James Randi discusses his childhood, jailbreaking, science, mortality and miracles.

If you already subscribe to The Skeptic you should receive the relaunch issue of the magazine very shortly. Inside the issue is an interview conducted with James Randi on Sunday 20th April 2008, the day after his first presentation to a British audience in over a decade.

Randi kindly allowed our small group into his Vauxhall hotel room, where we filmed the interview prior to his departure to visit the Magic Circle. He was a very gracious and accommodating host.

In the 52 minute interview, Randi discusses his Canadian education, walking out of an English Literature exam, truancy, magic and his 22 jailbreaks, Uri Geller, Project Alpha and fooling scientists, exposing Peter Popoff and miracle healing, thinking critically and independently, mortality, heart bypass surgery and medical science.

The resulting film has now been released to accompany the print version of the interview. It forms part of the Media Archive but has been split into six parts, starting here (from http://youtube.com/theskepticmag).

Please comment, subscribe and circulate this as widely as possible. Most of all, enjoy.

    Wiseman & Goldacre short interviews.

    Two further short videos have been added to The Skeptic’s YouTube channel, one with Richard Wiseman and one with Ben Goldacre. The videos briefly address the respective work and approachs taken by Wiseman & Goldacre to science, psychology, quackery and scepticism.

    Thanks to Colin Murphy from the Pulse Project for donating these videos. Please do check out the Pulse Project website Twitter account and Facebook group. They have a number of other podcasts and lectures available to view.

    As always, if you know of any other videos or recordings of interest, let me know at digest [at] skeptic.org.uk or leave a comment.