BBC Scandal #2080: Uri Geller

[jobotic]

The main issue wuth bending them by hand is their diameter to length ratio, and lack of leverage...although...combined with their length and cross sectional area of the neck it  makes them very easy to bend by hand.

Another drink? I have a room at this hotel you know.

[Replies From View]

I think the Matrix mentions him in passing

[machotrouts]

I accidentally bent one of my spoons and now I've got a stupid wonky spoon I try to avoid using unless it's the only clean spoon. Little insight into living la vida machotrouts there

[David Pielingtonburygrot]

Yes, but we're not talking about bending them by hand, are we? This is all about bending them with the mind.

Hold on, Uri Geller bends spoons with his mind??? That's insane!

[monkfromhavana]

When Geller goes out to dinner, I bet he gets jokingly told "don't bend the cutlery" nearly every time. Do you think he has a laugh, takes umbrage or ignores?

[Pavlov`s Dog`s Dad`s Dead]

Fun fact: uri geller used his psyker powers when serving in the IDF paratroopers to help Israel win the six days war

You mock, but I used to work with a guy who swore Derren Brown helped him to really improve his marksmanship.

[Blumf]

What about Uri's lesser known sister, Helen, who could bend your ear off with her incessant talking about things she's seen.

[RetroRobot]

It will always be funny to me that given how mad he got about Kadabra in Pokemon, Kadabra will be much more fondly remembered.

[Replies From View]

It will always be funny to me that given how mad he got about Kadabra in Pokemon, Kadabra will be much more fondly remembered.

As in Abra Kadabra?  Genuine question - I know nothing about pokemon.

[Ferris]

As in Abra Kadabra?  Genuine question - I know nothing about pokemon.

Abra evolves into Kadabra evolves into Alakazam. They're psychic type Pokémon and one of them holds a pair of spoons for no real reason. Just have spoons mate.

I think Geller's point was that Joe public associates psychic powers with spoons because of his good work over the years, and Nintendo is using the spoons shit to remind the public that this is a psychic Pokémon, yeah?

Unfortunately he doesn't own the copyright for the concept of spoons so that was the end of that. If Kadabra bent the spoons while also befriending Michael Jackson or got all stroppy on the Johnny Carson show, them he'd have a better claim to the character infringing on his image rights.

[A Hat Like That]

remember when he made Scotland miss that penalty though

That ball totally moved.

Anyway, 1994-95 season, yer man Geller is knocking around Reading FC. He does a half-time psychic trick.



Here he is with Johnny M. In the envelope is a coloured card. All the fans in the home seats have been given 3 cards. Uri is going to project the colour right into their brains.



it's red!

RFC fans:



If I am to be mildly generous, he was trying a Derren Brown-style priming trick before its time. At the time, I lolled and ate my sausage roll.

Reading won 1-0 to a belter of an own goal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbmCnFElD2c

[wrec]

Seems I was wrong about Brexit. He was against it and pledged to stop it with the power of his mind and a spoon.

Ironic that one of the most prominent Brexiteers was the guy who owns Wetherspoons, whereas the most famous Remainer was somebody who quite literally withers spoons!

[Famous Mortimer]

Randi brought his own spoons and said bend those ones smart guy. Geller ummed and ahhed and tried to bullshit his way out of it but anyone with half a brain knew he was full of shit. Luckily for Geller millions more were thick as two short planks and still thought he was psychic.

Being caught out on American national television in front of millions seemed to have no negative effect on his career whatsoever.

I went to see Randi when he came to London about...bloody hell, 15 years or so ago?...and he told a story about him exposing psychic surgery on the Tonight Show, and the vast majority of calls NBC received were from people who wondered where they could get some psychic surgery.

[Spudgun]

Hold on, Uri Geller bends spoons with his mind??? That's insane!

To be fair, The Amazing Johnathan had similar powers:

https://youtu.be/guLiepreJxw?t=10

[Johnny Yesno]

Abra evolves into Kadabra evolves into Alakazam. They're psychic type Pokémon and one of them holds a pair of spoons for no real reason. Just have spoons mate.

I think Geller's point was that Joe public associates psychic powers with spoons because of his good work over the years, and Nintendo is using the spoons shit to remind the public that this is a psychic Pokémon, yeah?

Unfortunately he doesn't own the copyright for the concept of spoons so that was the end of that. If Kadabra bent the spoons while also befriending Michael Jackson or got all stroppy on the Johnny Carson show, them he'd have a better claim to the character infringing on his image rights.

It was also called Un-Geller in Japan.

[beanheadmcginty]

When you think about it, it's absolutely fucking mental that this man became a household name and really quite rich just by doing an incredibly simple trick involving spoons. It's like my uncle becoming world famous for pulling 50ps out from behind people's ears.

[jobotic]

Your uncle can do that?!!

[Ferris]

I watched An Honest Liar, a documentary about James Randi today. It's not amazing or anything, but there's a section on Geller that's worth seeing.

His methods are remarkably simple (for example, "sensing" which film cannister contains a large steel ball bearing without touching them by waiting for someone to move the tray for him (or doing it himself) and just seeing which cannister moves differently from the others.

Randi had the prop guy put pads of epoxy resin on the base of them all so they didn't move when you shifted the tray and that was that. Another chancer who turned pages of a book "with his mind" was in the shit when Randi put feathers on the table around the book because he was surreptitiously blowing the pages to turn them. And so on.

[Joe Oakes]

After extensive investigative journalism on my part (well, by BBC standards, anyhow), I can reveal the BBC insider who is in a shady business relationship with Uri Geller. It's the BBC Middle East editor - Raffi Berg.

https://twitter.com/raffiberg?lang=en

I wonder how many years it will take for the BBC to be forced to say through lawyers "we're as shocked as anybody, we just assumed Raffi was an eccentric"?

I would reveal my sources but I don't have any.

[robhug]

Uri, Blaino and Jacko turned up to watch a match at Exeter City about 20 years ago. I also heard on a podcast that Uri used very aggressive sales patter to try and get a discount from B&Q, which was over the course of a few weeks and he got seriously pissed off when he didn't get it.

Apart from that, I'm apathetic about the bender.

[Replies From View]

That ball totally moved.

Anyway, 1994-95 season, yer man Geller is knocking around Reading FC. He does a half-time psychic trick.



Here he is with Johnny M. In the envelope is a coloured card. All the fans in the home seats have been given 3 cards. Uri is going to project the colour right into their brains.



it's red!

RFC fans:



If I am to be mildly generous, he was trying a Derren Brown-style priming trick before its time. At the time, I lolled and ate my sausage roll.

Reading won 1-0 to a belter of an own goal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbmCnFElD2c

His mistake there was standing within the biggest amount of green ever witnessed using human eyes.

[RetroRobot]

It's alright folks he's given Mr John Nintendo permission to print Kadabra cards again. Fun fact there hasn't been a Kadabra card since the late 90s and modern ones have had to make new mechanics specifically to let Abra jump straight into Alakazam.

[poodlefaker]

Westwood is another example that cannot be explained away by ignorance. They fucking knew. Everybody fucking knew. He was openly sexually inappropriate with underage girls at his numerous events. Events he was allowed to extensively promote on the BBC when he should have been playing records, flaunting advertising rules.

When he did actually play records they were almost exclusively from record companies who paid him to promote them. There was a long period where he would almost exclusively play Def Jam releases, or from one their subsidiaries such as Rockafella. A few years later Def Jam starting selling Westwood compilation albums which made millions for both Westwood and Def Jam. It's a fair assumption that someone at the BBC also got paid a nice cut to allow this to happen in plain sight.

I think Gilles Peterson's 6Music show is the best thing on the station but it does take me back a bit how often he uses it to promote artists on his own label.