John and I have been to a few Skeptics in the pub events over the last year, but we've been looking forward to tonight's presentation since it was announced some months ago.
I have followed Richard Wiseman's blog and YouTube stream since reading a few of his books, The Luck Factor, Quirkology, and :59 Seconds, so I knew that his talk would be entertaining and amusing, as well as interesting and educational.
We were not disappointed; although many were, as usual SiTP hadn't anticipated Wiseman's popularity, and there were half the seats needed in the Showroom and many of the audience couldn't sit down or even see the screen - John and I had arrived an hour and a half early to guarantee a seat!.
Originally trained as a magician, Wiseman certainly knows how to engage an audience, with slight of hand tricks and airing of videos. Although really I'm not sure that the whole talk wasn't just a collection of things he's done (experiments) as a way of introducing his new book.
Not that I mind, but it did seem a bit of a wasted opportunity as I suspect that the majority of the audience had seen most of his videos before, had read his books, and would buy his new book anyway (I will).
I'd like to see more of the scientific basis behind his experiments, and more of what he's got planned for the future. I'm not even entirely sure what's in the new book, but I'm certainly looking forward to reading it.
