What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 9th October 2026

The theme of the night was "Paper and Apperatus" hosted by Steve Irwin.

Al started us off with a beautiful story while completing a well practised torn and restored newspaper routine. It was especially convincing and poignant considering the cost pressures being faced by all recently. Al continued the magic with his famous radar trick. In this effect, he shuffles the deck, divides it into two, picks one of the packs, picks a favourite card from this pack and sandwiches this card between the two packets. Now the story begins with a destroyer commander out in the ocean. The cards are dealt into four columns face up and the column with the selected card (4 of Spades) is gathered. This pile is dealt into three rows of three, with one extra card eliminated for symmetry. Next, three cards are eliminated due to false radar reflection and another three are eliminated due to sonar rain reflections. Ships sitting side by side eliminate two more, leaving us with just one card. Sure enough, it is the 4 of Spades, bullseye! This interesting story gives a good overview of destroyers, radar and sonar throughout the magic. Al then took a request and continued with his islands card effect in which four islands (Cards) are inhabited with four diamonds, four lieutenants, four girls, four spades, four bears (So they needed clubs), four worried mothers (Who loved their sons) and four concerned fathers. The four columns that have been dealt are gathered and cut multiple times, as there is a cyclone on the island which goes on for a few days. The cards are then dealt out into eight different piles, at which point we find all of them back together again - Nothing is mixed, the four spades are in the same pile, the four diamonds, the four clubs and so on for all involved in the story. A neat ending!

Noel continued the show with a walking stick which he can twirl deftly. From the cane he grabs blue and red loops which very quickly transpose position from top to bottom several times, a trick taught by Tom Blunden. Next, Noel has a blue scarf and ring around it. He threads the scarf through the ring and then the ring moves by itself up the length of the scarf several times. On the same theme, Noel displays two white ropes parallel to each other and has a red scarf tied around the pair. He then ties a purple and green scarf as well, all around centre of rope. The rope is fed through a small container and a lid is placed over the top of all of the scarves. The rope is tied just once and both ends are held by two participants who pull firmly and the rope comes straight through the entire setup by magic. Very deceptive and convincing.

David Blunden recounted a story about telephone books before giving a sealed envelope to an audience member. He then displays a strip he has cut from the phone book and starts moving a pair of scissors along the length. He cuts when the audience member chooses. The audience member reads the top line from the clipping and sure enough, it matches the address on the envelope. Upon checking the top address on the reverse of the clipping, it is revealed that the letter inside is sent from that person. This is too big a coincidence to be anything other than magic!

Steve Irwin was next with a good joke that hasn't come out yet. Steve then displays a tube with three balls and a bus motif. The three balls are red, yellow and green, with the bully denoted by the red ball. Despite putting the balls into the tube with red last, when the tube is lifted, it always finds its way to the first position. This is repeated several times until the bully is talked to by the principal. Finally, they stay in the correct part of the bus. This is a very clever routine. Steve continued with a coin from nothing routine in which the coins multiply, once, twice, before the coins diapppear and we were back to two, one, and finally, nothing. This is similar to a Mark Wilson sponge ball routine but with coins.

David Whitson presented us with a production of $100 bills in a floral arrangement from nowhere. He then produced five coloured wands in total from just one wand. Next, David displayed a large yellow flower and an associated story. After an accidental sneeze, the yellow flower is lost, leaving only the green stalk. David covers the stalk with the scarf and the yellow flower disappears from a change bag, but the new flower has not regrown yet. While attempting to restore the flower, the audience can see a yellow flower in David's magic wand, but the performer doesn't know. Finally with a bit more magic, the flower regrows itself from the green stalk.

Warden finished off the show with some mathematical magic. He asks for any number between 20 and 80, with 34 chosen by the audience. Within moments, he completes a 4 x 4 square filled with numbers, in which all rows, columns and diagonals add up to the chosen number. Checked for accuracy and spot on, this was some fast mathemagics.