Kindness competition entries
Thank you all for sending us your entries for the rubbish souvenirs from Alton Towers. Aside from those people who completely misunderstood the basic premise, were several who had done some lovely things. A thank you to the lady who has set up the site allowing people to donate to the Parrot Zoo, that’s very good of you.
I have two personal favourites:
i decided to run the race for life this year after finding out my aunty has cancer.since i dont have the cure, i thought this would be the most kindest warmest thing i could do for her and others alike.hopefully completing this will be a small help.i would like you to give me the keyring now and some mind-benders to help me get over running 3 miles.i wouldnt normally run for anything – and I wasn’t going to do this anyway. i really did enter this in order to try and win.
M.
and:
“I made this cake for my grandmother” – it wasn’t her birthday and she wasn’t ill.
Do I win?
G.
One worthy cause, one simple touching gesture (the cake entry had no proof of baking date, which technically could disqualify it – though I’m happy to let it pass because it looks amazing). But I can’t decide between the two. Let me know your thoughts, and then I might toss a coin if I can’t decide.
Meanwhile, I have just taken a genuine spirit photograph. I know I’ve always been sceptical of such things, claiming that we’re just finding patterns in randomness etc, but I just picked up my drink of Diet Pepsi in the bar of this Northampton hotel, which I had no idea was haunted, to find the face of a ghost appearing in the moisture that had formed beneath the glass. I shall show the picture to the staff, as it may be the face of someone who perhaps worked and was murdered here in a previous century. Alternatively, some of you may think that it is the face of Christ himself, and that I have stumbled across something of enormous religious significance. If this is the case, Northampton should brace itself for annual pilgrimages to mark the day of this miracle. Either way, I’d like to hear those closed-minded Western atheist sciencey-types explain this one:
Right, on with the book. I’m paying fifteen pounds to use wi-fi here! Fifteen! This upsets me.
Please continue.
x
I think the cake!!!
Yay!
I like the race for life entry, i myself am dong the race for life this year for the 3rd time, i first did it when he first got diagnosed, unfortunately he lost the battle against cancer but by carrying on to raise money through doing the race for life and other activities i hope other people do not have to go through what all those close to my grandad have had to. So my vote goes for her, even though the cake does indeed look yummy!
£15 for wifi 😮 that’s nearly criminal prices!!
Blimey Derren go steady! £15 for wi-fi? I loved your show by the way…went to sheffield.
I didn’t believe in spirits till now..but thanks to your photograph I am now wondering if I’ve been wrong all along ; )
I think the cake looks yummy, but like the running for the Aunty story x
That picture has to be Derren’s greatest trick ever! I couldn’t stop laughing.
Well I heard that water has memory, and so it is perfectly logical to assume that the very same ‘condensated’ water that gracefully cries down your glass and marries with the table is the exact same water that, (through natural and eternal climate type laws such as evaporation, then rain, then evaporation…. and so on throughout centuries), is the very same water that Jesus Christ himself scrubbed his back with (in). And … ‘Diet’ Pepsi??? Sugar is the food of the brain! And don’t get me started on Aspartame! ! Thankyou.
HaHa, i think it looks a little like Derren, But without the pointy beard lol. I think the race for life should win, as although the cake looks amazing, Did they prove they had made it?? Who knows. But anyone who can run for 3 miles gets my vote! I’ve just bought trick of the Mind DVD series 1 and 2 from Play.com. Seen them before but not for a while! Soooo Excited!x
don’t understand why anyone would think this is a spiritual thing, the picture is a face that someone’s finger nail has drawn. Again I’ve read and seen most derren’s work and huge fan. however why would derren think of this as anything but a drawing and its very easy to see this isn’t a ghost, christ or a miracle
If I send you fifteen pounds will I win the kindness competition ? (or at least come second or third)
Go for the cake, it’s BRILL!!! As to the face in the Northampton hotel. I think the staff are pulling y’r pl….r!! We drove two & a half hours to see you in Derngate last night, IT WAS WORTH EVERY INCH, u were FAB. I think y’r mum was very nice too.
Really heart-felt entries ^-^
And I always knew Pepsi and Coke were the same thing! WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!!111 THIS FACE PROVES IT LAWLZ
This is completely unrelated to the kindness question, but while staying in Plymouth over the weekend to see some conjurer fellow perform at the Pavilions (he was quite good, as it turns out), my hotel also expected me to stump up £15 for a day’s wifi access, a quite astonishing sum for a few minutes of talking to my imaginary friends on Facebook and a bit of Twittering.
Luckily I was able to thwart their evil money-making scheme using my PAYG mobile broadband dongle (which cost me all of £30), where a £15 top-up buys me 30 days of access and up to 3GB of data – enough to download ninety-six thousand of the cakes shown above. Could be just the thing if you happen to stay in lots of hotels all over the country.
Both worthy entries, a lovely idea to run for Auntie and an amazing cake!
Derren, loved your show in Plymouth on Saturday – I was the one waiting out back for a signature on ‘Pure Effect’, thanks for hanging round despite your poorly throat!
Good luck with the rest of them!
It’s a spiritual ring formation – formed when a ghost enters a room and chills the air causing water to form in small circles. I thought everyone knew that?
I would vote for the Race for Life entrant. Personally I think the apparition under the glass could have been a message from Roger Hargreaves, but I wouldn’t put money on it personally x
Both worthy entries, a lovely idea to run for Auntie and an amazing cake!
Derren, loved your show in Plymouth on Saturday – I was the one waiting out back for a signature on ‘Pure Effect’, thanks for hanging round despite your poorly throat!
Good luck with the rest of them!
Okay the serious bit first … voting for a kindness winner … I think that the “winning” act of kindness is the run by “M”.
But on to the spirit photo … I don’t think you should restrict yourself to hotel staff members, clearly the spirit is communicating that they died of a major head-related condition and they’re twisting the mouth to tell you the name. The spirit’s name has an “m” (or the spirit is calling for loved-one “m”) in it and that is the most direct, accurate information you will get on this spirit. So go on, off to the local newspaper, I’m sure that their archive will mention the death of “m” after a long battle with a head trauma / bullet / brain cancer / brain damage / stroke / memory loss / senility / aphasia.
Or ritual hindu sacrifice.
I think Pete missed the point….or perhaps fighting sarcasm with sarcasm?
Race for life should win…..no…..the cake…..oh, can’t you just get more stuff and send them both something as they are both great.
I think he might be joking!! (sorry for the sarcasm). 🙂
ITS JESUS.
and go for the running one and send me the cake.
ps saw you in reading and it was amazing, really amazing 🙂
Ahh,…well, i think if between the two options above…then i´d go for the totally imagined´ running´-story, since it isn´t provable either which makes it (at least) a good-deed as magic is….it exists and doesn´t exist@ the same time….blabla 😉
Deàrren, it´s bollox you have to pay for wifi in a hotel indeed!…show them this blog!
…as for the spirit-face, …i mean, c´mon, anyone can tell you just wet kissed the bar, doh 😀
x
… just a thought… i think it would be a very nice thing if you didn’t dissapoint either of your kind fans and instead suggested that the race runner runs dressed as a cake, and the cake maker has a cake eating race! And then split the prize! That would be kind of you Derren, not to mention unstoppably beautiful!
The cake looks fan-dabby-dozy but I would go for the Race For Life story. I ran for the first time with my freind who’s dad died of cancer & it was great knowing we doing it for a great cause.
PLUS 3 miles was a shockingly long way in my usually exercise free world.
£15? Disgusting
PEOPLE PLEASE NOTE ON ALL ENTRIES:
1. Commits the most impressively kind act upon anyone who is NOT part of the Tour, website or associated with Brown Towers.
Please stop offering to send US cash, underwear or foodstuffs.
🙂
I think the race for life should win… that cake could have been bought! Is G a professional baker? Call me cynical but…!
OH MY GOD THAT’S A GHOST FACE GET OUT OF THERE NOW! Seriously, run! Even people who put kittens in boxes and people in lakes don’t deserve to be eaten by a smiley ghost. Oh god I hope he is ok, this is scarier than that time he accidentally hypnotised himself and didn’t wake up.
I think the cake should win, just because it is always nice when someone does something for you for no apparent reason…
Also… that’s me in the Diet Pepsi watermark, remarkable likeness.
hmmm .anyone want to vote for the website?
Do you think he’s run away yet? I hope he isn’t still sitting watching his computer while a scary ghostface opens its smiley man-eating mouth wider and wider, ready to strike and BITE HIS HEAD.
I’m scared. Somebody hold me!
PS my entry is “warning Derren Brown that a ghost face in a table is about to eat him, saving his life”. Thanks in advance.
It’s tough to choose between the two, the cake is very impressive and mouth-watering, but I know it also takes a lot of effort and determination to start training for a run from scratch and raise sponsor money, especially when people may not have much money to give right now. So I’d go for the race.
I want to eat cake now.
Hmmmmm is it just me, or does that ‘cake’ looks like a basket turned upside down, but nonetheless if it is a real cake, it looks terrific;)
I am not really interested in that stuff, If it was the art book, I would have entered the competition;) But now I did not enter the competition, although I do kind acts all the time.
I like making this world a better place to live in, and I believe in the pay it forward way of thinking. If you do good things to people, there is more chance that they will on their turn do good things to others. Certainly, when they ask what they can do in return I usually just say ‘whenever you come across someone in a similar situation, you help them’:)
What are the sort of kind things that I do ?
It can go from something simple as sending someone a poem to cheer up their day; helping someone in the airport who doesn’t speak the language find or explain what they need; driving someone to their home, because their bag is almost bigger than themselves and I don’t want them to drag that all the way home on foot; giving someone a meal who hasn’t got any money; listening to someones troubles and if possible lend a helping hand; helping a friend renovate their house and take leave, because they wanted it done before their baby ‘arrived’; helping some guy in the street who was just robbed (I just missed it, I just saw he was in distress), calm him down and walk him to the police office; taking pictures for a pregnant couple because they wanted special fotos of that moment in time; visiting and talking to an elderly lady who feels so alone; listening to elderly and enjoy the wisdom they have for the taking and in the process let the light shine brightly in their eyes; talking to children in an adult fashion because I remember how it felt when I was little and people talked to me like I was a child and couldn’t understand what was going on; trying to unite the little left fractions in the hope that they all can see that we want the same thing -a better society- and have the same goal; working in the same line of thought on my phoenix project in the hope of starting -in four year time- different charity projects in different cities, …
I think I would love it to touch this world in some way and make it better… ok ‘better’ is an arbitrary concept, but still 😉 That is why I truly loved this competition, because it let people think off kind acts and let them do it;)
I wud go with the the race for life 🙂
The race for life person should win unless you have proof of the cake being homemade and not bought…I too saw the show, in Plymouth, loved it, havent been able to get the chorus of a certain song out of my head since though!x
Ahh that was no spirit!! that was just mee! 😀 haha
And I think the dude that is doing a run should win. It requires more effort Not that theres anything wrong with the cakey 🙂
Jesus is trying to make Derren repent for his sin of drinking a sugary beverage.
i’ll send you £15 for your wifi if it will make you happy. xxx
To be honest I think the person who baked the cake should bake a cake for everyone that votes for the cake story.
If anyone hasn’t seen the ENIGMA tour, go now, I saw it in Reading. It was the the best choice I ever made
p.s. about my first point, if this becomes the case I vote cake.
I think the weird mystical face is the ghost of the Acid Man from the mid nineties, I wondered where he had gone, I didn’t for a minute suspect Northampton. Wow, just goes to show, eh.
It’s not kindness, but this individual deserves some recognition
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AoCt3NHGwM8BxD2H1669H3_ty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090305151758AA7dWwd
Fifteen pounds to use wifi???? Somebody should buy Derren a 3G dongle!
— He has one! it sucks!!! PD.
BTW…the parrot site http://flap-derren.webs.com/ is lovely!
Derren, what no mention of the Plymouth shows? And after we’d arranged that fab weather for your visit too. I knew I should have leapt up and given you that huge hug for being a great ambassador for atheists everywhere when you happened to stand next to me during the show – that would have been a memorable if slightly embarassing thing to have reminded you of Plymouth.
As for the show itself, there is just one word for it: MARVELLOUS.
Marvellous, marvellous, marvellous, marvellous, marvellous!
Wasn’t able to hang around after the show to say hello, due to long drive home and waiting babysitter, so the big hug will be kept in storage until the right moment arrives sometime in the future.
I vote for the race for life person although cakes for grandma are always a lovely idea.
I think the Pepsi spirit should win… giving you a big happy smile expecting nothing in return… true kindness. 🙂
Two things in response to these seperate issues Sir Brown…
1) Have both entrants proven they did these acts of kindness? Hundreds of thousands of women take part in Race for Life (even I made it round one year), she should have run with the days newspaper and posed for a red-faced sweaty pic at the finish line with it held aloft.
The cake could have been baked by someone else. The photo confirms nothing. How do we know the Grandmother got to eat said cake before it was devoured by others? Could something be hiding within the cake – such as poison or an explosive device – making it a rather evil sponge and not at all kind? There are just countless unknown possibilities that make this competition difficult to judge. If a car was to be given away I would insist upon greater evidence, including birth certificates. However, to be fair, you are only giving away some ‘rubbish souvenirs from Alton Towers’, no doubt to make space for your new collection of weird-shaped potatoes (or something like that). In my humble opinion I’d split the prizes fairly or do a lovely thing in return and increase the bounty they receive 😀
2) Forget the watermark…is it me or is that an incredibly large fork to the side of it??? £15 to connect to the net ain’t so bad if you got to see a GIANT FORK! Awesome!!!
Lovin this new blog of yours Derren. Keep us feelin involved. It rocks even more than incredibly large cutlery ; )
Cake wins everytimes – when have you ever been able to eat a race? When was the last time you sat around the table with good friends or family and shared some laughter over a slice of race? Never! Cake to win!
The cake!
My grandmother was my very favourite person in the world, so I’m definitely biased. It saddens me to see the disrespectful way our elders are treated in the West, therefore, anyone who spontaneously does something as sweet as this for an elderly relative has my vote!
LOVED the ghost picture. Was this a ‘spirit’ photo because the circlular outline was left by a glass – presumably containing brandy, rum, whisky etc? 😀 x
I dono, the universe bungs a smiley face at you AND STILL YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE.
I think the cake should win. However, this may be because I started a diet today and have spent the last seven hours hallucinating toast and honey in a sort of miserable ecstasy of longing.
R.x
Just a thank you really for the first night show in Plymouth. Myself and “she who must be obeyed” to use that wonderful Rumpole quote thoroughly enjoyed the show and, as usual, were dumbfounded. Hope DB tours again next year in Cardiff/Swansea so we don’t have to travel sooo far!
Bought the portrait book which is splendid. Derren kindly signed the book explaining that it is Neitchse not Darwin – very good. I hadn’t noticed. However, I did have to apologise after Mr B said “oh, you bought this” and I replied, “yes, and it cost a fortune”. Got a giggle from him and some in the crown waiting patiently for signatures.
Thanks again, Mr B. Great show.
Shawn
Derren… can you not use your mind control techniques to make them give you the password for free wifi? Or is that unethical?
I think you should keep your keyring as making us all smile with your ghostly imagine is the most altruistic act of all. The others are about as nice as me giving my Sainsbury vouchers to random kids when I am not collecting them anyway – hardly selfless but funny just the same!! I vote pretty cake!
Plymouth was fabulous – thank you xx
i think the cake should win cuz its just so random plus the lady said she would run for any reson. and im not a closed-minded Western atheist sciencey-type i do think it looks like that smiley face tee shit thing thats been shot in the forehead.
I’ve done five kind unphotographable things in Derren’s name since his post.
Whatchagonnado?
Proof is a bitch.