Well, by my standards (and please consider at what level these might be) I did something overwhelmingly exhilarating. It involved a dip into the good old overdraft. It involved my reluctant hubby. And it involved an athletic leap of faith.
Over the past month or two I have been spending a large amount of time on the internet, a.) looking for tickets to see Derren Brown's latest show, 'Svengali' and b.) kicking myself that I did not know about the show before it bloody well sold out. Clearly I am not the number one fan I thought I was.
And if psychological illusions aren't really your thing you might not even know who Derren Brown is. Or maybe you do and you don't think much of him. Well I do think much of him. And I think the stuff he gets up to is mind-twistingly beguiling. In fact, I can often be found of an evening (my laptop pulsing in the corner with work that really should be getting done now the Tots are in bed) glued to the telly where I've come across a channel which is thoughtfully repeating a Derren Brown programme.
So why the flip didn't I know he had a show coming up? The prices of tickets on eBay were clearly surpassing my (imaginary) budget so the chance of a night out was not looking good. No babysitter. No money. No tickets.
However, being a massive believer that positive thoughts attract positive things, and having an amateur but irrevocably enthusiastic interest in Derren's very own mind tricks, I decided to give it a go. I focused my mind. I pictured the scene. Tickets in my hand. Drinks before the show. The awesome curiousity I feel as he performs. And, to hell with it, these are only thoughts after all, what I say as I meet him backstage.
Tickets. Drinks. Awe. Backstage. Tickets. Drinks. Awe. Backstage.
And it only went and bloody well happened. Thanks to a gorgeous daughter of a friend who babysat the Tots, and thanks to a hard-working hubby who was doubtful of my visualisation techniques, it only went and bloody well happened.
The show was marvellous. I mean really marvellous. Derren did request at the beginning that nobody tell anybody else the content of the show. That we should keep it a secret so as not to spoil it for anyone else who might be attending. This was a clever trick in itself. It made us feel special. Part of a secret club. It drew us together as an audience and gave us a special bond with Derren. What a clever man. That, my friends, is how you get an audience on your side.
So no juicy details about the show. But I will tell you that hanging around the stage door afterwards had its rewards. And the drizzle was a blessing in disguise as we got pulled indoors a few people at a time to see the man himself. I got into a little chat with him about NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and was also tempted to ask him to recommend a few techniques to mind-warp and thus calm an unruly four-year-old, or hypnotise a baby into sleeping through the night. But I bit my tongue. Maybe that's a conversation for the next time.
A few days later when I was flicking through my uber-glossy 'Svengali' programme, I came across a DB quote that resonated with me. And the resonation had nothing to do with psychological illusions or mind trickery. It had to do with parenting. Of course it did. That's what I do now. And here it is:
"I am often dishonest in my techniques but I'm always honest about my dishonesty."
Parents. You know what I mean.
Have fun. Go well.
Abi
MASSIVE!
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