Weekly News: BBC Five Live, Zamora, Son Of Dork

The Irish know how to treat a local hero. Bonfires were blazing all over Galway in honour of their new Irish lightweight boxing champion, Peter McDonagh, who lifted the title belt after an astonishing bout at the National Stadium in Dublin. As his motivational coach, I was one of the first into the ring to celebrate with him, and we were still celebrating when we arrived at the BBC’s Five Live studios a few days later.

Our host was Mark Saggers, but I sensed the presence of the veteran broadcaster Jimmy Young, who broadcast in his heyday to countless millions across the country from that same tiny studio. “This is where I launched my UK career,” I told Peter, “right here in this room. It’s an incredible synchronicity that we’re here together now.”

The JY show was a supercharged start to my fame. I don’t remember any bonfires lit in my honour, but I do know that Jimmy’s producer was blazing mad after I bent his doorkey. He was an avowed skeptic, scoffing as BBC canteen cutlery tied itself in knots in front of Jimmy’s eyes.

He obviously thought I was using sleight of hand on the thin-handled spoons, because he pulled a Yale key from his pocket and taunted me, “Bet you can’t bend this!”

Ten seconds later the key was lying in the palm of his hand, cocked at a right angle, and the producer was speechless. Try as he might, he couldn’t beat it flat. That evening, he was arrested for suspected burglary as he tried to clamber through a window into his apartment.
The police were skeptics too, and it took quite a while before they bought his defence: “Uri Geller bent my doorkey.”

Mark Saggers was careful. He kept his doorkey in his pocket, and steered the questions away from cutlery: he was more keen to know how I turned a boxer who had lost seven of his last eight fights into a national champion. “Peter did it, not me,” I insisted. “He was throwing the punches. I’m just the catalyst, the energy in a chemical reaction inside his brain that inspires and motivates him to fight like a winner. Everybody has got a winner in their mind. Everybody is unbeatable, with the right motivation.”

We met the brilliant maverick, Mel Stein, at the studios, to discuss Peter’s future. I believe this victory can be the first step on the road to a world title, if we can enlist the guidance of the best people in sport... and Mel’s certainly one of them. The world of boxing is full of dodgy characters, but Mel Stein is a man I trust implicitly. He really cares, and he gave us invaluable insights on building a fanbase and acquiring sponsorship.

Mel was in my mind when the tables were turned and I greeted a man who had flown all the way from Las Vegas especially to ask my advice. Zamora the Torture King is an extreme stuntman who swallows swords and neon tubes, breathes fire, eats broken lightbulbs and paddles in broken glass, smashes concrete blocks on his chest, stands on eggs, runs skewers through his muscles and bends red-hot metal with his bare hands.

“It’s got the scientists puzzled,” admitted Zamora, whose real name is Tim Cridland. “There’s a doctor at UCLA Pain Medicine Centre called
Joshua Prager who got it about right: he says I am able to change what I experience with the power of my mind. I process sensations
differently, through willpower.”

I’ve been telling people for decades that the mind is capable of miracles. Zamora is living proof. His ambition is to become
internationally famous, and I am certain he’ll achieve it. “Make people take notice of you,” I told him. “Think of the entire planet as your
audience, and unleash your most controversial, outrageous act.”

Zamora wants to take his fame to the next level, but a rock star I met in a Dublin hotel lobby the other night is trying to go in the opposite
direction. James Bourne is 22 and a veteran of the boy-band Busted, who topped the charts with a string of hits including Year 3000.
Now he’s touring with Son Of Dork, the band he formed to showcase his considerable talent as a songwriter. They might not be making platinum discs, but I believed James when he told me: “I really don’t care. I’m having fun!”

Throughout my career I have lived in fear that some brilliant amateur scientist would discover the simple secret behind spoonbending and
unmask me. Finally, my luck ran out this week when I received an email from someone called Simon, who accused me of using, “a small amount of chemical on your finger that chemically reacted with the metal of the spoon and caused it to bend. This would also help explain how the spoon kept bending.”
Simon went on to ask: “Have you ever done an experiment using sterile gloves or some other way of proving that your hands were chemically unaltered?”
Bang to rights. Caught red-handed. No arguing my way out of that one. I emailed back a full confession: “How did you know? I can now reveal to you that my fingers dropped off a long time ago from overusing the chemical. I now have to use prosthetic, artificial fingers.”