Tricks of the trade
We get a lot of emails asking how things are done, what to read, watch, wear and eat – and we’d love to reply to everyone but there simply isn’t the time at the moment.
A note to those who don’t know we have all the recommended stuff here or just click on the recommended links for a more extended list, ideal for the truly hardcore, hopefully the links haven’t died. Anyone who has got through that lot deserves a medal and some new shelves.
We will be updating and adding more stuff when we can – shouldn’t be too long.
Also a reminder that the art store now features ALL of Derren’s prints at every size. More updates coming soon with 2 new releases and it looks like certain sizes will sell out never to be released again.
John Bramblitt – the blind painter
Most artists would be upset if their vision started to go. John Bramblitt was the opposite – he saw it as a challenge and used art as an outlet for his feelings. He paints with his fingers and feels the shapes using “slick paint” – a medium that dries very quickly so he can feel the shapes.
His art is truly incredible, the images are powerful and striking and considering his condition looking at them is quite moving. This small documentary is featured on his site along with his artwork – do check it out.
In Darwin’s Shadow
Relatively few peple are aware that alongside Charles Darwin, another Scientist was busily working with the idea of natural selection. Alfred Russell Wallace not only spent even ore time than Charles Darwin collecting specimens, but pushed Darwin into publishing his Theory of Evolution by writing up his own findings on natural selection.
While Darwin has become a posthumous champion of skeptics, Wallace dabbled in spiritualism and pseudoscience. His ideas of natural selection also differed quite a bit from Darwin’s, as this biography shows.
New Books in Recommended Reading
Lost of an idea for Christmas? Well try our new revamped book list. A Great time to catch up on reading whilst granny harps on about her corns and everyone else over eats. There’s also a mini comp over at the FLAP site and we’ll be sending out postage from the art site for a few days still.
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Awesome new book blog: Free book giveaway
Why Do We Read is a new book blog founded by our good friend Jo Reader. We get quite a few emails asking for reading material and books to help stimulate your brains. Well WDWR is the perfect place to get them. In fact a good chunk of the books we recommend have at some point come from them.
They do concentrate on a lot of the subjects we do here as well – so you’ll see the familiar names like Richard Wiseman and his wonderful books, Carl Sagan and James Randi – plus also a few more including the fabulous Atheist Guide to Xmas featuring our very own Derren Brown. We’ve sent them Derren’s books to read and they have promised us they will be reviewing them soon.
So far it’s small but growing rapidly and they’ve told us that commenters will be picked at random to receive a book each month – so if you’ve read anything on there, leave a short review in a comment and you could win some free stuff. They’re also open to suggestion so if people want new categories researching they’ll do the hard work for you.
You can follow them on @whydoweread and each book reviewed pops up on there. You can send in your reading requests (apparently they have over 450 books waiting to go up) for any subject they cover and we have received news that possibly the most incredible competition you’ve seen in a while is on it’s way to win an extremely expensive magic book worth over £130. Keep your eyes peeled.
Postal strikes cause havoc at Brown Towers
Due to the postal strikes we will be holding back the posting of items.
We have had so many losses, delays and foul ups via her Majesties service that we decided to hold back during the strikes. We have seen delays of 2 months on some items and we are striving to get things to you. At the moment we’re averaging 10-15 days for a 1st class delivery – we expect this to increase.
If you have ordered anything more than 3 weeks ago and not received anything please email us on lostatsea@derrenbrown.co.uk
We are very sorry about this and are hoping it will all go away soon. Please accept our full apologies, please mount all blame on Phillis for everything and not Derren, Coops or Abeo (they are just too lovely).
Anyone entering in to the (now not so) hidden competition should email Lost at Sea for a temporary poster number and an entry form.
Enigma Crew
The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
Just finished reading The Drunkard’s Walk. It’s very science based but is really quite amusing – it deals with the science of probability and randomness. There’s also a mention of winning lotteries and roulette wheel gambling. 
Atheist guide to xmas – hits amazon best seller list
The book featuring passages from the likes of Charlie Brooker (sigh), Bed Goldacre and our very own Mr Brown has hit the Amazon best seller list. How ironic if this makes the Christmas best seller list – that would equal a nice bit of xmas w1n.
With the Royal Mail the way it is – Amazon has chosen to drop them. So not sure if you’ll have to order your copy in early in order to get it in time for the celebration of the birth of our Lord.
Recommended books
Just a note to let all of the people emailing in about where to find out more information or books on “how to develop various techniques” – well we do have a recommended reading section here that is the best starting point for anyone – further reading lists will be available soon and you can always click here for a back catalogue of recommended books.
Also remember you can also follow the wonderful @lordcoopy on twitter for DB Art updates, insider info and nice pictures – otherwise you can follow @phillisdorris for further reading, stuff and a nice helping of sillyness.
Richard Dawkins – The Greatest Show on Earth
Last time I jumped happily on the atheist bandwagon and pumped out a book recommendation I got my head bitten off by angry Catholics and Dawkins-haters alike. Sadly, I could not rush to his defence (like he needs me to!) because I had not read the book.
Well this time I’ve taken the time out to do so. I actually went for the audiobook release as it’s read in his tone of voice – in my head Dawkins shouts and spits when he says “KREEE-ASHON-ISTS”. So like it or not you’re getting my review and for what it’s worth (…ahem nothing) you’re all going to have to read it too before you’re allowed to comment on it! (more…)
