 This is surreal.
10:15 While Jazz plays in the background, there is the aroma of candles in the air.
10:27 Whenever you will take a taxi and be back at 11.30 as those nights in Hereford are not to be missed."
10:46 Bloody hell.
10:49 Only the candle was wrong. That's incredible.
10:51 Well, I knew what I was thinking of, but I was--
10:53 Yeah.
10:54 --I was so specific with the sound of it that it was--
10:56 Yeah.
10:57 --scented candles I had in mind. How do you feel?
10:59 I'm stunned. I mean, it's as if I'm--I don't know. It's like an out-of-body experience.
11:06 Like, I mean, I'm witnessing this from somewhere else, you know?
11:11 Yeah.
11:12 It's incredible.
11:14 And my wife says jokingly that I'm like an open book, but I didn't think it was--oh, it's that open.
11:21 Coming up after the break, I'll be back at the casino, playing cards with the croupiers.
11:25 How he got through and thought of exactly how my mind was thinking, was just amazing.
11:31 And I'll be pushing a man backwards through a market. Think left, think right, think forward,
11:36 backwards, where are we going? 6.30am, 6.30am, 6.30, 6.30am...
11:45 My techniques are concerned with reading signals from people. Tiny, unconscious clues that
11:50 betray their thoughts. I tend to see it like a game, and I went to Borough Market to show
11:55 some people how to play it. He guessed it virtually all the way round. I thought and
12:00 he just followed me trying to thought. Incredible.
12:02 Martin, is that right? Good to meet you. And Andrew. Andrew, that's me. Brilliant. And
12:10 I want to show you something with these vegetables. It'll freak you both out. Excellent. I need
12:15 a... Can I grab some of these? It's alright. Some parsley. Carrot. That's a squash I take.
12:26 And a... What I can only describe as a cabbage. That's it. Four vegetables. Alright, Martin,
12:33 here's what you do. Without giving it away by looking, think of one of those. You got
12:37 one? Hold out your hand for me. Excellent. And if you hold out your hand and take hold
12:41 of his wrist there. Like that. Alright. Martin, you're thinking of one of these objects. You've
12:49 got a vegetable in mind. Alright. Whichever one of these you're thinking of, you mentally
12:54 guide him to it. Just think of it, direct him mentally in your mind to the one. You
12:59 move your hand backwards and forwards, and just pay attention to what you can feel. Slowly.
13:04 Pay attention to what you feel in the hand. See which one he's thinking of. Take your
13:13 time. Was that it? Fantastic. Isn't that bizarre? I don't know. Just a feeling. But we got it,
13:19 didn't we? So it must have been something, mustn't it? It's a Victorian parlour game.
13:23 And what's happening is that you're giving off tiny signals which you're able to pick
13:27 up on, but you're barely aware of them. It just kind of feels right, isn't it? Yeah.
13:30 And you can play this at home with people and it's bizarre. Now you can get very good
13:34 at this. Let me show you. We'll get a whole load more stuff. Potato cake, potato. Okay.
13:40 Same thing again. I want you to have one of these vegetables on your mind. Think of one
13:44 now. Have you got one in your mind? Don't give it away by looking at anything. Just
13:47 have it on your mind. Alright. Give me a hand. Alright. Now relax your arm. Give me control
13:52 of your arm. You're thinking of one of these? Give me control of your arm. Relax your arm.
13:55 You got one in your mind? Yeah. What was that? It's a squash. Was that right? That was it?
14:00 Excellent. That was impressive. That was major league impressive. That's... Yeah. I thought
14:07 it might take him a while, but, you know. Obviously he's done it once or twice before.
14:16 After hours, I was eager to see if the casino experts would be remotely impressed with my
14:21 card skills. It's 1978. I'm seven years old, sat in the playground with my best friend,
14:35 Jamie Lawrence, and he's teaching me poker rather precociously. I remember I had four
14:39 cards. I needed one more card to complete a fantastic hand, and I willed him to deal
14:44 me that card from the deck. He handed me a card. I took it. I looked at it. It was the
14:49 right one. And that was it. I became obsessed with card skills. At 16, I'm slipping underage
14:54 into casinos studying the croupiers. I learned to cut off specific amounts of cards from
14:59 a deck. For example, if I wanted to cut off 15 cards, I would cut about... There. Let's
15:09 count them. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 cards. Took that a stage
15:17 further. Learned to see how many cards the croupier cut off when she went to shuffle.
15:22 So take a whole bunch off for me. Okay, that looks like 28 to me. Count them with me. 1,
15:32 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
15:41 26, 27, 28. That's it. Now, the way I do that is quite interesting. I count the cards.
15:46 I count the cards in pairs, right? You see, pairs of cards, not individual cards when
15:49 you look at the side of the deck. I batch the pairs into tens and the tens into twenties.
15:53 So it's far more difficult to work with odd digits, all right? So tell me a number to
15:57 cut off but make both digits odd. In fact, don't even tell me, just think of it. Both
16:01 digits odd. Are you thinking of a number?
16:04 Mm-hmm. Yeah.
16:05 Okay, I'll go for that. What was the number you're thinking of?
16:10 17.
16:11 17. Doesn't look anything like 17, does it? But try counting these. Count them for me.
16:17 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.
16:25 17 cards, exactly. Superb. So then I started playing poker and I learned to watch the hands
16:31 of cards as they get shown at the end of a game, to memorize those cards, to keep track
16:36 of their position as the deck's reassembled, so that now I have a mental photograph of
16:42 large batches of those cards. Then, as the croupier shuffled, to follow the redistribution
16:48 of those cards in the deck, which is not impossible if you watch the shuffles and the cuts closely
16:58 enough. So I should now be able to cut fairly accurately to any card you may choose to name,
17:06 Julie. Tell me a card.
17:09 Nine of clubs.
17:10 The nine of clubs. It would seem impossible to keep track of all those cards, let alone
17:15 intuit the positions of the ones we didn't see. So I really just have to just reach in
17:19 and just do this. Nine of spades.
17:22 Nine of clubs.
17:23 Nine of clubs, sorry. There. Am I close?
17:31 Absolutely spot on.
17:33 I mentioned earlier on Jamie Lawrence, my best friend. I still have the four cards with
17:40 me that I had on that day. I kid you not, these are them. They've become something of
17:45 a lucky charm. I'd like to do this with you, Cher. I'm going to tell you in my mind, I
17:54 will scream at you what the card is that I need to complete this hand. Now, you've got
17:57 no way of knowing. You don't know if I'm going for a straight or a flush or a high or a low
18:00 card. You don't know, so you can't work it out. What I want you to do is to just let
18:05 the image of a card come to you. You'll know that it feels right. You won't need to guess.
18:09 You won't need to work it out. Just look at me. When you think you know it, quick as you
18:13 can, you pick up the deck, you run through, you take out the one card you feel is right,
18:16 and you put it face down on the table. Look at me. It doesn't matter if you get it wrong.
18:21 There's no pressure. How could you possibly know?
18:23 Okay.
18:24 Now, let me see. Okay. One card. Now, I know when Jamie handed me that last card, I know
18:40 it was just a coincidence. Because you grow up and you learn to be more realistic about
18:46 these things. I really do not know why I chose the five of clubs. It came to me straight
18:59 away. Just five of clubs. And there it was, and I can't believe it. A little bit scary,
19:06 so he knows exactly how I'm thinking and what I'm going to be thinking next. I don't think
19:10 he'd be allowed into our casino. He would be banned. He wouldn't be allowed to use the
19:14 tables.
19:17 Now, let's try something more ambitious. Do you have, either you have a picture of your
19:23 wife or kids or you got something on you? What have you got? This is your wife, I take
19:31 it. What's her name?
19:33 Janet.
19:34 Janet. What I want you to do is to hide this picture of Janet somewhere in this market.
19:43 We'll all go out of the way so we can't see where you're going. Excellent. Off you go.
19:51 Martin, well done. So you've hidden a photograph of your wife somewhere in this market.
19:56 Yep.
19:57 No one knows where that is apart from you, correct?
19:58 That's right.
19:59 You haven't told me, you haven't told anybody else?
20:01 No one.
20:02 Good.
20:03 All right.
20:04 So you're hiding again except this time it isn't just a few vegetables on a table, it
20:07 is a photograph of your wife anywhere, anywhere in this fruit market.
20:12 That's right.
20:13 Okay. You've got to direct me in your mind where to go. You direct me in your mind where
20:19 to go. You think left, you think right. Show me in your mind, direct me there. You're guiding
20:26 me in your mind.
20:27 Good. Now concentrate, concentrate on the picture of your wife. See the picture clearly
20:35 in your mind. What's your wife's name?
20:37 Janet.
20:38 Janet, that's right. See Janet in your mind, see the picture clearly. In fact, go back,
20:41 go back in your mind, concentrate on the most strongest emotional memory you have of her,
20:45 probably the day you got married. Do you remember the day you got married?
20:47 Yes.
20:48 Do you remember looking into her eyes that day?
20:49 Yep.
20:50 Good. Well focus on that image for there and see that, visualise that in your mind and
20:52 take me there. That's how clearly I want you to see it as you guide me there. Now in your
20:56 mind keep thinking left or right. We're coming up now to a junction. Be thinking left or
21:00 right in your mind. Good. And see that image in your mind, see the wedding day in your
21:03 mind. You've been married for about what, 15 years?
21:06 That's right.
21:07 15 years exactly?
21:08 Well, very nearly.
21:09 Very nearly. 16 years. Think left or right. Where are we going? Think left, think right.
21:12 Tell me where we're going. Think it in your mind, think it in your mind. Think left, think
21:15 right, think forward, backwards. Where are we going? This way. Good. Good. See your wife
21:19 clearly. So, 1985, yeah, summer wedding. It's, what is it, Saturday, June, July, June.
21:26 I think, is that right?
21:27 Yeah.
21:28 June, 1985. See Janet in your mind, staring into your eyes. The day you got married. Good,
21:32 see it that clearly. Take me there. Take me there now. Do you remember where it was? Don't
21:36 say where. Do you remember where you got married? Do you remember the place?
21:38 Yeah.
21:39 Yeah? Somewhere in the country, somewhere nice, somewhere nice, somewhere around London. Essex,
21:44 is that right? You got married in Essex, is that right?
21:45 Yeah.
21:46 You got married in Essex, good. Good. And keep going. Keep going round. Where are we
21:51 going? Where are we going? Just think left or right. Take me there, guide me there. Guide
21:54 me in your mind. Where are we going now? Left, right, this way. Good. Keep going. Keep going.
21:59 And guests, you can see all the guests. Just be there in your mind. See all the guests
22:01 around you. See your wife. Look into your wife's eyes. Focus on that. See the guests
22:05 around you, the guests at the wedding. Somebody come from a long way away. Any guests from
22:08 a long way? Can you remember the person that came from the furthest way away?
22:10 Yes.
22:11 Yeah? Can you see that in your mind? Can you see his name? Can you see what he looks like?
22:14 It's, what's that, Tom, Tim, Terry. Terry, is that right? Terry came all the way from
22:20 long way away. Lancashire, Lincolnshire. Lincolnshire, is that right?
22:24 Yes, that's right.
22:25 Terry came all the way from Lincolnshire. You're winning. Good. Concentrate. Think left, right.
22:29 Where are we going now? This way. Back. Keep concentrating. Concentrate. Take me there.
22:33 Keep going. Faster, faster. Just do it. See it in your mind. Get closer. Get closer. And
22:38 be there. The taste of champagne. The guests around you. Your wife staring at your wife.
22:43 Your wife. We're getting close now. We're getting very close. Good. Your wife that several
22:47 years later you would take a photograph of. You would carry that photograph around in
22:50 your wallet. We're very close. And then one day, where are we, one day you would take
22:56 that photograph out of your wallet, think, and you would put it, play it in a fruit market
23:01 where, there. Where are we? What's this?
23:05 There it is.
23:06 There it is. Janet.
23:08 Amazing.
23:09 It's all coming back to you now, isn't it?
23:12 Amazing.
23:13 He was just pushing me exactly the right way. When I was thinking right, he was going right.
23:16 And I thought immediately behind me, behind the window, and he put his hand straight to
23:19 me. He guessed people that came down to our wedding like 15 years ago just by me thinking
23:24 about it. No one would ever know that except for like close family.
23:29 Very impressive.
23:30 Feeling on a bit of a roll, I take my £2,600 from Blackjack and place it on a single number
23:38 on the roulette table. Little tip, always put your chips on 22. Two twos, 22. If it
23:44 comes up, I'll get £93,600, enough to buy a new suit and shoes.
23:50 I'm going to get my new shoes. I'm going to get my new shoes. I'm going to get my new
23:57 shoes. I'm going to get my new shoes. I'm going to get my new shoes. I'm going to get
24:04 my new shoes. I'm going to get my new shoes. I'm going to get my new shoes. I'm going to
24:11 get my new shoes. I'm going to get my new shoes. I'm going to get my new shoes. I'm
24:16 going to get my new shoes. I'm going to get my new shoes. I'm going to get my new shoes.
24:21 I had to get up at five in the morning to push that man around the market. The only reason
24:24 why I do this job, my only motivation is that I don't have to get up early. I didn't even
24:29 get a free apple. Bastards.
24:32 [silence]