The Unbearable Strangeness Of Edmonds

[lemonpie3]

Poll voting

I have to admit I do both. Sometimes I read the thread, then make up my mind and vote, especially if it's not someting I know much about. And sometimes I vote, and then read the thread to see what other people thought, and maybe change my mind in the process.

Just wondered what everyone else did. Which is more appropriate? What does the pollster want to know?? Suppose I change my mind??? Just what is the deal with Deal Or No Deal?????

 

[Timble2]

Cześć. Jak się masz?

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Re: Poll voting

Just what is the deal with Deal Or No Deal?????

It's all about quantum physics.

 

[Anome]

I find it strangely captivating.

There is nothing to it, no real skill, pure chance, and yet I find it fascinating to watch.

As for polls, I always read them first. It doesn't mean I understand them, mind you.

 

[Yithian]

Re: Poll voting

Just what is the deal with Deal Or No Deal?????

It's all about quantum physics.

Genius response! I wonder if the contestants realise they're collapsing the wave function by opening the box?

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Re: Poll voting

Just what is the deal with Deal Or No Deal?????

It's all about quantum physics.

Genius response! I wonder if the contestants realise they're collapsing the wave function by opening the box?

I doubt it (as this could interfere with the precarious balance of the show - if they thought too much about it they'd just scream "This is all cobblers!!!") but Noel is certainly working on his Nobel Prize for Physics. I can't claim this as an orignal idea though - here is a longer break down of how it works:

We've had gameshows based on card games. We've had gameshows based on pub quizzes. But never have we had a gameshow based on the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Until now.

I'm talking, of course, about Deal Or No Deal (Mon-Fri, 4.15pm, C4). In case you haven't seen it, I'll try to sum up the rules in a way that a) makes sense and b) isn't so boring you fall asleep halfway through and start dreaming up surreal, sexually-charged rules in which Noel shaves parts of his body at random while you shrink to the size of a bee and lick specks of milk off them.

So. The game starts with 22 contestants, each guarding a sealed, numbered suitcase. Each suitcase contains a sum between 1p and £200,000. One of the contestants is chosen to play: the object of the game is for them to open the other suitcases in whichever order they choose, continually evaluating the likely value of their own suitcase as they go. So, if I open box number five and it contains the 1p, I know my own box doesn't. It might contain the 200 grand. Every so often, Noel takes a phonecall from "the Banker", a shadowy offscreen figure who offers the contestant a sum of money to make them stop playing. So, if the banker offers me £3,000 to stop, but I reckon there's still a chance my box contains the jackpot, I'll reject his deal. Hence the title.

In other words, my suitcase contains the financial equivalent of Schrodinger's cat: a sum that exists in a theoretical superposition, being both substantial and meagre until I open and observe it, thereby assigning it a quantifiable value in the physical universe.

Obviously, this raises complex philosophical issues about the nature of reality, which is why Deal Or No Deal is hosted by Noel Edmonds. He's well into this shit. Did you know Noel's House Party was based on Hilary Whitehall Putnam's twin Earth theory of semantic externalism? Well it was. FACT.

Still, Noel's central task isn't to chinwag about collapsing wavefunctions or the viability of consistent histories. No. He's there to distract you from one glaringly obvious fact, which is that the game is actually a massively pointless exercise in utter bloody guesswork.

Because, hilariously, even though there's no applicable strategy whatsoever, Noel spends the entire show pretending there is. He continually says things such as "what's your gameplan?" and "what drew you to that box?" and "ah, I see where you're going with this - I like your style", as though it's a game of 3D space chess between Einstein and a Venusian supercomputer.

In other words, the game largely exists in Noel's head. In fact, he's the only person in the studio with any gameplan whatsoever, since he has to employ various cunning strategies to maintain the viewer's interest if the £200,000 prize is eliminated early on.

I say "cunning strategies". I mean "different facial expressions and/or tones of voice". Every afternoon, Noel's basically taking part in an improvisational drama workshop in which he plays the hysterical id of a man arbitrarily flipping a series of coins.

"Christ, I hope it comes up heads. If it doesn't come up heads we're in serious trouble. I do NOT want to see heads now. Not heads. Please God no ... IT'S TAILS! HOORAY! Well played! How skilful! OK, time to flip the next coin ..."

The weird thing is, it sort of works. Something about Noel's ceaseless interest in unpredictable events draws you in. Best of all are the moments when he lifts a telephone receiver to discuss proceedings with the Banker, who I suspect exists solely in his mind. In fact, he might as well do away with the prop phone, and instead simply roll his eyes up and have pretend conversations with God. While dressed as Peter Sutcliffe.

So there you go. It's all a figment of Noel's imagination. Maybe we all are. Maybe he's dreaming us now. And he's about to wake up and we'll cease to exist.

www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columnists/ ... 69,00.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

The Noel Edmonds story gets odder (and this thread might be worth moving to Fortean Culture):

Why all Noel's wishes come true

Zoe Williams
Tuesday April 4, 2006
The Guardian

It is true that the "squiggles" on Noel Edmonds's hands are mysterious; they look like the kind of thing a teenage girl might do to herself with a Biro because history was too boring. He does remind me, curiously, of a teenage girl; I can imagine him in a history lesson, bored. Those two facts are much more mysterious to me than his squiggles. Top marks, then, to the journalist who unearthed his new age belief in the Cosmic Ordering Service. I would have been much more likely to ask, "Have you been inhabited by the spirit of a teenage girl? Is that why your voice has also gone a bit quavery?"

The Cosmic Ordering Service was founded by Barbel Mohr. History does not yet relate where the squiggles come in - or maybe it does, but was too boring. So, imagine a mail-order company; picture its catalogue, if you will; remove the 600 pages of actual stuff; take away the models, with their glossy hair and the fathoms-deep sadness in their "I'm never going to make Vogue, am I, mum?" eyes; while you're subtracting all that from your mental image, now remove your hard-bitten cynicism and distrust of all humanity. What you should be left with is a "pure, childlike innocence", much of the sort that beams out of Noel. And now you can start making your cosmic wishes.

"You'll think I've gone away with the fairies," says he, "but it's fantastic. At 57, why shouldn't I give cosmic ordering a go? After all, it seems to work." And work it does: Noel has made six wishes, and so far four of them have come true. One of them will chime in all our hearts - in March last year, he wished he had a house in a sunny place. By September, he had bought a holiday home in the south of France. Similarly, at lunchtime today, I wished I had an item of tooth-achingly sweet confectionery. Within less than half an hour, I had a Snickers. Wish two (Edmonds, this is): he wanted a new challenge after the break-up of his 18-year marriage. Within months, Channel 4 had offered him Deal or No Deal. "I think that's spooky," he told reporters. I can better that, I think: recently, I too wished for a new challenge; within weeks, my washing machine had broken and it still has washing in it. It's quite a challenge now just to get out of bed, I tell you.

Cynics, as ever, will want him to be more precise before they believe all this. "Prove you wished for a new challenge with red and blue boxes of cash," they'll rudely demand. "Prove that at least one of the six wishes included 'Take some members of the public who are amazingly desperate for money, and watch their funny faces.' " You know what these imaginary cynics have done, don't you? They've failed to reach their childlike state of innocence. They need to go back to the imaginary mail-order catalogue, and start again ... erase the men in pants ... erase the home-facial machines ... pluck out the sarcasm ... I wish they would just be a lot purer, like me and Noel.

www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1746165,00.html

A late April Fools Day joke? Apparently not:

Need a lover or a house? Call on the cosmos

(Filed: 04/04/2006)

The Cosmic Ordering Service is a perfect creed for our age, says Tom Leonard - no commitment but unlimited benefits

If, over the next month, a once ubiquitous large pink and yellow-spotted TV character answering to the name of Blobby is declared a national cultural icon and BBC Television Centre disappears in a puff of smoke, don't worry. It's just Noel Edmonds getting his last two wishes.

The Cosmic Ordering Service, the latest New Age "faith" to win celebrity endorsement, has a straightforward appeal that will be familiar to anyone who has thrown a coin into a pool and paused for a few seconds of silent entreaty. It claims to grant your heart's desire.

In a nutshell - and there are lots of nuts involved in this product - you write what you want on a piece of paper and the cosmos does the rest. The former presenter of Noel's House Party has already made four wishes, he told Michael Parkinson at the weekend. They were a home in a sunny place which he wanted by October, a new challenge in his life and two that he won't identify (hmm, what do small, middle-aged men wish for?).

Let's ignore the fact that the house in the south of France hardly appeared as if by magic - Edmonds bought it. And that while his "new challenge" - the Channel 4 daytime game show Deal or no Deal - is an unexpected hit, it was surely only a matter of time before some broadcaster took the plunge and gave Edmonds another chance after his years in the TV wilderness.

What's important here is that Edmonds believes he got what he wanted within just six months of reading a best-selling (in Germany) book by Barbel Mohr about the power of positive thinking.

It's a perfect creed for the age - no commitment but unlimited benefits.

Mohr, 41, who lives near Munich with her twins (she wished for them), is a former journalist. She first outlined her thinking in articles in her magazine, Sonnenwind (Solar Wind), and they have since been made into books. Her best-known tome - the one that Edmonds was given by his reflexologist - is called Cosmic Ordering Service - A Guide to Realising Your Dreams. It has sold a million copies in Germany alone.

Mohr says she developed her theory after chatting with a friend who had been reading up on positive thinking.

"She suggested I imagine the perfect man with all the right qualities and just ask the universe to send him my way - to place an order for him with the universe," she says.

No, it wasn't Noel - that would have been too perfect - but it was the man who is now her husband, Manfred. She says she also asked for - and got - her dream job, money, health and a castle to live in.

So, not for Noel the mystical complexities of the Kabbala. Anyone familiar with, say, Waitrose's Ocado grocery delivery service will also grasp the basics of Cosmic Ordering. You just write down what you want, set a delivery date and wait for it to arrive. What's more, there's nothing to pay.

On her website, Mohr insists that the cosmos works like a mail-order company. As to whom exactly you place the order with, she says that "to some degree you order with yourself" because you influence the "reality of your expectations". How disappointing. But she adds that in connecting with the cosmos you also connect yourself with what some call the "united field theory". This theory assumes that "basically everything is one and that you are able to connect with the power of the entirety".

Anybody can order cosmically, she says, because we all order unconsciously anyway. What about ordering for somebody else? You can with Ocado. You can with the cosmos too. For while we all "produce our own reality", since we are all connected to one another, we automatically influence one another with what we are thinking of each other.

Fairy-tale wishers always have to be careful not to be too greedy, but Mohr says you can wish as many times - and for as much - as you want. But the more "loving purposes" an order receives, the quicker it will come true because it contains more light, or "fundamental element-energy". And don't be nasty. Mohr says that if you want to "wish your neighbours technical breakdowns in their home or anything else unkind", the Cosmic Ordering Service "won't want to know about it".

OK, but did the cosmos want to know about letting Noel Edmonds back on television, and how much "loving purpose" was there in that? Quick, give me a piece of paper.

Source

See also:

Ooo Aah Daily Star

Glasgow Record and again.

www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006150268,00.html

--------
Just checking and the book has been out for a while:

The Cosmic Ordering Service: A Guide to Realizing Your Dreams
Barbel Mohr (2001)

This is a guide aimed at helping the reader realize their dreams - just by placing an order with the universe. The author explains how she used the "cosmic ordering service" to gain her dream job, the ideal man, money, health - even a castle to live in! She intends here to show the reader how to listen to their inner voice, place their order, sit back and let marvellous things just happen.

From the Inside Flap
If you're holding this book in your hand, then you've already changed your life. Are you still waiting for your ship to come in? Looking for the relationship you can't seem to find? Working just to pay the bills until that perfect job comes along? Don't you wish that you could just place an order for the life that you want?

Well, you can! And you don't have to chant meditate, pray, fast, work, or do anything--just relax. And there won't be any bill to pay. Seems impossible? That's what the author said:

"If, after reading this book, you think that cosmic ordering is total nonsense, but you decide to place an order with the universe anyway just to prove me wrong, then you have subscribed to this ordering service just the way I first did. And you just might start as wonderful a journey towards an easier, more fulfilling life."

"The Cosmic Ordering Service" is a guide to realizing your dreams. Best-selling author Barbel Mohr can teach you how to fulfill all your wishes--just by placing an order with the universe. You'll learn how she has used the Cosmic Ordering Service to gain her dream job, the ideal man, money, health--even a castle to live in! Mohr will show you, as she has taught hundreds of thousands of European readers, how to listen to your inner voice, place your order, sit back, and let marvelous things happen.

The hard part is deciding what you really want. Once you've figured that out, this charming, witty, and insightful book is going to tell how to get it.

www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/15717 ... ntmagaz-21
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1571742 ... enantmc-20

Of course the Church of Satan have been advocating this for years but obviously wrapping it in fluffy New Agisms and avoiding those early morning wanks (probably) has made it more acceptable

 

[Yithian]

Re: Poll voting

Did you know Noel's House Party was based on Hilary Whitehall Putnam's twin Earth theory of semantic externalism? Well it was. FACT.

I've just re-read the Putnam article ['The meaning of "meaning"', in Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2: Mind, Language and Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1975)] and i don't see the connection.

Although Putnam does abreviate 'Twin Water to Twater' which is pretty funny and could be a reference to Noel's beard...

 

[stu neville]

The Noel Edmonds story gets odder (and this thread might be worth moving to Fortean Culture)...

Agreed!

It was only a matter of months ago that I would have bet £50 that Noel Edmonds wouldn't ever feature in a thread in Fortean Culture...

 

[GNC]

Maybe a good idea to change the thread title? The Unbearable Strangeness of Edmonds, perhaps?

 

[rynner2]

If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.
17th c. proverb

Be careful what you wish for - you may get it.
Chinese proverb.

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
I wish I were a maid again
But a maid again I ne'er can be
Till apples grow on an ivy tree
Traditional song

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Maybe a good idea to change the thread title? The Unbearable Strangeness of Edmonds, perhaps?

Done

 

[GNC]

Thanks! Now I'm waiting for that urban legend about the Edmonds killing a member of the public on live TV to re-emerge...

 

[rynner2]

Thanks! Now I'm waiting for that urban legend about the Edmonds killing a member of the public on live TV to re-emerge...

No legend.

But he didn't do it himself, you understand. It was done by proxy.

Very sad. A stunt that went wrong. I saw the show.

 

[Yithian]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/158299.stm
Link

[Emp edit: Fixing big link]

 

[GNC]

Thanks! Now I'm waiting for that urban legend about the Edmonds killing a member of the public on live TV to re-emerge...

No legend.

But he didn't do it himself, you understand. It was done by proxy.

Very sad. A stunt that went wrong. I saw the show.

No, you didn't see Michael Lush die, he was killed in rehearsals. It's an urban myth that it was on live TV, although there had been serious accidents broadcast on the Late Late Breakfast Show before.

Here's the info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Late,_ ... kfast_Show

 

[rynner2]

I found a few links to that myself, but none of them seem to match my recollection of the event.

For one thing, the drop involved a car.

For another, there was visible shock and consternation in the (live?) studio.


So either my memory is worse than I thought....

or reality is weirder than I thought.

(But as a Fortean, I shouldn't be surprised by that!)

 

[Rrose_Selavy]

No the stunt never got as far as being shown on the programme live - He died in rehearsals, was in all the papers.

However I do remember seeing Tommy Cooper collapse ironically on "Live at Her Majestys"- he seemed to be snoring - there was nervous laughter from the audience and the curtains closed hurriedly around him as the live programme went to a hasty commercial break.

He was pronounced dead in hospital

-

 

[Yithian]

I did post two links detailling both Edmunds connected deaths. But nobody read them.

 

[GNC]

I found a few links to that myself, but none of them seem to match my recollection of the event.

For one thing, the drop involved a car.

For another, there was visible shock and consternation in the (live?) studio.


So either my memory is worse than I thought....

or reality is weirder than I thought.

(But as a Fortean, I shouldn't be surprised by that!)

That was a previous accident in which nobody died, I watched that too, complete with Noel saying, "I don't know about you but that looked very serious to me." Followed by abrupt end of programme.

Noel did kill Clive Anderson, however.

 

[rynner2]

Bishop attacks Noel's cosmic plan


A Bishop has used his Easter address to criticise comparisons between a mystical "ordering system" used by TV host Noel Edmonds and Christian prayer.
The Deal or No Deal presenter is said to put his TV comeback down to being granted wishes by "cosmic ordering".

But the Right Reverend Carl Cooper said people placing "an order with the cosmos" to be delivered was "nonsense".

Edmonds' website refers to the concept, which he discovered when he read Barbel Mohr's The Cosmic Ordering Service.

People can order anything from a luxury home to the perfect husband but vindictive orders will not be granted, proponents of the theory claim.

No 'room service'

But in his Easter address Bishop Cooper, the Church in Wales Bishop of St David's said: "It may be laudable to set goals in life, but we don't need to dress this up in spiritual language.

"Intercessory prayer is part of our Christian tradition, however it is not divine room service, nor is it a heavenly shopping trolley."

A spokesman for Mr Edmonds said the former Swap Shop presenter had only "played around" with the system.

The said: "It is all a bit out of context. Noel Edmonds has said he is a man of faith.

"But he hasn't been gripped with some L Ron Hubbard-type faith (Scientology).

"What Cosmic Ordering did was trigger in his mind that we have to be positive and he just started making more positive decisions.

"He wrote a list of achievements but not in the way set out by this system. It was part of life changes which happened to him after his split".

Edmonds left TV screens when his BBC contract expired in 2000 and split with his second wife, Helen, in summer 2005.

In October he returned to TV with Channel 4 game show Deal or no Deal. After just six months on air the show is attracting high viewing figures and has earned a BAFTA nomination.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4908952.stm

 

[GNC]

Apparently Noel will explain the symbols drawn on his hand in the summer. I hope they're not something disappointing like a code for his shopping list.

 

[rynner2]

Latest news - Noel has RSI - from lifting that clunky telephone!

More here:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... 144#642144

 

[suzyblue]

I remember Edmunds programme ending after the death of Michael Lush. I have an idea that Mike Smith (of Radio 1 DJ fame) was a co presenter. Afterwards I'm sure I saw Mike Smith set up in some candid camera thing which involved a guy having to escape from a box before being hit by a speeding car. Set up as the presenter Mike is desperately shocked as the car hits the box before anyone has emerged. I,m sure I even remember him muttering 'not again'. At the time I remember thinking this was pretty sick because of his involvement in the Michael Lush thing.

 

[GNC]

Edmonds has now said that the symbols on his hands were there for decoration and had no signifcance other than to get viewers talking. Or that's what he wants us to think...

 

[jefflovestone]

Edmonds has now said that the symbols on his hands were there for decoration a

A bit like his strangely feminine beard then...

 

[James_H]

Edmonds has now said that the symbols on his hands were there for decoration and had no signifcance other than to get viewers talking. Or that's what he wants us to think...

Wasn't it Cosmic Ordering?

 

[GNC]

Edmonds has now said that the symbols on his hands were there for decoration and had no signifcance other than to get viewers talking. Or that's what he wants us to think...

Wasn't it Cosmic Ordering?

Apparently not, or so he says.

 

[escargot]

Edmonds has now said that the symbols on his hands were there for decoration a

A bit like his strangely feminine beard then...

*strokes own strangely feminine beard*

Don't knock it.

 

[GNC]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Noel-Edmonds-Po ... 04?ie=UTF8

Noel has brought out his own album! Apparently it features subliminal messages spoken by the man himself, even though subliminals don't work. I'd prefer Noel singing than mood music, I think.