by Derren Brown
Identifying the floor-mat can be confusing: the small rectangle of towelling may be distinguishable from the actual towels only by virtue of having a wider pattern of stitching along its short edges, meaning that on occasion I have found myself standing on a hand-towel while drying my face with what I suddenly realise is most likely meant for the floor. This initial distaste is quickly followed by the question of whether it should make any difference at all, or whether there is a disparity in the manufacturing (or washing) process that makes the designated face-towels somehow better for or softer on the skin. When this happens, I generally arrive at the conclusion that they are all indeed the same, but pull a fresh face-towel from the heated rail just in case, throwing the suspected floor-mat on to the floor alongside the potential face-towel upon which I am standing.
At this point I remember that ‘on the floor’ means ‘please replace’ as far as the housekeeping staff are concerned, and that the instruction coded by two towels cast on the floor in this manner might signify that I do not share the serious commitment to the environment held by the hotel and outlined on a small folded card next to the miniature plastic bottle of hair conditioner. This stirs a tiny bubble of worry in me, but leaves me unsure as to which one I could replace on the rail (‘will use again’) to leave a better impression of myself: the sodden, trodden face-towel (which may not dry without the aid of the rail and does need replacing) or the barely wet floor-mat which I have used for my face (but which definitely belongs on the floor). I think a little about whether or not the members of the housekeeping staff even bother to form an opinion of guests from such clues, and eventually leave both on the floor along with my pants.
* Now, sadly, no longer stocked. For many months the ubiquitous high-street chemist sold two very similar types of earplug, identically packaged and both accurately described by two of the adjectives I have used: ‘cylindrical’ and ‘beige’. However, there was an important difference: one type (which I preferred) was made of denser foam than the other, and was therefore far more effective. To buy the correct pair, it was necessary to undo each packet, then remove and feel its contents. As I tend to buy five or so packets at a time, this necessitated a regular in-store exploratory process which I knew must have appeared to other shoppers as if I was in some way mentally ill. I crouched each time in the aisle with ten or so packets undone before me (or lined up on the boxes of own-brand plasters and surgical support stockings), gently squeezing each set of foamy sound-bungs with proctological diligence. As I became better known to the general public through my television work, this was an increasingly self-conscious procedure. Sometimes as I squatted, performing this task in a scruffy coat, surrounded by my shopping bags and glancing shoppers, I wondered what really separates the mentally peculiar from the merely particular.
* I like to think that the marketing world will soon undergo a major paradigm shift. Future ideas-people will have no interest in the traditions of technique-obsessed, small-minded marketing as it stands, rooted as it is in another age. Perhaps there will be a move away from the them-and-us model of clever marketing folk v. us dumb, programmable consumer-robots to something more free-flowing, as we accept rather than try to ignore the deep irrationality and unpredictability of our decision-making processes.
This thought, or perhaps the pleasant alternative it points to, reminds me of those science-fiction films that show Earth (by ‘Earth’ read ‘America’) according to some futuristic vision. One recurring device in such movies is the frightening intrusion of advertising: virtual sales people and individually targeted ads appear in hologram form when our hero walks by, painting a nightmare picture of a destiny where the annoying sales promotions and pop-ups we now suffer have been ruthlessly developed with new technology into an insidious and perpetually inescapable fact of future existence. This device works well for us now: it is effective and sinister, which is what the director intends. But the most fascinating aspect of these celluloid visions is how effectively they describe only the era in which they were made. We enjoy the mistakes made in eighties films set in some distant future yet-to-be; we recognise the amusing eighties logic that, for example, cassette tapes would get smaller and smaller in the future (rather than being abandoned altogether), or giggle at the fact that for all the production values and extraordinary set designs of a seventies sci-fi movie set in some century yet to come, we are still looking at scenes populated by actors with seventies hairstyles and make-up. Unable to genuinely see the future, these films unwittingly distil the present-day into essentials that are so rooted in the here and now that writer, director, set- and costume-designers, a part of this era too, may be largely blind to them. (This would be in contrast to the conscious decisions of these writers and directors to purposefully bind the film to their own age by allowing the threats and themes of their screenplays and movies to echo the worries of the time in which they are made: communism, the dawning computer-age, the new millennium, or terrorism, for example.)
For that reason, classic images of UFOs can never really convince: the gleaming, chrome, round-edged flying saucers we see in grainy photographs are clearly objects from the fifties Earth that first spawned them, far more at home on top of a period American refrigerator or the hood of a Chevy than in the space-fleets of a distant star. I once came across a book showing charming Edwardian illustrations of London as imagined several hundred years in the future. In them, the sky was thick with flying automobiles powered by flapping wings; all surfaces resembled a nautical Jules Vernean riot of copper and brass pipes, portholes and rivets; the streets (again!) were dense with advertisements that may have switched Pears Soap for the fancied consumer items of this envisioned future, but which still employed the familiar sentimental designs we associate with the earlier era. Ladies in gloves and parachute dresses stepped out of flying cars helped by decidedly Edwardian gentlemen, and the entire effect was one of the distilled, true essence of Edwardiana rather than anything that reflected the (now realised) future.
Cassettes did not get smaller and smaller and the skies will not be filled with flying vehicles according to the vision of that illustrator, or Jean-Luc Godard, or Fritz Lang, because presumably we’ll have less need to leave our homes to go about our daily business. Perhaps our grandchildren will smile at the rapacious advertising techniques commonly offered as a fact of future life in our current films and see them as a product of the weariness and paranoia they engendered among us now, and we can look forward meanwhile to a new model of marketing overturning the old. Perhaps. I don’t hold my breath, but standing in Robert Dyas listening to an exhausting, pleading pitch for a hand-held spider-trapper, I’d like to be right.
The second thought that crossed my mind during the reveal of the three cards occurred as I displayed the final card just apparently removed from my inside pocket. I held the card in my left hand, and as I displayed it I flicked its right edge with my middle finger. It occurred to me, as Joel and Charlotte applauded and Benedict’s alienation from the group became more apparent, that I always flicked the card like that at this point, and that the action really served no worthwhile purpose that I could think of. It was a pointless affectation: neither a pretty flourish nor enough of a worthwhile punctuation point to emphasise anything in particular. It had settled into place through muscle-memory, and had remained unconsidered; equally I think I did it only because at some point I had decided that that’s what magicians did.
I enjoy noticing similar habitual tics in my behaviour that seem automatically triggered by certain situations. After noticing for the first time my card-flicking habit, an image of myself as a habitual creature flitted across my mind, and the ghost of several other private customs were felt in that instant:
Teeth-cleaning songs
I regularly enjoy loudly humming or aah-ing a tune while brushing my teeth, allowing the warbling acoustic effects created by the toothbrush to mingle amusingly with the violent coloratura I incorporate to assist the melody. The choice to continue with the
tune despite the distortion, in fact to increase the volume and persevere more proudly while watching myself in the mirror, makes this twice-daily private chamber performance particularly pleasurable. At times I will even sing, which augments the enjoyment by involving the lips. These try in vain to form certain consonants: they struggle to meet, or to connect correctly with the teeth, as the stem of my Colgate Extra Clean is brandished and agitated between them. A favourite song reserved for this time is ‘The Impossible Dream’ from The Man of La Mancha (lyrics by Joel Darion, music by Mitch Leigh, foamy gurgling embellishments by Derren Brown).
Other personal songs
I have a small repertoire of privately conceived songs which emerge to add a splash of musical theatre magic to otherwise dull, workaday activities. They include:
(i) ‘Where’s My Glove?’ Upon not being able to find my gloves, I will normally wander through my apartment looking in all the appropriate places, singing the following words to the tune of ‘Where is Love?’ from Lionel Bart’s Oliver!: ‘Wheeeeere’s my glove? / Is it in the drawer above?’ At this point I routinely note that ‘drawer above’ is not a satisfying substitute for ‘sky above’, making in fact no sense at all, and I abandon the song with a sense of distaste.
(ii) ‘Clean My Teeth!’ Not to be confused with songs sung while the teeth are cleaned, this one surfaces during the preparatory act of squeezing toothpaste on to the toothbrush. No particular tune is identifiable, which is why it is best not sung during the act itself, when strong melody is all-important. It’s a simple ditty, more akin to a short rhyme, and in place of a discernible melody it is spoken/sung aloud with the enthusiastic tonality of a mother bouncing her baby on her knee and trying to engage and amuse the infant with the simple couplet ‘Clean my teeth! Make them clean! / The cleanest teeth I’ve ever seen!’ Occasionally it might continue: ‘Make them clean! Make them strong! / Clean my teeth the whole day long!’
Other songs for specific rooms
I find that, much later in the day, I might return to the bathroom for the normal health reasons, and catch myself humming the same teeth-cleaning refrain upon entering, even though I had not given a second thought to the tune all day. In fact, had I been asked what particular air I had warbled that morning while brushing, I would not have been able to supply a certain answer. Yet hours later, upon walking in, the tune returns, and I am humming it before I recognise that I am doing so. This phenomenon is not limited to the bathroom. I might head for the kitchen and immediately begin quietly singing a pop tune upon arrival, one that had been unknowingly stored exclusively for kitchen use that day, having been sung that morning during the preparation of breakfast. These trivial occurrences betray the machinations of the unconscious mind: much in the same way we might attach a tune to a room, we might also attach an emotion to a song when we hear it on the radio, and (as with the sight and smell of a gelatinous blob of pink soap lowering itself into a hand from a wall-mounted restaurant dispenser) propel ourselves back into melancholy, bliss, or the state of mind in which we found ourselves when we first heard it and unwittingly bound it to that sentiment.
The top step thing
I had decided, some time during my school years, always to miss out the final step of a flight when ascending: that is, to land upon the upper level having omitted to place either foot upon the step directly beneath.* I am unsure of the original motivation for this decision, other than the fact that I was a curious child who spent much time alone. I kept up this private game for many years, and if I ever forgot I had a self-imposed penalty to spice up the game: I had to, after placing my foot on the upper level, tread back one step before continuing. Both the game of omitting the final step and the back-step consequence of forgetting became minor obsessive actions. Although they did not have the dread attached to them that haunts the true obsessive-compulsive, I always made sure I observed the rule.
While a little spring over the last step would not always be noticed when climbing stairs in company, the alternative drop-back-one penalty was odd enough to raise questions. Therefore I developed sensible ways of hiding the ritual when with friends. If I had forgotten to skip the step and required myself to carry out the punishment, I might pretend to hear a noise behind me that would necessitate a casual step back before continuing. On other occasions I would appear suddenly to remember something that would stop me in my tracks at a moment of unsettled equilibrium and have me step back momentarily for balance. These tactics, over time, became tiresome, as did the game itself, so I would allow myself on these occasions merely to step back and forward mentally at the very top. This imagining of the stepping back-and-forth, in turn, became reduced to a ‘duddle-dum’ noise I would make in my head, which described the sound of the rapid one-two-three footfalls I imagined (top level, back to the step, then up again). To this day, as I climb stairs to my apartment on the frequent occasions when the lift is not functioning, I notice that I occasionally still skip a step at the top as I reach my floor, and whenever I do not, ‘duddle-dum’ quietly to myself as a form of punishment.
Swiping open lift doors
I recently noted that I have developed a private custom when standing alone in a hotel lift holding the plastic key-card for my room, or when I am in the lift of my apartment building and happen to have a credit card or business card in hand. It occurred to me that on such occasions I habitually swipe the long edge of the card down along the millimetre-or-so gap between the closed lift doors just before they open. This allows me to pretend that I have myself caused the throwing wide of the doors, and in turn that I had gained access to a glittering private penthouse suite,* by the use of the special key-card. I think that the pleasure I derive from this action lies not so much in play-acting the part of the billionaire playboy, but rather the satisfaction of running a card edge along any narrow gap. Malmaison† hotel lifts, for example, have leather walls that appear at first glance to be simply stitched into squares, but on closer inspection it is revealed that the many stitched panels are combined into a few large separate pieces, placed alongside each other. The lines of stitching detract the eye from the narrow gaps between the pieces. To find such a gap is to discover a pleasantly tight slot through which to run the keycard. I let the panel edges guide the card along the wall while I enjoy the feel of the easy glide. It is the near effortlessness that makes this pleasant enough to do absent-mindedly every time I find myself alone in a lift that affords such a card-width slot – a similar satisfaction to that which blossoms gently inside whenever a nicely engineered drawer runs back and forth with a surprising smoothness, or when a writing surface proves to be especially well suited to the pen being used. (For those who do not know it, there is a particularly happy chirographic relationship between biros and banana-skins that is well worth exploring the next time the reader finds him- or herself with both to hand. Writing with the former upon the latter is in fact so rewarding that I would imagine, should an aeroplane carrying a cargo-load of ballpoints crash-land on a suitably inhabited jungle island, monkeys would soon develop the ability to write simple messages to one another.)*
Swivelling on glass pavement tiles
Because of the satisfaction yielded by actions that prove unexpectedly smooth due to the interaction of two well-suited surfaces (such as biros and banana-skins), I have also developed a habit of seeking out the small, thick, glass square tiles set into pavements which allow light from above to illuminate a basement below the street. They are normally placed alongside each other to form a large enough window area for their purpose, but for me, walking on this street, a second use arises, which the placing together of so many of these tiles makes very appealing. I like to place the ball of my foot upon the centre of a glass square, lift myself ever so slightly on to it and swivel as I walk forward. The collocation of these squares means that I can replicate the action and recall the same sequence of petty pleasures across a few steps: firstly, the enjoyment of the smooth glass beneath my turning leather sole; secondly, the tantalisi
ng risk of slipping and falling backwards on to the hard pavement; thirdly, the peculiar gratification afforded by the publicly spastic walk which arises from the series of violent, staccato semi-revolutions of each planted foot. It is worth noting that the swivel cannot be achieved unless the ball of the foot is planted centrally upon each tile; attempting the move while grating against the metal grid that holds the glass in place is to ensure failure. As the tiles are small, it is impossible to know whether that central point has been correctly engaged, which means that I do not know until I twist whether or not it will happen at all. This adds to the enjoyment of the process and introduces an element of challenge: can I achieve three excellent twists in a row?
The sniffing years
Most of my childhood was spent engaged in one or more habitual tics, prone as I was (and still am, only far less so) to obsessive behaviour. At its worst, I had a teenage period of sniffing loudly and violently for no reason other than that the thought of doing so would be impossible to resist once it had lodged in my mind. One of my more gut-wrenching memories is sitting in the auditorium of the Berliner Philharmonie as a late teen, listening to Alfred Brendel’s solo performance of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, the concentrated stillness punctuated by my snorting paroxysms. I remember my suffering German neighbour offering me tissues for what she must have suspected was not the commonest of colds, and then having much of the row to myself when I returned for the second half. Truly, deeply, anus-invertingly excruciating.
