Is Derren's number up?

Amazed. Intrigued. Baffled. Disappointed. There's been a wide spectrum of reactions to the latest high-profile trick of Derren Brown, the celebrity illusionist.

On Wednesday, Derren (surely either a stage name or a typo on his birth certificate!) predicted all six main balls of the National Lottery and then last night presented an hour-long show that showed how he did it - and how we can too (yeah, right).

I tuned in to see 'the solution', and I found it interesting and watchable although a little tenuous and long-winded in places. I remain unconvinced by the method Brown used, which involved using 24 volunteers (who became very friendly through bonding exercises) coming up with random numbers and then finding the average to get the numbers.

The whole thing was a wind-up and cleverly marketed - a bit of harmless fun (except for the loose handwriting techniques to draw numbers, which was dodgy and weird). It leaves us still trying to work out how he did... or if he really did.

Illusionists are all about trying to tap into the way people naturally perceive events, and play on doing cleverly doing something while our eyes are fixed somewhere else - slight of hand.

Maybe Derren Brown somehow messed around with his balls while the watching public looked elsewhere. I do hope we've not been duped by computer technology.

Whatever the real outcome, it's certainly got people thinking and talking about maths, probability - oh, the greedy cry of 'How can I win the lottery too?!'

(Photo credit: Dominic Campbell)