A LITTLE UNDER a year ago, something very strange happened in London. The American illusionist David Blaine arranged to have himself suspended above the Thames in a perspex box, dangling from a crane by Tower Bridge. And there he sat, not doing anything at all - especially not eating - for forty days. 'Above the Below', he called the stunt, tautologically.

The spectacle itself was not the very strange bit. You expect David Blaine to do things like that. The very strange bit was that simply by sitting up there in his box, starving himself quietly to death, Blaine caused London to go completely mad. Eggs and onions and golf balls