Fancy a fever tree in a glass with ice and rum.

You thought I was going to say gin, didn't you?

But I'm talking about fever tree ginger beer,

made from three gingers for that perfect blend of freshness, sweetness and spiciness.

Delicious with rum, or on its own. Fever tree ginger beer, mix with the best.

Mmm, that spices things up.

Hello, all you wonderful people. Always great to have you with me as we take a look at what the powers that ought not to be are up to this week.

But before we get started, please let me tell you how you can help support this channel and make all the difference.

Simply go to patreon.com, find my site by name, which is Neil Oliver, and sign up.

And for the price of a cup of coffee once a month,

you get early access to all my new content, plus exclusive weekly access to, amongst other things, a question and answer session, but I answer anything you like.

Nothing's off the table. The details are down there somewhere. Okay, it's that time again for a monologue.

Magic tricks rely on misdirection.

For misdirection to work, it has to be unspoken, subtle.

It has to work without anyone noticing it working.

The audience looks the wrong way without being told to.

It looks the wrong way, is distracted long enough for the magician to pull off the trick because that audience is offered something more interesting to look at than the working of the trick itself.

That's what misdirection is all about. But magic is

fragile and ephemeral stuff. The moment the audience learns to look in what is for the magician

the wrong place, the inconvenient place that reveals the working of the trick, then it's over.

No more magic tricks. Don't get me wrong. It might be satisfying to see through the trick, to see how it's done, but it's also sad.

It means the end of something that has been enjoyable, thrilling. The mechanics of the trick

...