A very short piece of magic, which Professor Richard Wiseman is nice enough to explain at the end. If you're weird enough, you may even want to try and fool your friends with it:
An interesting read... literally
Deception on The Infinite Monkey Cage
There is a delightful BBC Radio Podcast called The Infinite Monkey Cage, with theme song by Eric Idle and hosted by Robert Ince and Brian Cox (the guy Stephen Hawking pushed into the river on the Monty Python reunion show.)
This is the episode from January 19, 2015, entitled Deception. It's available on iTunes or from the BBC.
No one does the panel discussion as well as the Brits and it's a very interesting discussion. And includes a magician and respected academic, Richard Wiseman.
One of the most intriguing things they mention, which I don't hear discussed very often, is that we are not very good at knowing when we are being deceived. There is a natural tendency to both accept things at face value, and to assume others will accept things at face value.
It also turns out that many of the "tricks" you are supposed to be able to use to detect deceptions (facial ticks and other visual cues) don't really work.
I guest listener be warned.