Lying

Friday

Mark Mason

Magic and the art of lying

Talking to a former politician about lying felt very appropriate. It was during one of my ‘Magical Thinking’ sessions, a corporate team-building event I run in which I perform close-up magic tricks and the participants try to work out how they’re being done. Among those at this session was Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who had initially been baffled by a particular mentalism effect. She thought of a day of the week, then a month of the year and finally a playing card, and my guesses on all three proved correct. Every possible route by which I could have cheated seemed blocked off – but Anne-Marie was brilliant at responding to my hints (part of the process, of course), and gradually she led the team towards the solution. The moment it dawned on her how the trick worked was wonderful.

Wednesday

Claire Lowdon

Aunt Munca’s murky past

Kiss Myself Goodbye. It sounds a bit like a William Boyd novel. It looks likea William Boyd novel, too: the cover shows an old hand-coloured photograph of a fur-stoled woman, determinedly leading a man in morning dress towards the camera. And, indeed, the raw material would likely make a very good William Boyd novel — only Boyd would have to jettison at least half of the breakneck hairpin bends in the mad, mazy plot for the sake of believability. This could be the ultimate case of a tale too strange to be fiction. Ferdinand Mount has crafted the perfect, custom-made receptacle for his extraordinary story. The (anti)-hero is the millionairess Aunt Munca, self-named after the mouse in the Beatrix Potter story. It turns out to be just one of her many names and identities.