Part of it was to do with magic & how magicians never tell how they do their tricks. So I thought I would share one of my "magic" tricks which is good for the pub.
Preparation: while sitting with your friends wet the end of you finger by licking it & then stick it in the ashtray to get a blob of ash on your finger. Do this without anyone seeing & then sit back for a while.
Then ask a volunteer to hold their hands out palms down side by side. Then say "no a bit closer to me" pull their hands closer to you & without their knowledge rub some of the ash on your finger into the palm of their right hand (remember their palms are face down so they can't see this).
Ask them to make their hands in to fists, then dab some ash onto the back of their hand (the same hand as the ash in the palm). Here is where you have to build it up a bit on your own - magic words, get them to wave their hands a bit etc. The tell them that you are going to get the ash to magically jump through their hand. Do a bit of rubbing it off for them as you "push" it through their hand.
Ask them to open their fists - palms up & voila ash in the palm. with all the jigery pokery they will have forgotten that you pulled their palms closer at the start.
Obviously will not work at WNDC
Any other tricks to share?