If You Build It They Will Come

I happened past David Blaine today. Whilst I didn't make the journey especially (I was a little more interested in the Thames Festival that was going on in the near vicinity), I was still somewhat curious to see exactly what was going on.

All told it was quite a strange spectacle and one far more popular than I'd anticipated (see the amazing man in a box!). Not only was the area around and under the box quite densely populated with tourist hoards, but the crowd had spread along Tower Bridge as well as people tried to get a better look. Also a small tourist industry seemed to have formed around the box with numerous ice cream vans and food vendors catering to the crowd, including at least one purveyor of spectacularly unpleasant smelling hot dogs (I pity Blaine for that, if nothing else).

Blaine himself, it has to be said, despite an occassional wave towards the crowd had the look of a man suffering from profound boredom.

As did some of the crowd themselves.

Still for the most part the audience was in fair fettle, with the occassional bout of spirited heckling serving to liven matters up a little. However, what seemed clear from overhearing a few conversations was that many of the milling throng didn't seem to understand why they were there. They'd heard there was a man in a box and they'd come to see the man in the box and... now what? There was a general air of unfulfilled expectancy, but even that didn't stop several people from saying that they'd come back next week (although I got the feeling this involved a touch of schadenfreude and that they were hoping to chart Blaines gradual disintegration).

I suppose whatever you think of Blaines stunt (I personally think it would have been far more interesting if he'd decided to starve himself for only 40 days, say during Easter) he still seems to be undeniably popular. Whether that lasts is another question altogether, since if he carries on as he has been, he's in serious danger of imploding in his own pretentiousness.