Not content to toss eggs, golf balls and other items at David Blaine -- as the 30-year-old American hangs suspended in a plastic box over London's River Thames -- Britons have something new for the magician: Web sites devoted to concocting ways to annoy him.
Blaine is currently encased in the box, where he has vowed to remain and not to eat for 44 days. Since his encasement earlier this month (his stunt is due to end Oct. 19), detractors have shined laser lights in his eyes, played loud music and, in one instance, dangled a burger in front of him with a remote-controlled helicopter.
One man was even charged with criminal damage, accused of trying to cut off Blaine's water supply tube.
Adding further insult to the injuries, London's Mayor Ken Livingstone has declared that Blaine's stunt, which is taking place just outside his Honor's river-view office, is an insult to the memory of Northern Irish hunger strikers, Reuters reports.
On the other hand, Blaine's sponsors, who include media mogul Rupert Murdoch's Sky TV, don't mind the attention.
"Ninety-nine percent of the public have been really supportive of what David's doing," claims a Sky spokesman. "When you go down to the Tower Bridge, you can just tell."
Either way, the press is having a field day at Blaine's expense. "You've picked the wrong town to be hung in, Mr. Blaine," one critic wrote in the Sunday Times. "What is clear from the start is that Londoners are not taking Blaine quite as seriously as he takes himself. ... Really, it makes you proud to be British."
Disagreeing with the Times, however, is a group of half a dozen 14-year-olds from the nearby Aylwin Girls' School, who come every afternoon to see the bare-chested Blaine because he's "buff" and "wicked," they squeal.
"Oh, my God!" one of them shouted ecstatically as she gazed at Blaine in the box. "I can actually see the hair in his armpits!"
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