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What is all the more disturbing is that it appears to be a uniquely British
reaction. “I’m truly amazed by this abuse. David never gets this in the
States,” says his friend Ben, a London-based American who turns up regularly to give moral support from a deckchair beneath the box.

Blaine certainly endured none of this last year when he stood unharnessed on a tiny platform 90 ft above a New York park for 35 hours. The response of the American public ranged from admiration to indifference, but never downright nastiness.

“I’ve never seen this before,” admits Blaine’s girlfriend, model Manon von Gerkan, 30, who was so incensed by one egg-thrower last week that, when the guards caught up with the man, she urged them to hold him down while she reciprocated with an egg herself.

An estimated 30,000 people-a decent Premiership crowd – have already made the effort to see a lethargic man do nothing much in a box. Staff at Tower Bridge Underground Station have even erected a sign giving directions to “David Blaine” as well as to the Tower itself.

Of the crowds gathered beneath the crane, a handful could be described as devotees, waving banners and squawking the sort of “We love you!” inanities usually reserved for boy bands and Tim Henman.

Francois Greef, 44, a campaigner for the handicapped homeless, has taken to engaging Blaine in a game of chess using giant plastic pieces and hand signals to interpret the magicians moves (thus far, scores are even).

Most people just stand and gawp for a few minutes, waiting for a wave. And forget any attempts to credit this scene with some sort of artistic merit. In 24 hours at this spot, I hear only recurring topic of conversation-and it is lavatorial.

The greatest excitement occurs every few hours when Blaine wraps a sheet around himself and proceeds to relieve himself through a funnel connected, via a long plastic tube, to a small, to a small beehive contraption on the ground from where a bored looking woman in blue washing up gloves retrieves the results for medical analysis.

Talk then inevitably, turns to more complicated bodily functions but no one is likely to witness one of those. (For the record there have been two, both in the dead of night and dropped in bags, through a flap in the floor.)

The daytime abuse is light. One magazine has taunted him with a hamburger suspended beneath a model helicopter. A Sunday tabloid tried to tease him with a barbecue.

“How’s yer vitamins, David? Three million quid a day can’t be bad” yells an unsteady man in a tracksuit called Thomas who spends the day drinking cans of beer beneath a tree, emerging occasionally to tell everyone that Blaine is receiving secret vitamins and millions of pounds on a daily basis from the TV industry.

“Yeah I saw him with some chicken McNuggets,”vouches another semi-coherent conspiracy theorist. “He’s not really in there at all,” a third assures me.

“This place really is a nutter magnet,” sighs a weary photographer assigned to the Blaine circus from the outset.

A spokesman for satellite TV channel Sky One, which has a 24-hour link to Blaine’s box, ridicules any talk of millions and points out that his water supply is not only water, it is pure water (and thus devoid of the additives and minerals found in tap and bottled water.)

But sunlit scepticism is the least of Blaine’s problems. The mood darkens with the London sky. With night come the eggs — or worse.

It is 8.30 pm and Yuri Geller, erstwhile psychic spoon-bender, has arrived with friends, as he does most nights, to lend support to his starving chum and voice his contempt for the attackers. “I am very upset by all this hostility,” he says. “David is strong and he will learn to endure it, but what really shocked me was a guy shining a high powered laser beam into David’s eyes. If that hit is retina, he would be blinded.”

Geller’s party includes Lord Janner, the former Labour MP and himself a
member of the Magic Circle. What does he think of Blaine’s tormentors? “They should be as ashamed of themselves as we should be of them,” he replies.

Suddenly Lynn Staff, 41, from Great Yarmouth, manages to slip through the outer security fence and is heading for the inner fence around the crane-minus her jeans.

Her pants are descending as the guards catch up and start heaving her back to the protective arms of her husband, Mark, who accuses them of stealing her jeans.

As I try to talk to the semi-clad mother-of-two, another bunch of oddballs intervene. “I’m her agent and any talk comes through me,” screams a self-important young man who has appeared from nowhere.

Mrs Staff, who has never seen the man before, seems as baffled as I am. “Actually, I came here because my husband and I wanted to make love in front of David Blaine but my husband chickened out, so I just went it alone,” Mrs Staff explains.

Blimey. This place grows weirder by the minute.

As I turn to leave, another man scrambles over the outer fence, straight into the arms of more guards.

They bundle him out of sight to a car park at the rear from where I hear screams until a flashing blue light heralds the arrival of the police.

Through it all, Blaine snoozes on. He may be a symbol of shameless
exhibitionism, but so, too, is his barmy British audience

Translation
Part 1
yobbery=behaviour of hooligans

heavies = security

scarper = run away as fast as you can

red, Y-reg hatchback= for about 40 years you could tell how old an auto was by looking at the plate. If it ended in A it had been manufactured in1963. With B the year was 1964. They left out a few so there is no Z or Q. When they ran out of letters they put the year letter at the start and began again. This sentence …red, Y-reg hatchback…is clever. It paints a quick picture of youths driving a old (but fast) car. People you might want to avoid at night if your streetwise as I am, or try to be!

Part 2
Deckchair=originally light framed folding seats fitted with canvas. Used on the decks of passenger ships. Design has hardly changed.

Premiership crowd=A football (Americans call it “soccer”) crowd. Premiership is one of the leagues.

Tim Henman=Top British tennis player with lots of fans

Underground Station=A station on London’s underground railway. It is called “The Tube”.

chicken McNuggets=Fried up junk food

nutter magnet=Nutters are people who behave oddly. Their brains may have gone through drugs or, sadly, they may have been born like that. Clearly some are dangerous and to be avoided. Nutter magnet is where the nutters are gathering.

Labour MP=The Labour Party is not the Democrats but that is the party that it most closely resembles in the US. Tony Blair is Head of the Labour Party (and Prime Minister of the UK).

Magic Circle=A London magic club.

Great Yarmouth= a coastal resort miles away from London. Not to be confused with Yarmouth which is a small fishing village on the Isle of Wight (where the famous pop concerts with The Doors and Hendrix took place and I was there!)

Blimey=Yes, unlike “Blooming” which I have heard said by third rate American actors pretending to be English, this word is said. But not that often so if you have aspirations to play the part of an Englishman don’t overuse it. Oh, and toffs (the upper classes) don’t use it. It will be OK if you are playing the part of the butler but not Lord Melchet. It comes from “God blind me!”. So it is blasphemous but not many people realise that so it does not cause offence. You could say it in a family show.

flashing blue light=All emergency vehicles are fitted with these (I think
they are in the US as well!)