Someone get me a knife and a ladder...

[Grumpmeister]

The daft bugger is at it again.

US illusionist David Blaine has begun another endurance challenge - hanging upside down for almost three days.

The 35-year-old magician was hoisted by his heels over the Wollmann ice rink in New York on Monday.

He intends to remain there until late Wednesday, despite doctors' concern about the effect of the stress on his internal organs and blood circulation.

Blaine said he was "doing all right" on Monday, though he did admit his head felt like it was "about to explode".

His previous stunts include spending 72 hours encased in ice, seven days underwater and 44 days without food in a glass box.

Blaine is suspended from a four-storey high metal frame, though he can be lowered to speak to fans face to face.

Catheter

He is also able to free one leg, using its weight to raise his head to a horizontal position.

For two nights and three days he will neither eat or sleep, taking liquid through a straw and passing water through a catheter.


Blaine demonstrating how he would hang upside-down last week
Asked to compare this current spectacle with his earlier endeavours, the Brooklyn-born performer said this was "the most difficult for sure".

"The others you could get into them soon after the start," he told an interviewer. "But this one is tough from the get-go."

Blaine said he would use "sheer willpower" to complete the challenge - inspired in part by his hero, the legendary escapologist Harry Houdini.

He has said he likes to test his endurance "because it gives me a different perspective, for a short duration."

There is a part of me that wishes he'd tried that in London. The locals would have had a field day with him. 

[Snoopy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7635202.stm

And he failed!

[Grumpmeister]

So he is already working on his next death defying stunt? I can solve that one for him. You want danger, excitement, chaos? David Blaine's next stunt will be to spend a week at Nick Towers. 

US illusionist David Blaine has responded to critics who claimed he had misled people over his latest stunt.

The 35-year-old spent 60 hours hanging upside down in New York, but has been criticised by some for taking breaks to use the toilet and drink water.

He told US TV show Live With Regis and Kelly: "There's no way to relieve yourself and not put everybody beneath you at risk."

Ok thats a fair comment, mind you if he'd done the stunt in london I suspect he'd have been perfectly happy using the people below for target practice given what happened with his living in a box stunt.

Blaine added hydrating himself was essential because he had been fasting.

High winds

He said if he had eaten during the stunt, he would have been forced to take longer "real breaks" to visit the toilet.

However, many fans claimed they had been duped into believing Blaine would remain inverted for the entire 60 hours.

Blaine also said he was not happy with the way the stunt had ended.

"I had dreamed up the most amazing ending for a stunt ever," he said.

He had planned to jump from a platform, fall 44 feet towards the ground before being swept away by a bunch of helium-filled balloons.

Instead, he dangled awkwardly for a moment before ascending into the night sky.

US TV network ABC, which broadcast a two hour special on Blaine's stunt, had urged him not to jump because of high winds.

"I wasn't going to let everybody down, so I just jumped," he said.

"And somehow the guys with the balloons made it work, and they pulled me slowly up and I went over into the park and they pulled me down.

"I know that it didn't work right when all my friends called up and said, 'Wait, what happened? I'm confused'."

Blaine added he had found hanging upside down tough at the start.

"At the end of the first day I thought I wasn't going to make it. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I didn't want to disappoint everybody, so I kept pushing and going as hard as I could."

Despite the criticism Blaine is already working on his next stunt.

"I know that I'm going to work my hardest and make it the most incredible thing that I can," he said.