My best mate is coming to town.

Very excited today as my mate of over 20 years, Dain Cordean is coming over. I haven't seen him in such a long time that I'm like a kid on Christmas eve night. We always have such a laugh together but due to our busy lives and the different commitments we both have it's difficult to get things going sometimes. Dain is a brilliant magician so I took the image below, from the google homepage as a good omen for tonight.

Google's homepage image today.

The story behind why Houdini is on the homepage today is the news that Harry's last surviving stage assistant has sadly died. Her name was Dorothy Young and she lived to the ripe old age of 103. The statement came earlier this morning, on the day that would have been Houdini's 137th birthday. 

She was known as the Radio Girl and would emerge from a large mock-up of a radio and perform a dance routine. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369471/Harry-Houdinis-assistant-Dorothy-Young-dies-103.html#ixzz1HWZdpJ8w

Dorothy Young as 'Radio Girl' emerging from a radio prop with Harry Houdini

From one great magician to another. I was looking for some photo's to show you of Dain and I found a brilliant one. I had never seen this shot of a very young Dain before. The caption that went along with it was "Dain's first stage appearance" I will definitely ask him about this when he gets here later. It's funny, because in order to get my first bit of stage time, as a childrens magician at Magic City in Clacton-on-sea, I had to sell ice creams outside he gig before I did the show.

It was around the time that I worked at the children's fun emporium Magic City that I met Dain. Back then we were both magicians and I had just joined the Ipswich Magical Society. It was one of the first nights I was there and Dain was performing. He produced cards from nowhere and made a cane dance around. He was awesome that night as he still is. Play the clip below and you'll see what I mean. The bit with the linking rings at 2 minutes and 45 seconds is just incredible.

Dain and I hung out at the magical society and would enter competitions together such as the Hickson Cup, which he would always win. I was never as good a magician as him which he loves to remind me of, although I still do the old sleight of hand, so maybe I'll be able to show him something new, maybe not. We both did magic shows for kids at Magic City and lived in each others pockets during that time, we were never seen apart. Check out this shot on the left, weren't we slim and handsome back then. Eventually our lives went in different directions, but we kept in touch.

So there's only two hours now until the big arrival and I have to get things ready. Huh, get things ready!!! Perhaps I should have just said "I have to go and get some booze from the offey." Anyway, watch out later today for tweets and audioboo's of my night catching up with my best mate.