Wanna see my Raven?

That’s a title that’ll make sense in a minute, when I tell you about that time I hung out with David Blaine. But first…

Hello! How are you? I am..fine, I guess?

For the last couple of months I've been doing that thing where you leave your phone in another room that isn't your bedroom at night. A brute force attempt to rewire the muscle memory that puts it in my hand before I fall asleep, and as soon as I wake up, so that I can easily scroll Reddit and feel like everything is meaningless and the world is unfair, brutal and ending. You know the thing.

It worked for a while. Thing is, though, I'm a month-ish away from my Edinburgh fringe run, so my mind is very busy reminding me that absolutely and definitely nobody is going to come to my show or buy my book. It's really great launching a book at the same time as putting on a show, because your stupid subconscious can tell you that both are going to fail, and that you're a double loser.

So we went away for a few days to somewhere quiet and on a clifftop to clear our heads. It kinda worked too. I looked at things through the viewfinder of my little instax mini camera with its gorgeous black and white mode. Here’s what I saw.

I also made a couple of videos this month - one of the things I like about making stuff for YouTube is that I can make whatever I feel like - which this month was a tutorial on doing tricks with hats, and a silly sketch where I interview myself.

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Alright, enough of the side plates, lets get to the main course.

Would you like to hear about the time David Blaine wanted to meet me in New York? Yes you would, because you have a suspicion that it will be a story full of weirdness. And you would be right.

So, a good number of years ago, the American conjurer David Blaine expressed an interest in licensing a piece of work I had made, with the intention of performing it on one of his TV specials. This kind of thing had never happened to me before, and if it feels a little odd to you, then please know that it also felt odd to me.

For a few weeks we exchanged emails and spoke on the phone, doing a funny little negotiation dance, but finally we reached an impasse. In a very amicable way, we just kinda mutually realised that it probably wasn't going to work out in a way that would satisfy both of us, so we called it a day.

Months later, I happened to post something on the internet about how me and my wife were looking forward to going on a little trip to New York soon. I'd never been, so we were going to do all the touristy things, and see a couple of friends, and generally blow off some steam. And soon after I posted about our trip, another email from David appeared. He'd seen that we were heading to New York, and invited us over to his place for a coffee. Now look, I'm a socially anxious boy at the best of times, so I showed the email to my wife accompanied by a squeaked "Of course we're not going...."

"Oh no", she said, with a twinkle in her baby blues, "We're totally going. It'll be bonkers."

So, we went. And she was right.

Ahead of the visit, knowing how anxious I get in situations like this, we arranged a SECRET SIGNAL. If I was feeling stressed and wanted to leave at any point, I'd look at my wife, and do a big blink with wide eyes, and she'd make up an excuse for us to eject. Yes, it's stupid, but so is anxiety disorder.

David gave us directions to his place, which included, and I swear this is true, "Then go down the shitty looking alleyway. You'll see two dumpsters. There's a hidden door behind the second one. It'll be unlocked". This, friends, is what you want when you're visiting a famous magician. We found the shitty alleyway, counted to the second dumpster, and sure enough, behind it was a modern looking door, which, as we pushed it, opened.

I'll try to describe the decor that awaited us. The Batcave, if everything had been bought at the Sharper Image bankruptcy sale? The office of the heroes of a mid-budget streaming show about people who use their hacking skills for good? Patrick Bateman's soul, if it were a building, but with old magic posters? You get the idea - lots of high ceilings, smooth stainless steel and glass panels, black leather sofas. Oh, and a plexiglass cube in the corner with chains around it, seemingly for someone to escape from. To the right side there was a long boardroom style table with a smattering of minions banging away on laptops. To the back, a full kitchen. And floating around, a phalanx of young model-type women, wearing matching slinky black outfits, who noticed us as we walked in.

One of the model-type women drifts a little closer to us and breathily drawls "Are you here to see David?", we say yes, and she tells us he's on his way. So we plop down on the leather sofa just in time to watch some of the minions realise that they don't know who we are, and turn the whiteboard with their notes on, around, so that we can't see their MAGIC PLANS.

Except one of the minions does know who I am, which is even weirder. He introduces himself and tells me he's a fan of my work. "That's nice", I think to myself, through the fear whining in the back of my head.

Then David arrives. He strides in wearing full motorcycle leathers and carrying a helmet. To this day, I still don't believe that he has a motorcycle, and suspect this was all part of some kind of hypno-programming technique.

He says hi. If you don't know what David Blaine's voice sounds like, imagine being woken up in a cheap hotel room by the sounds of the person in the room next door sleep talking

"Hi, I'm David", he says, "Do you want to see my Raven?"