Al Koran, the famous Mentalist Al Koran was a British 'Mentalist' from the middle of the twentieth century. Born in 1914, he toured England with a peculiar sort of act which went very much out of favour for a while, though the likes of Derren Brown have revived it recently. Mentalists were stage magicians, I suppose. Unlike, say, Nevil Maskelyne , the famous 'secret service magician' from world war two, mentalists were not interested in creating illusions for the sake of it. They tended to be more interested in mathematical games and logic puzzles. That said, Maskelyne did create the penny lock for public toilets, which I suppose is an achievement of almost Roman utility and longevity. With the admissions tests for law and medicine coming round again (I have delivered quite a few seminars and lectures on critical thinking and forms of logical reasoning in the past few years to declare my interest) I thought that it might be fun this Friday night to link to Al's mo...
This is a collection of personal and largely unedited observations covering the years from 2006 to now; I assert my copyright but am fine with links and footnotes. Some posts are obviously much more researched than others, and any errors are wholly mine except where I have innocently disseminated or linked to other bloggers or commentators.