Knowing my predilection for any activity which gets me out of doing any of the jobs I'm supposed to be doing at home (finishing painting the kitchen cabinets, fixing the gate, stopping ignoring the steady drip of water on to the garage ceiling), a colleague has presented me with an early Christmas present in the form of the rather excellent Ali Bongo's Book of Magic (Black Cat books, 1981, reprinted 1988, 50p from a charity shop in Clitheroe).

I have always been fascinated with magic and have all the trick cards, wands which shoot up your sleeve and little plastic devices which make 50p pieces disappear that you could never hope to be bored with at any social function.

So this super annual-sized book, with a foreword by a suspiciously well-thatched Paul Daniels, is like manna from heaven, or a dove from the armpit of Tommy Cooper.

I'm not sure if Ali Bongo is still doing the rounds these days, or indeed if he hasn't shuffled off to the great Bunco Booth in the sky, but there's a marvellously un-PC photograph of him in comedy Oriental make-up (many of his tricks "originate" in some made-up place called Pongolia, which must account for his Gen-ghis Khan-meets-Peter Wyngarde look).

One of the most striking things about the book is the illustrations. Published in 1981, the volume must have either been devised several decades earlier or by someone who still yearned for a lost England of vil-lage greens, warm beer and bicycleriding bobbies who were able to give young boys a clip around the ear with impunity.

All the young chaps who illustrate the tricks wear mismatched little suits of green jackets and yellow trousers, red ties and blue shirts and look spookily like that boy genius James Harries who used to be on TV in the Eighties spouting forth about antiques and who, I believe, is now known as Lauren.

Nevertheless, Mr Bongo has many tips for the aspiring magician which transcend time and taste. Con-sider, if you will, this passage: "Just suppose that you are at a party without any of your apparatus, and someone asks you to entertain."

I'm sure that this has happened to many of us, and I know that I for one am forever being asked to enter-tain at parties. Well, I was when I used to get invited to parties. As Ali counsels: "Never push yourself forward; always wait to be asked - especially if it's not your party. Do two or three good tricks, then stop before your audience has a chance to become bored."

Sage advice, and probably just as appropriate for strippers and pole dancers.

Indeed, the good prestidigitator is never bored in his own company, as the chapter entitled "The Pocket Magician" goes a long way to proving.

Of course, it's all fairly low level stuff - tying handkerchiefs in knots and making pom-poms disappear and the like - and for a veteran magician like myself it only whets the appetite for the bigger stuff. Ali Bongo does tantalisingly include "five famous illusions", including shooting your assistant from a cannon and the Indian sword basket, but sadly doesn't tell you how to do them. After studying his drawings, though, I'm pretty sure I can make a fair fist of Sawing a Lady In Half.

Now, do I have a volunteer from the audience. . ?