Winner: Coffee Bill
Tuesday nightʼs game was well attended, largely because it overlapped with Darinʼs birthday celebration. And who would want to miss that?
The standard quiz was expanded to include an exclusively Darin related trivia section. No score was kept for this part, but some interesting tidbits of Darinʼs bio were revealed.
Who knew Darinʼs working life started by pushing high octane as an underaged gas pump attendant? Not really so different from her present occupation, come to think of it – dispensing high octane over ice with a twist. Gas pump or beer tap, both helping us get where we want to go! And who knew that her childhood dream was to be a zookeeper. As one of the menagerie on Tuesday nights, I would say dreams do come true.
The actual quiz, the one with everlasting glory and fabulous prizes at stake, was dominated by Coffee Bill. No complaints this time about the quiz being too easy. Bill wins by three or four strokes over Driver Shea. Well done, Bill!
Good question!: The Maskelyne award is given for what area of entertainment?
Answer: Magic
The John Nevil Maskelyne Award is a monetary prize for noteworthy contributions by members of The Magic Circle to the art or literature of Magic. The Magic circle is the foremost society of magicians in the world.
Members give their word not to willfully disclose magic secrets other than to bona fide students of magic. Anyone breaking this rule may be expelled. Named after the renowned 19th Century magician and inventor John Nevil Maskelyne, known to many as the ‘father of British magic’, the award is one of the highest honors a conjurer can receive.
John Nevil Maskelyne, (1839 – 1917) the son of a Cheltenham watchmaker, became interested in conjuring after watching a performance of the fraudulent spiritualists, the Davenport Brothers. He saw how their spirit cabinet worked and stated in the theatre that he could recreate their act using no supernatural methods. With the help of friend and cabinet maker George Alfred Cooke, he built a spirit cabinet.
Together, they exposed the Davenport Brothers to the public at a show in Cheltenham in June 1865. Inspired by the acclaim they received in Cheltenham the two men decided to become professional magicians. At first they struggled to make ends meet, but later became firmly established on the national stage, including residencies such as their famous tenancy at the Egyptian Hall in Picadilly from 1873 to 1904.
In 1894 Maskelyne wrote the book Sharps and Flats: A Complete Revelation of the Secrets of Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill. This book became an instant hit and to this day is considered to be a classic gambling book. What made this book so popular is the fact that it was the first detailed revelation of the secrets of the cardsharps. The book is now also available online in the form of a web site, with annotations. (see: http://sharpsandflats.com/ )
Maskelyne and Cooke invented many illusions still performed today. Maskelyne was adept at working out the principles of illusions, one of his best-known being levitation. Recently a team of theoretical physicists in Scotland elevated levitation from science fiction to science fact. Presumably they have been expelled from the Magic Circle. By the way, the same team of theoretical physicists showed that invisibility cloaks also are feasible.
sources: wikipedia, the telegraph.
Thanks to our special Guest Blogger this week – Droppin’ Dave.
