<<OK why are <VEGETABLES> so instrumental to the history of <American Chess>>? You'll never get this so I'll just tell you. I figure you all secretly wanted to know.

When <Paul Morphy's> infant Great-Grandfather was about to be slaughtered by angry natives, <vegatables> came to the rescue. Literally:

"(Morphy's great-great grandfather) placed his infant son in a market basket and covered him with vegetables. He then sent him with his mother who was disguised as a vegetable vendor, to board an English vessel... (they) escaped to Charleston, South Carolina. Certainly the Morphy family's entrance into the United States was as dramatic as Paul's later visit to Europe."

<And, even <less well-known> than this STUNNING historical detail, when <Paul Morphy> made his triumphant voyage to Europe, during his passage he eschewed traditional bedding in favor of a nice coverlet fashioned of <beet greens and lettuce>>.

Morphy, of course, had no idea of the "genetic" affinity of his family to vegetables when he did this SEEMINGLY odd act.

I thought <Dom> had a proper <batman>.

He went to <Eton>, after all, for Cripe sake.

<Dom> please tell me about the <great eggplant mystery>?

Hey, Henge. You ought to like this directorial instruction that Clint reputedly used on some film set: "Don't just do something, stand there."

Sorry, no can do. Partly because I've forgotten the precise details, and partly because it touches on matters of, ah, congress between men and women and suchlike. And to go into detail would just get us shut down again. So you'll simply have to read all 800 pages of The Sot-Weed Factor, a lusty romance by John Barth set in 17th century Maryland.

I'll pass on the parlour maid too, thanks. I'm catching up on movies that I should have seen, but never got around to. Last night I watched The Big Lebowski. I might keep up the Coen theme and go for Hudsucker Proxy or Barton Fink next.

There's a mystery/thriller writer named John Connolly -- he lives in Dublin, but most of his books are set in Maine. In one story, his hero goes to New Orleans and meets an Irish cop named Morphy, who claims descent from the chess champion.

Looks like dodgy research to me. Not only did Paul Morphy have no children, but his family was more Spanish than Irish. His father being a judge named Alonzo, and so on. Not at all the sort of people who produced Irish-American cops.

I've interviewed Connolly a couple of times, but I never mentioned this -- I didn't want to seem a nitpicking chess obsessive.

<His name certainly has Irish roots, a la Murphy, but I think the family had been hispanicized for generations> And if memory serves me correctly (and it often doesn't these days!--just ask <Eyal>), New Orleans was an especially diverse city in the nineteenth century, with lots of contact with the Caribbean, coupled with immigrants from Europe, the orginal French settlers, and of course the deep African-Amerrican influence (both during slavery and in the post-Civil War period); a real hodge-podge, as it were; no doubt one of the reasons for its rich cultural element in the pre-Katrina days (and one hopes now in the aftermath as it tries to rebuild).

It takes a lot of effort to prepare a proper <sauteed liver> and then haul your ass to the premium Liquor store to select just the right <Chianti>