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I’m sitting a little way along from all of the kerfuffle. The press are still very much in attendance, having their field day, ‘making’ all their pictures, ‘writing’ all their commentaries (
uh
, is it just me, or don’t they actually realise that this slightly chubby, very famous 30-year-old illusionist
isn’t really going anywhere?
Don’t panic, lads, you have about 36 more days to sort out your copy. Sit back,
relax
. Just do as the magician does).

It’s a tragic fact, but Blaine is definitely bringing out the worst in we Brits. I don’t know if this is what he wants (if it’s all part of the buzz for this American Christo-like) or if it’s what he expected, but he’s headlining it in most of the tabloids today. They’re calling him a fake, a cheat, a freak, a liar. They’re up in bloody
arms
, basically. And it’s a
moral
issue, apparently. Because it’s in Very Bad Taste to starve yourself if you have the option not to-
yeah
, so why not go and tell all those fucked-up, deviant
Anorexics
that?–especially
(especially)
if you’re calling it Art (and pocketing a- purely coincidental- 5 mill. pay-out).

Cynical?
Moi
?

Look
, I’m just sitting on this damn wall and watching all the colour unfold around me. I don’t quite know if I’m loving it or loathing it (you’ll find me on the fence. I’m the kind of guy who used to actively enjoy leaning on his bike’s crossbar as a kid). But who (
who
?) can deny that it’s a big story? It’s a big
setting
–I mean
Mary Mother of Jesus
, how the hell did the council give
permission
for all this crap? Right here, on their doorstep? In the middle of everything?

It’s just a wild guess, but I’m definitely getting the impression that some poor bastard has currently got his nuts in a vice over this whole farrago.

‘
Uh
…’ he’s stuttering, ‘I thought it might attract the
tourists
, Mr Mayor. I thought it might be a nice…an impressive
culmination
to some of the other cultural events we’ve been staging in the park throughout the summer. I mean the kids
loved
the visit from the local city-farm, didn’t they? All the goats and
hens
and everything? And then there was that
cookery
demonstration in the striped marquee. That went swimmingly…’

The cleaners (let’s get down to brass tacks) are absolutely fucking
livid
(I’m not certain if they have the mayoral ear, but if they do, then that fall guy’s nuts are definitely for the high jump).

I’m actually on nodding terms with Georgi (Gee-orgi. Twenty-two. Toothless. Romanian. Angriest man in the world right now).

Georgi already deals with a lot of shit (he sells me dope, the occasional E), because the life of a cleaner on this part of the river is not an easy one. The whole area’s paved–and enclosed–for one thing. And it’s a huge tourist draw, a landmark (the whole world feels like it already owns this view, and in some ways–if affection begets possession–it does).

It needs to look good–at
all
times–and because of the tons of dodgy marble and smooth cement and dramatic architecture, any stray detritus just–kind of–
sits
there. It stands out. It looks
bad
. It needs to be dealt with, and quickly (So fuckin’ jump to it, lad), else all we proud Londoners (okay I’ve lived here 10 years, so I think I qualify) start to look shoddy.

And we don’t like that.

But with the advent of Blaine’s box, things have started to go crazy. Is it Blaine himself? The excitement? The fury? The awe? Whatever the root cause, people suddenly seem to feel the powerful need to generate mess. It’s Goo-ville. It’s Crap-town. There’s old fruit, rotten eggs (British poultry farmers are just
loving
this situation. Fuck Sky, man. We really need to start seeing the colour of
their
sponsorship money), and worst of all, there’s the ‘human’ element.

Now don’t get me (or Georgi) wrong: people have
always
pissed in corners (a bridge–any bridge–almost demands as much from any man with a working penis), but the way things are currently, it’s like the embankment is a toilet and Blaine is just the scented rim-block dangling in his disposable plastic container from the bowl at the top. It’s getting completely
degenerate
. People are shitting
everywhere
. Man, it’s
Shit-o-fucking-rama
down here. Huge steaming
piles
of the stuff, in every alcove, every crevice, every corner. And then there’s poor Georgi–with his broom, his weak hose, his little shovel–being expected to clean all this crap–
your
crap–up.

But here’s the best part: He doesn’t blame
you
.

Uh-uh
.

Not at all.

He blames the hungry (and decidedly shitless) bugger in the
box
.

Blaine.

‘Is
him
,’ Georgi gesticulates irately towards the pallid New Yorker with his broom, ‘tha’ stupid, crazy, dirty-fucky-bastar’
Jew
.’

Yeah
. So where the
hell
am I supposed to stash my sandwich wrapper?

I have an agenda. You really need to know that. I mean all this isn’t just
arbitrary
.

Uh-
uh
.

I
have
an agenda.

So my dad’s name–for the record (and this
is
pertinent; it’s the
core
of the thing, the
nub
)–is Douglas Sinclair MacKenny, and all things being equal, he’s a pretty run-of-the mill kind of guy. He enjoys gardening,
Inspector Morse
, steam trains and Rugby League. He’s into trad-jazz, Michael Crichton, elasticated waists, Joanna Lumley and lychees. When he was nineteen years old he swam the English Channel. But he doesn’t swim much any more.

He runs a sub-post office in north Herefordshire (where I was born, 28 long, hard years ago–not on the
counter
, obviously, let’s not be
that
literal, eh?–his lone progeny: Adair Graham MacKenny). He’s happily (well, within
reason
) married to my mum (Miriam), and he’s fundamentally a very genial, affable, easy-going creature.

(
Fundamentally
–so he doesn’t like black people or queers, but which underachieving 55-year-old, small-minded, Caucasian, Tory-voting cunt does?
Huh
? Name me one.)

Nothing bugs him (not even the long and inexorable queue of pensioners at closing).
Nothing
winds him up.

Well…
okay
, then. So there’s this
one
thing…it’s a really
tiny
thing…and it bugs him just a little.

Is that a fair representation?

No.

Fine.
Fine
. So this particular thing bugs him quite a lot.

He doesn’t
like
it, see? It pees him off. It rings his bell. It pulls his chain. It sits–it
really
sits, and it presses,
hard
–on his buzzer.

This thing is (has always been/will always be) a source of unbelievable distress to him. It’s a thing which he
loathes
/
fears
/
distrusts
more than any other. This thing (if you refer to it, idly) makes him clam-up, then blanch, then shake uncontrollably. He’s virtually lethally-fucking-
allergic
to this thing.

Any guesses?

Wheat? Pigeons? Lichen? Jasper Carrott? Dahlias? Lambswool? Beer?

Nope.

Douglas Sinclair MacKenny hates–I said he
hates
–illusionists. And with a passion.

Let me tell you why.

Great Yarmouth. Nineteen fifty-nine. The height of the Summer Season. My dad, still then but a boy, is down on the beach with a large crowd of deliriously rambunctious, candy-floss-speeding, bucket-swinging, spade-waving, snotty-nosed comrades. He’s clutching sixpence which his mother has just given him. He is planning to spend this money on-
deep
breath now, Dad,
deeeep
breath- a
Magic
Show!

The magician or ‘illusionist’ in question is no less (and no more) a man than ‘The Great Carrazimo’. Carrazimo is (by all accounts) fairly competent at the magicianing thing. He does some nifty stuff with doves. He can pretend–very effectively–to chop off his thumb. He can throw his voice. He even (and Dad still doesn’t know how) stole some little girl’s
laugh
. Seriously. He nicked it (she was temporarily hoarse) and then found it again inside her sticky bag of Liquorice Allsorts.

This is all good stuff (I know you’re thinking) so why the angst?

Here’s why: at the end of his show, Carrazimo pulls a stunt which leaves everyone agog. He gets the kids to dig a hole–a deep hole–in the sand. He climbs into the hole. He then tells the kids to fill it up.

That’s right. The Great Carrazimo is intending to get himself Buried 100 Per Cent Alive.

The kids–they aren’t a bad bunch–are slightly nervous at the prospect. I mean it’s been a good show. The little girl’s laugh is back. The thumb’s on. The doves are cooing. It’s very nearly lunchtime.

But Carrazimo insists. It’s the climax of his act.

The kids still aren’t entirely convinced. ‘And here’s the thing,’ one especially ‘responsible’ (read as: ‘opportunistic’) young ‘un pipes up, ‘if you don’t come back, what’s gonna happen to the rabbit and the doves and all the rest of your stuff?’

Carrazimo grins. ‘If I don’t come back,’ he says, ‘then you can divide it among you.’

Two seconds later, Carrazimo disappears under a hail of sand.

It takes about ten minutes to bury the illusionist completely. Douglas Sinclair MacKenny has played his part–has even taken the precaution of patting the sand neat and flat on top. He’s concerned for the illusionist (yes he is), but he has one (very constant, very careful) eye already firmly affixed on the illusionist’s grand collection of magic wands. There’s a fat one (the very one he used to fix his thumb back on), and if the worst happens, Douglas Sinclair MacKenny is determined to have it.

When all the work is done, the kids sit down, en masse, and they wait.

And they wait.

Eventually (it’s now half an hour past lunch), one of the mums happens along.

‘What on earth are you all up to?’ she asks.

‘We’re waiting for Carrazimo,’ they respond.

‘Well where
is
he?’ she asks.

‘In the sand,’ the kids boom back.

Pause
.

‘So how long’s he been under there?’ she enquires.

‘Thirty-seven bloody
minutes
,’ Douglas Sinclair MacKenny yells furiously.

Another five minutes pass. By now quite a crowd has formed. One of the fathers has asked the kids to indicate
precisely
where the illusionist is buried. The kids are still quite cheerful at this stage (if getting a little hungry), and they happily mark out the spot.

The parents start to dig (the poignancy quotient of this scene is presumably dramatically heightened by the fact that all these men and women have borrowed their kids’ tiny shovels). The atmosphere is grave (on the surface, at least), but then- 32 seconds into the rescue operation- an unholy scrap breaks out.

It has finally dawned on the children that Carrazimo might not actually be returning to collect his stuff, and everybody wants first dibs on the things he’s left behind. Douglas Sinclair MacKenny is–in his own mind at least–now first in line to get himself that fancy fat magician’s wand. But two other boys–at least–have their greedy eyes glued on this exact-same prize.

There is a brief halt to the digging as the tragic magician’s possessions are firmly removed from a host of small, grasping hands, and when the digging resumes, the children are duly frogmarched up the beach, on to the prom, and into the warm, distracting embrace of the funfair for ‘a couple of rides’.

It isn’t a long while after that Carrazimo’s body is pulled from the sand. Yes. He’d performed this feat a hundred times before. But it’d rained at breakfast and the sand–for some reason–was just slightly wetter than it usually was in summer.

He’d drowned.

Douglas Sinclair MacKenny was scarred for ever. Not just by the death (although that took its toll–he was, after all, an accessory to the illusion), but by the fact that he was cruelly denied that most tantalising, powerful and
coveted
of items: the magician’s fat wand. Carrazimo had
promised
, hadn’t he? The perfidious, two-faced, double-crossing
liar
.

Hmmn
. Think there might’ve been any
phallic
significance in all of that?

I know what you’re thinking: it was all a very long time ago now (this illusionist stuff). And he’s just my old
dad
, after all–I mean if he happens to see me more than twice in your average year–Christmas / birthday–he starts to think the worst.