E-Club ProThe Comedy Zone
The CRB Check
Ring, ring. Ring, ring. “Hello.”
“Ah, hello, my name’s Tim Hopeful and I’m a hobbyist magician living in the area. I understand that you are the secretary of the local magic club.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Great. Well, I’ve been doing magic as a hobby for about 5 years but in that time I haven’t met any other magicians really and so I thought it would be nice if I could join your club and come along to the meetings.”
“Well, Tim, of course we would be very pleased to give you the opportunity to apply for membership of our club, but there are just one or two little things that I need to check on first with you, if I may, in order to ascertain whether you are a suitable candidate to receive one of our application forms.”
“Oh, right. What do you need to know?”
“Well, first of all, do you do any card magic?”
“Yes, lots.”
“Right. Has your deck had a CRB check recently?”
“What’s that?”
“This is a special check done by the Cards Registration Bureau which seeks to ensure that no distasteful card back designs are permitted to be used in public places, such as our clubroom. I’m sure you can understand that if we are not careful, people might start bringing decks such as Waddingtons to meetings, and we do feel as a club that we must protect our members, particularly those from the Junior Section and other less experienced card workers, from the horrors of the stiff plastic coated pasteboard. I have to tell you that before the CRB checks were done, we had a nasty and unsavoury incident involving a Piatnik red backed deck, and then in more recent times it was only thanks to the diligence of our President, who routinely reviews the CRB forms held by the club, that we prevented one of these infernal Black Tiger Bicycle decks from getting in. God knows what would have happened then! So, we are very strict on this matter and will have to insist that you undergo the necessary procedures beforehand.”
“Well, what does it entail?”
“First of all you need to make a full inventory of every pack of cards that you possess, including any loose cards, cards contained in separate little plastic wallets and even those that may have inadvertently slipped down the back of your sofa cushions. You then need to take a photocopy of each individual card and mount these pictures on the special CRB form which I can send you. Once you’ve done this, you need to send the photocopy sheets, plus the actual cards themselves for cross checking purposes, to the CRB offices in London. They will do all the necessary investigations on your card stock and in a mere 15 weeks they will send you a notification of which, if any, cards are not suitable for use and these will then be confiscated and incinerated in the backyard outside the CRB offices. The rest of the cards will be returned to you with an authorisation number which you need to enter on our application form.”
“I also do the sponges. What about those?”
“Ah, well you need to send your balls……”
