12am: Sallow but not noticeably thin, the world’s most famous magician/artist/con artist — depending on your point of view — huddles in his Perspex cubicle. Separated from outside world, David Blaine has yet to realise that goatee beards are crimes against fashion.

Beneath his blanket he resembles any one of a thousand lonely bachelors at sleep. They, too, work around the clock to obtain a cramped shoe box with river views in Central London.

A melange of tramps and tourists mill about below. Everyone but Blaine is drunk. “You can see him, fortunately you can’t smell him,” goes the latest late-night joke.

2am: The tramps launch into a rendition of The Boys Are Back In Town, complete with air guitars. Blaine waves meekly, then goes back to sleep.

4.47am: He is rudely awakened when a man scales a scaffold support tower and tries to slash through the cable supplying his water. Two accomplices divert security guards before legging it, laughing. “Go home David. We don’t want you here, I’m going to rock you,” shouts Blaine’s assailant. Blaine loses his cool. When the man starts rocking his cage, he lets forth a screech: “Where are the poh-leese?”

6.14am: Depressed by lack of nutrition, Blaine nonetheless displays signs of elation — a regal wave. At least he doesn’t have to go to work. An attempt to urinate is met with catcalls from a passing builder.

8am: Traffic starts to back up towards Elephant and Castle. It inches along Tower Bridge. You can’t rubber-neck and drive at the same time.

10.26am: Blaine stands up. Students, tramps and the occasional resting actor cheer. Now here’s a man who seems to understand just how difficult it is to hang around all day doing nothing. One woman signs offers of marriage and flashes a nipple.

12 noon: 25 degrees and rising. There is condensation inside the glass case. City workers descend on Tower Hill to power-lunch their way through Pret à Manger sandwiches in the shade of London’s biggest tourist attraction. “Does he have a TV up there or something?” asks one.City types are drawn to Blaine phenomenon, says one bystander, “Because they too live in glass boxes doing f*** all.”

2pm: Five Cambridge University undergraduates are here to rehearse Waiting for Godot. “We were rehearsing in Croydon, we really needed some inspiration,” says Ollie Rickman the director.

4.09pm: Blaine stands up. The crowd erupts. Blaine sits down again. A man carrying a bow and arrow in his bags has them confiscated.

6pm: If an American can make millions by napping in a Perspex box, then so can the hoards of performance artists hatching plans to out-Blaine the illusionist. Sam Leifern, a theatre director, intends to build an identical cage and go on a 44-day eatathon. “I’ll make a hole in it and eat Eccles cake and eclairs. I’m 12 stone now. I reckon I could get up to a good 17 stone, ideally until I’m too big to fit in the box.”

8pm: The crowd finds itself inexplicably drawn to a group of Morris dancers who temporarily steal away the limelight. Then Uri Geller arrives to tell the world about the psychic messages he is sending to Blaine. The crowd disperses.

“I think most people want him to fail,” says a man called Jake. “And that includes me. Why don’t more people throw rocks at him?”

10pm: A heavily tattoed Irish man with no teeth, weighed down by two carrier bags of canned lager, joins the debate: “What I’d really like is a RPG7 just to blow the box up basically,” he says. “Not that I wish him any harm. He’s just a self-publicist anorexic isn’t he, not a patch on a genuine hunger striker.”

11.14pm: A lone man lights a candle in vigil and is mobbed by security who have mistaken the glimmer for a fuse.

12am: Blaine cannot nod off because of the red laser pens (now banned) pointed at him. Houdini died from a punch, will David Blaine die of boredom?

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