roysworld: the world according to roy

05 January 2005

Derren Brown is attempting to take on the Church in the USA. In the new series 'Messiah', Channel 4: Friday, January 7 2005 (22:35 - 23:40), Derren approaches spiritual leaders and attempts to convince them he is new new Messiah using his standard mind control methods.

Derren says "Messiah is a documentary-style show where I go to America and get to meet those influential people behind certain belief-systems. Two targets are new-age beliefs and mainstream Christianity."

"Can I get those people who are responsible for the beliefs of hundreds of thousands of people, to endorse me as being the real thing?"

I reckon he has every chance.

23 December 2004

I've just stumbled upon Bad Psychics; it aims to "...find out the truth, and expose the frauds." There are a couple of sections that prove interesting to Most Haunted fans. First there are a number of faked orb and ghost photos. Unfortunately none of these are actually very good.

More interesting are the sections on Derek Acorah, the first covering the now infamous "Mary Loves Dick" segment from Most Haunted Live! The article proposes that the section was recorded earlier and not transmitted live, and questions why one of the crew members would say "So does Derek win the 20's then?". It ends with a personal experience of a reader convinced that Derek Acorah is a fraud who used prior knowledge sent in an email within his live show.

A second article makes great reading for Most Haunted fans. It documents a number of mistakes Derek Acorah has made throughout the Most Haunted Series' including the claim that the landlord of the Wellington Hotel in Boscastle made up stories to get trade into his pub, and that Derek subsequently channelled information from these ficticious ghosts.

22 December 2004

Blimey. I've just found out that Peter McCahon died last Wednesday of a massive heart attack. As you probably know, he was 'Papa' in Monkey magic. Now I didn't really like the series very much, but he was my favourite magician of the bunch. He seemed to be the one who actually had some form of charisma. He was only 39.

20 December 2004

Back in the 80's, I really liked the video to Michael Jackson's Thriller. Now I like it again. Why? Someone has done a shot-by-shot recreation using lego and it is one of the most amazingly funny things I've ever seen. Wait until you get to the zombie dancing bit, it's incredible. They must do more!

06 December 2004

Dave has the dubioius honour of being the first to donate to "I Want An iPod". I must also mention that he was the catalyst of this very concept, so thanks a lot Dave. His song choice is Orphans by Deacon Blue. Read Dave's blog here.

Only 499 donations to go.

06 December 2004

Yvette Fielding and Derek Acorah have won Multichannel TV Personality of the Year at the Variety Club's 52nd Annual Showbusiness Awards.

It's weird how they've won it jointly; maybe individually their personalities are seen as being too weak.

Strangely, I can't help thinking of an Fielding/Acorah version of Zaphod Beeblebrox.

One question remains: Why did Derek look so suprised? Surely Sam would have told him he was going to win beforehand?

29 November 2004

Derren has announced his spring tour 2005. This is a new show, and if it's half as good as the last one it will be brilliant. Tickets are guaranteed to sell out fast, so book 'em quick. See Derren's site for more details.

11 November 2004

Just discovered this brilliant site that has retro case mods. This is basically people putting mini-itx boards into old computers and other ancient technology. No surprise to anyone are my favourites:

Project Anemone modding an old 1940's Bush bakelite radio.



Atari 2600 modding an Atari 2600 'Woody' including a SlimDVD drive.



I just love them.

05 November 2004

The Clitheroe Advertiser and Times has a good article/review on the most recent Most Haunted Live at Pendle Hill.

Apparently "Millions of people tuned in with the final hour of the Hallowe'en show being the most watched programme in the whole of the UK".

Wow. I'm not suprised at the viewing figures it was very entertaining TV. And to their question: "Do you believe now?" my response is "No".

04 November 2004

Atari is selling a product called Atari Flashback. It's an all in one games console complete with 7800 style joysticks. Each console contains 15 Atari 2600 games and 5 Atari 7800 games. I think it's a real shame that they didn't make it look like a classic 2600 "woody" and I think they could have been a bit more generous with the number of games.

01 November 2004

What a weekend it has been for Most Haunted Live at Pendle Hill Lancashire.

According to the Lancashire Tourism Partnership "History and legend has woven a spell over Pendle. Pendle Hill rises above this ancient hunting ground, once the home of wolves and wild boar and to this day dotted with tiny hamlets and farms. It is still an untamed place, full of mystery and infamous as the home of the Pendle Witches who were tried and executed for witchcraft in 1612.".

So far (and there is another edition tonight at 9pm on Living TV and I can't wait) Derek Acorah and the crew have excelled themselves. Here are some of the highlight that made me laugh.

Derek Acorah saw the ghost of an alien; in fact not just any alien, a 'grey'. This was pointed out solemnly by the other medium back in the studio. When asked what he thought of Derek's revelation, this other medium said that he thought it was "brave" of Derek to mention this. For "brave" read "he's really pushing is luck now". This is on a par from the time he ranted on about seeing subterranians in a london Tube Station.

Richard Felix was "really impressed" (isn't he always) by Dereks revelation that Elizabeth Southerns was also known as Demdike; particularly as this information is hard to find. Yes it sure is. Took me 10 minutes to find this site that says "Elizabeth Southerns, alias Demdike, died in Lancaster Gaol awaiting trial..." I guess its harder to find this in his dusty old books.

Derek Acorah got possessed about three times by different witches. When Matthew Smith (resident sceptic) was asked what he thought of Derek's possessions he said "One interpretation could be that he was just play-acting". This was followed by boos and much eye rolling from the other medium".

The show ended with a bit of table tipping and a seance with an upturned glass. The glass was whizzing around the table apparently being moved by the Wicked Witch Elizabeth Southerns (or perhaps Derek, or producer Karl). Then suddenly the cast started dropping like flies. First one of the sound crew thought he was being strangled, then Stuart (Paula's favorite) got strangled and collapsed. Then the makeup girl and finally we lost all footage as the camera man was attacked. This really reminded me of GhostWatch which was a spoof haunted show broadcast in 1992. I have no idea what was going on but it was great TV. Maybe they are trying to get some publicity so they can be moved to a real tv station?

Roll on tonights installment, I'm sure it will be great. I'm having a sweepstake on how many times Derek will get possessed.

31 October 2004

Happy Halloween. Just thought I'd let you see the Jack O' Lanterns we made to keep the vampires at bay tonight.

28 October 2004

This is a moblog from the London eye, where I am right now. It's sunnier than it looks.

22 October 2004

Just stumbled across Mame Room. This is my kind of site. They sell plans, and assemble-yourself-kits for making Arcade Cabinets. I particularly like the Ultimate Arcade II Cabinet. I've always wanted to have my own Mame based Arcade system, and this site brings me one step nearer. Still might be cheaper (and easier) to buy a second-hand broken arcade game to gut and use, but this site offers some other alternatives. Oh to hear the steady thump of Space Invaders ringing in my ears once again...

15 October 2004

Billy saw one of his teachers in the supermarket buying food.
Billy: "I've just seen Mrs X."
Me: "Really, I haven't heard of Mrs X. before. Mrs Y and Z teach you in class 2, so where does Mrs X come in.
Billy pauses for a few minutes and says with a look of incredulity "The same door as the other teachers I should imagine."

15 October 2004

OK.

I admit it.

I love Most Haunted.

For those of you who haven't seen it, Most Haunted is a cable show shown in the UK on the Living Channel. It's hosted by Yvette Fielding who used to be on Blue Peter and who once slept with one of James' mates. Her and her team (of more later) investigate the 'Most Haunted' locations in Europe and spend hours trying to capture evidence of ghostly goings on.

If ever there was a show to prove that there are no such things as ghosts this is it. Each show follows the same formula: a bit of history about the location given by Yvette or resident historian Richard Felix (some bloke from Derby who owns Derby Gaol and thus is an expert in paranormal history).

This is followed by (my favourite bit) spiritualist medium and scouser Derek Acorah who struts around getting info from his spirit guide Sam - the accuracy of which would be breathtaking if you assume he had no prior knowledge of the location or merely average if you assume he gets half an hour Google time between takes.

Next comes the midnight vigil where the lights are turned off and everyone splits up into groups (apart from Yvettes hubby/producer Karl who tends to go somewhere on his own) and everyone gets really scared by the dark, 'orbs' (dust to you and me) and creaky wood.

Every once in a while Derek will get possessed by a former resident and will march about talking in a funny voice, and sometimes the team will hold seances or table tipping where they promise us no-one is banging the table or leaning on it.

This is all fantastically camp and dreadful TV, and I just can't get enough of it. AD18rnrn

11 October 2004

Next Saturday at 8:10 on BBC2 there is the start of a new six part series tracing the history of magic; here's what they say:

"The definitive guide to the history of Performance Magic from Ancient Egypt to 21st century Las Vegas, and why it has played such an important role in our social and cultural history."

The first episode looks interesting:

"Prepare to be amazed by mind reading illusions which seem to defy rational explanation. From the oracle of Delphi, through the age of Spiritualism, to today's psychological trickster, Derren Brown, it also features a modern version of a mind trick which mystified millions of British radio listeners in the 1950's."

I can't wait.

27 September 2004

The other night Billy had hiccups.

We tried the usual cures of 'making him jump' and 'holding your breath' when Billy said "I have just invented a cure for hiccups".
"OK" I said "What is it?"
"Count up to 10 but shout the number 10"
"Go on then"
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN!"

Guess what. It worked.

Over the weekend both Billy and Paula had the hiccups and this cure worked first time. So if you ever get hiccups count to ten and shout the last number and thank Billy for his foolproof cure for hiccups.

20 September 2004

So Monkey Magic series 2 has been dropped by Five after only 3 episodes. Five say "the series may be rescheduled for a screening later on in the year, or next year". Not too much commitment by them then. I can't say I'm suprised. This news is the most exciting thing that's happened in the series since it started, and is certainly their best disappearing act.

31 August 2004

Whilst playing lego with Billy yesterday I thought it would be cool to create a reproduction of a space invaders screen out of lego. We made a couple of prototypes and I thought the project would be a good one to blog about. I checked on the internet to see if anyone else had had MY idea - and of course someone has. This guy has started creating one, and has realised it would be about 6ft by 8ft and has decided to scale the image to 'lego resolution'. His project is not yet complete, but he is listing the parts required and so is one to watch (for me anyway!).

Maybe I should do PacMan...

Here are some images: rn rn rn rn