I like him, but not a lot
I see that one of the hottest topics of the last two weeks was has-been magician Paul Daniels mouthing off about the state of the town. A barren fortnight, then, but at least we have had some semi-drama to think about on the blogosphere.
To be honest I thought Paul Daniels had made himself vanish off to some tropical island with his bird, never to be seen again. Maybe that was just wishful thinking.
Opinions on the man aside, he does have a point when he says the town is dirty and scruffy. Whether he is basing that on an actual visit to the town or heresay is unknown, but given that the Blackpool Magicians’ Club has not invited him to the 2012 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques (FISM) convention in Blackpool, doesn’t invite him to it’s own yearly conventions and describe him as a C-list celebrity, I think it’s fair to say Mr Daniels was always going to come out in opposition to the venue in some way at some point.
Furthermore Daniels is known to actively boycott all magic conventions in the UK anyway and does have a history of slagging off anything that competes with his own interests.
As I say, I agree with Daniels that Blackpool is, frankly, a bit of a dump. But Daniels goes on to compare the town with venues such as Paris, Stockholm and Beijing and that is his sole basis for argument. How is that a remotely fair comparison? It’s pretty obvious that those places will be more culturally advanced and have exponentially higher resources than Blackpool: they are capital cities. Consequently you have to say it’s a bit of a coup for Blackpool to get this event, and I’m pleased to hear that it will be visiting in a couple of years.
Again Daniels strikes back when he mentions that people don’t feel safe in Blackpool. But when you think that he’s (allegedly) shagged over 300 birds in his lifetime there’s a good chance a few of them experienced his magic wand in Blackpool. What was that about being safe?
If it’s drunks or violence he’s complaining about – yes, he has a good point. But how would he even know? His visits wont have exposed him to that. Unless his show was that bad. But seriously, as you will know I’ve just been to Spain and the policing there is a world apart from the UK in general, never mind Blackpool.
It’s nothing new. We know what problems the town has and it’s not helpful for public figures to repeat them in the media. But Paul Daniels is a relative unknown to many now and I’d argue with Maxine Callow when she complains that his words were “incredibly damaging”.
In fact I would dig into the Philtheone Pantheon of Made Up Facts and go so far as to say that Paul Daniels has declined more in the last decade than Blackpool. Now that’s tragic.
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What a repulsive product of anal rape between a cretin and a autistic spastic he is.
Definitely from the shallow end of the gene pool.
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Well said John Horrox, I think he is just throwing a paddy because his crappy tickets didn’t sell. He’s just a bitter old man whose career died years ago. Its funny though how washed up has beens like him go around slagging off towns like Blackpool and seaside towns when end of pier pavilions are about as good as they can get booked these days.
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It always baffles me why the likes of Daniels carry on. I mean, he must have endless millions in the bank by now from when he was popular.
Why must he inflict himself on us now?!
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Exactly, who wants to see his rough, tasteless, bawdy and scruffy performances? Do us a favour Paul and retire and take Jim Davidson with you. Neither will be missed.
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They are a disgrace to their professions; they should join the labour party.
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is he an ideal candidate for euthanasia?
I would say so.
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Paul Daniels doesn’t have millions in the bank – his wife Debbie McGee (and for some inexplicable reason no longer called “lovely”) blew it on a ballet company she set up and he had to go on tour to stop them going bankrupt.
I think though that he does have a genuine point. Whilst Blackpool’s certainly getting better – it’s not up to its hey-day high points by a long way.
If I were leading the council I think I would have capitalised on this debacle though – bring the man up to Blackpool, make a suitable deferential fuss and get him to publically state what great improvements Blackpool has had – good publicity all round. Slagging Daniels off only makes matters worse.
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Daniels has a point, absolutely, but just because he prefers to – and can afford to – jolly it in Paris doesn’t give him a right to slag off Blackpool.
Callow fanned the flames by making her comments, I’d have just ignored him because I don’t believe Paul Daniels is relevant to a modern forward thinking town project.
Not that I am going to sing from the balcony about how great the Council is, of course, because I don’t believe their project for Blackpool has any cohesion and seems on the face of it pretty random.
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[...] to wasting resources on Twitter whilst aging illusionist Paul Daniels decided to mouth off about how bad he thinks Blackpool is because he got banned from all magic events in the [...]