I've been enjoying Derren Brown's latest series. What I've enjoyed most is watching public reaction - and I'm convinced Derren is enjoying it as well.

After the lottery trick, the amount of time spent proving it was a trick was completely unprecedented. I can only assume that people feel the need to try to prove a magician is actually a magician, and not a wizard, because he's been so successful in the past at baffling people. His act often dresses up magic in the guise of being something deeper. He may certainly be better at controlling minds than other magicians (the Heist stunt, for instance, is no illusion) but he is still, at the end of the day, a magic act that use a wide variety of methods.

The anger at his explanation - I've seen people say they've written to advertising watchdogs because of false claims - was particularly amusing, especially if you really watch the show. The punchline of the show - after giving his obviously false mathematical explanation, and his even more absurd 'fix the draw' explanation that was designed to taunt the real cynics - was simply "I'll maintain that it was just a trick", a throwaway reminder that the idea is could be anything else is just ridiculous.

If anything, the reaction to the control the nation event was even better. Commenting on the Guardian's live coverage of the show, many people seemed keen to point out, in a tone that suggested they were in some way superior, that it had not worked for them. Quite frankly, anyone who tried it with that attitude was never going to experience anything else. It should be noted that there was a punchline at the end of this show as well - this time mentioning that all the tricks has nothing to do with subliminal messaging. Cath chatted the entire way through it, but I've got it on my DVR, so I'll give it another go later, and let you know how it goes. I deeply want it to work. I think that would be more interesting than standing up.