Two athletes meet en route to the Oympics. One, seeing that the other is carrying a long fiberglass stick, says "Are you a pole vaulter?" ... and the other says "No, I am German - but how did you know my name?"

Some rare footage:

De Mooi is a huge asset to English chess. Even though most people (except fundamentalist clerics of various stripes) now broadly support gay rights, I find the 'wear a suit and tie' response almost equally insulting.

I'd hoped we were getting away from the normative apparel issue.

I agree.

CJ de Mooi was supposed to be the prize presenter at this tournament, but was barred because he was wearing a T-shirt that said: "Some people are gay - get over it".

The players who earned prizes are the ones who deserve their moment of attention. But this fellow evidently decided this was his opportunity to skim some of the attention they earned for himself in order to promote his cause. His behavior is not unlike Kanye West grabbing the microphone from Taylor Swift during *her* award acceptance speech.

In fact, getting De Mooi as a president and spokesperson was one of the smartest PR moves ever made by British chess. To the TV-watching public he's a much bigger name than Short or Adams - regrettable though that may be in some ways. As a 'quizzer'/'egghead'/'celeb' he has advanced the cause of mind sports in general.

I could add something like 'who is this fellow Kanye West or this fellow Jesus Saves' ... but I know you know that I know, so it's a bit silly.

There's only one person that made <de Mooi> the president/spokesman (he is a man, isn't he?) of English chess, and that's <de Mooi>. I, for one, didn't ask him. I'd never heard of him. And now I've heard of him, I don't want to hear about him again.

Let's get two facts straight, as I understand them: 1)Nobody told him he couldn't present the awards. He flounced off in a self-righteous huff.

2)Nobody has called for his resignation as ECF president.

Anyway, the plot thickens, and the thick plottens, as they say, with the news that <Lara Barnes>, the woman who objected as if a bull to a red rag, is a, errr, bisexual:

<This morning, Barnes – having earlier commented on Facebook – posted her response on the English Chess Forum: “Here is my side of the incident (I am posting against the advice of some, but I am getting hate emails claiming that I am homophobic and need to clear this up). I spoke to David [Welch – tournament manager] and Alex [McFarlane – chief arbiter] before the prize-giving suggesting that the T-shirt in question may not be advisable seeing as children were going to be in photographs with it and the charity in question was promoting a sexuality-based issue. I personally raised over £200 for the same charity on the Sunday night quiz [midway through the tournament] […] I was just worried that children who had come for chess may be exploited in photo opportunities for a different issue/charity.

“They [Welsh and McFarlane] were reluctant to speak to CJ about it and I said that I would. I told CJ that we usually dressed up more formally for the prize-giving and that it was only my opinion that his T-shirt may be controversial. He said ‘well I won’t present the prizes then’. When I told David Welch this he said that I had made a mistake in his opinion. I then left it to the ‘officials’ to make any decision. I believe that they still wanted CJ to present the prizes to the British Championship for which he had made a large financial contribution and huge publicity effort. He declined, saying ‘all or nothing’.

“May I add that, and many of my friends know already, it would be highly hypocritical of me to ‘oppose’ any gay-equality charity as I have had gay relationships in the past. Any thought of ‘anti-gay’ anything was never in my mind when I suggested the T-shirt was inappropriate for a national chess championships prize-giving, it was just inappropriate. I have many Wychwood Brewery T-shirts promoting real ale, but I would not wear them to the British Championships prize-giving. My only fault may have been being naive to the controversy that this brought up.”>

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