No NLP-claim from Derren Brown

I just have a hard time believing that video. A really hard time. Maybe, just maybe, someone could persuade me to “want” a particular item. But if I were told to write down what I wanted as a gift, and that in a few days I would be involved in a videotaped session based on what I wrote down, there is no way I would forget it and believe that I wanted a child’s bike instead. Especially merely as a result of some fellow blowing a bunch of smoke up my ass. No way.

Of course the trick didn’t really go down as it’s presented. Presumably, Simon did write down the BMX in the first place, somehow Derren figured this out ahead of time, and swapped in an alternate note in forged handwriting. At least, that seems the most plausible to me, and doesn’t require any belief that the whole thing was a set-up with Simon in on it. It would still be an impressive trick, well presented.

(Of course, I have no knowledge. I only have my own thought-out guesses. But you can see how there’s room for accepting this as something of appreciable skill, rather than completely staged and trivial.)