Courtesy Channel 4 Derren Brown

He added: "This programme was made by a TV company very experienced in pyrotechnics, in making smoke and bullet holes appear. It was no different to a film which uses special effects. This was just an illusion - the question of whether it was in dubious taste is another matter."

Dubious? How dare he! Why should only Americans have the monopoly on thrill seekers. Derren Brown has the good grace and good marketing sense to have the same initials as David Blaine, and so why should any of us be surprised if he partakes of the same loony toon stunt mania as all DB initial holders? I myself am considering changing my name to 'Desperado Brown' and chopping my foot off on live television. The stunt comes into it when I hop around the floor for ten seconds, produce the foot from a locked safe complete with a football which it is juggling whilst I magically re-attach it. I draw the line at blowing my bonce off though. That might be considered in bad taste after all.

Part of me is quite disappointed that Derren didn't do it properly complete with real bullets and red scarf around the head. But then, as he said on the wednesday afternoon following the stunt:

"All the specific questions being asked were answered in the programme itself," Brown said on MTV's TRL. "The whole thing leaving a question over whether it was even real or not is great - I love the speculation."

Mission accomplished Derren. It does occur to me though that if you are going to acquire shock fame, then it seems only fair that the shock should be genuinely shocking. But the sad truth is that most of us have learned to be very suspicious of the reality of anything on television anyway, and shy of Derren's brains decorating the wall after the stunt, it takes a lot to convince us of the 'reality' of any TV stunt. Funnily enough, I was more a believer then a sceptic until I read the quote from Lenny Harper some days later. I wanted to be a believer. I still thought it was fairly sick, and a not particularly welcome development in our TV viewing habits, to get our kicks from potential death live on tv, but it seemed feasible that he might actually be doing it for real. Others have after all for money, and ultimately celebrity and money seem to be what Derren Brown is about. Both of which he would get more of because of this stunt.