The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
It’s a kind of magic
How the art of illusion has come full circle in Tayside and Fife. PLUS: Winter soups are best of broth worlds
Poor mum is in hospital. Nothing to do with Covid, thankfully. Then she has had the first jab, so she must be mostly protected.
No, this is to do with a glitch with her diabetes. It’s gone a bit haywire and they’ve taken her in to get her stable again.
It is hard not seeing my mother. Then who can see anyone these days? It is hard for all of us.
Still, I drop off a bag with essentials – face cream, reading glasses, jelly babies and lemon squash.
I cannot get into the ward for obvious reasons. But at least she has some of the things she needs to see her through her stay.
At least we know she is in good hands.
And as she may be there for a fortnight, I pop into her house on the loch to try to make things nice for when she does come home.
There the resident swans are parading up and down the water.
Last year, they had nine young. And eight cygnets remain, big birds now, their dark feathers turning white.
Yet window watching is no good. There is a house to tidy and that means sorting out the fridge.
Miser that I am, it pains to ditch a carton of old milk, but out it must go.
A dodgy-looking slab of butter from last summer is thrown out.
A dry cherry cake goes on the bird table.
Then there is the rather more exciting find. A bulky chorizo sausage.
It looks fine in its packaging but it is a month out of date. It, too, hovers over the kitchen bin. Then it finds its way into my handbag.
Internet food sites tells me that “use by” means exactly that. But with “best before” there is generally some leeway.
These guides to shelf life advise that chorizo can in fact be eaten several weeks after a “best before” date. As long as it doesn’t look mouldy or smell odd.
And so it is chopped up and added to a bean casserole.
The chief declares it delicious and asks for second helpings.
And no one gets had a funny tummy.
Not that I am encouraging you to eat things that might have gone off.
But having researched the topic, I am a little wiser.
I now know that butter and milk have a longer shelf life if stored in the main body of the fridge – and not the door.
To stop lettuce and spinach from going soggy, just pop a piece of paper towel into the bag to soak up the extra moisture.
To keep your celery crisp, meanwhile, wrap it in foil.
After cutting a lump of cheese, rub butter on the cut side to keep it fresh.
All useful stuff. And you heard it here – via some helpful websites.
And finally, if you think I am just raiding an elderly lady’s fridge, all will be replaced – nice and fresh for when she leaves hospital.
Come home soon, Mum…
I NOW KNOW THAT BUTTER AND MILK HAVE A LONGER SHELF LIFE IF STORED IN THE MAIN BODY OF THE FRIDGE – AND NOT THE DOOR
O ne hundred years ago last month, English magician Percy Thomas Tibbles literally and laboriously “sawed” through a sealed wooden box that contained a woman. It was a sensation that has become one of the world’s bestknown illusions, performed with all manner of tools and varying degrees of “blood”.
Fife-raised scientist-turned-magician Kevin Quantum, who made it to the semi-finals of
Britain’s Got Talent in 2020, has never tried to emulate it himself.
However, it was a take on this legendary trick that helped him win fame on reality TV show Faking It in 2005 and later helped him grow closer to his Russian girlfriend – now wife – Svetlana, when she agreed to let him “rip a ring from her stomach” during nightly shows in Edinburgh a few years later.
“I’ve never done the sawing the woman in half trick in the classic traditional manner,” explains Kevin, 40, interviewing with The Courier from Moscow.
“But one of the tricks legendary magicians Penn and Teller taught me is this wonderful funny routine based on retrieving a swallowed ring from the stomach of a spectator who had ‘accidentally swallowed’ it.
“You had to lie them on a table, ‘cut them open’ and pull the ring from their stomach – ‘blood’ pouring everywhere – then hand the ring back to the person you borrowed it from.
“It’s the trick I performed in the final of Faking It.
“Some years later, I had been booked to do a run at the Steeple Tent in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, and I wanted to do this trick which would have involved people from the audience getting covered in ‘blood’. But you can’t really do that without one or two lawsuits.
“So I wanted to have someone in the audience I would ‘randomly choose’ and have them covered in blood.
“I’d just started dating this Russian girl called Svetlana. I said: ‘You up for doing this? You’ll get covered in blood every night, get your stomach cut open and a ring taken out?’ She said ‘Sure!’.
“That level of commitment is special. We are now married with two kids and staying at her mum’s house in Moscow.
“It’s not sawing someone in half, but it’s the fun and modern day rock ’n’ roll equivalent that got us together.”
Growing up in Rosyth as Kevin Mcmahon, the former pupil of St John’s Primary and St Columba’s RC High School, Dunfermline, loved magic as a child. He had a Paul Daniels magic set which he’d use to perform tricks for his brother and sisters.
He never saw magic as a potential career
– going on to study his other love, physics, on a scholarship to Edinburgh University before embarking upon a PHD at Heriot Watt University.
His life changed in 2005, however, when, while laid up with torn ligaments sustained during a five-a-side football match in Edinburgh, he responded to an advert for reality TV show Faking It.
The premise was to train someone in a job laterally opposite to the one they already did.
In his case, they took a quiet, mildmannered scientist and trained him to be a magician – “from zero to hero” over four intense weeks.
He was coached by experts including Penn and Teller and “kept on the straight and narrow” by the late no-nonsense Dundee magician Pat Page.
After various deliberate “humiliations” along the way to boost his confidence and underline his low starting point, it culminated in a 90-minute Easter Day 2005 TV special, watched by seven million UK viewers, when he had to go on stage and fool Paul Daniels into believing he was a genuine magician.
He’s never looked back – now priding himself on combining his love of magic with his love of science to “do good” for the art and produce some of the most memorable tricks around, including appearances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where, aptly, he first met his now-wife at a “Magic to get girls by” show.
That fusion of science and magic was further demonstrated in the 2020 series of Britain’s Got Talent when in the first round