I have always enjoyed the sleight of hand applied by a magician, particularly now that I am elderly since the elderly keep on checking every stage of the development of a trick rather than guessing.
The best magic I have ever encountered is the table magic of Fay Presto, born Letitia Winter. I do not know whether she is still for hire but she is quite brilliant.
The use of Abracadabra to emphasise the trick is best considered in the recording by Ian Dury (of Ian Dury and the Blockheads).
I am sorry to have to add that Ian is no longer with us since he died of liver cancer twenty-four years ago. He was stylishly funny.
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Of course, being a natural etymologist, I picked up on Jake Wallis Simons’s advice in yesterday’s DTel that Abracadabra is thought to be derived from the Hebrew ebrahk’dabri. This means “my words will create reality”. It perfectly describes the action of most magicians.
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Back on the money button, BXPharma (BXP) publicly advise today that matters in Bangladesh are under control and being unbungled and that BXP is still expanding. This makes the offer price of 37p ridiculously low and well worth the patient paying.
And that is not all: Logistics Development Group (LDG) today formally announce that their tnav is 18.9p per share and that they will buy back 15% of their stock. Astonishingly the offer price remains at under 12p.