O Queen of British Semiotica and Southron Hieroglyphia, I bow before your wisdom. Which will henceforth be called just plain 'wis' lest my unworthy name should sully it.

What, you think I actually kept the score of the 44-move minimal DSB game? Creating it in the first place can be explained as borderline Asperger's (my ex-girlfriend leaves out the word 'borderline' in that description, for some mysterious human-type reason). But actually *keeping* it would be Full Frontal Nerdity.

"Sith on this, it's quite interesting really".

Not that it happens often. I'm usually not very interested in that side of things, but I felt the lad Braun was in with a shot...

Do you know of any?

Now in Holland we tease the Belgians with them being stupid, not intelligent, hundreds of jokes on them like you will have with the Scots or the Welsh, but in this case I wonder why there is a steady flow of talent from the countries around Belgium, but ZERO (from what I know) from Belgium.

I may be mistake... Anyhoo - "we" haven't had anyone knocking on the top 10 door for a while now,.. I think Jeroen Piket was the last one after Timman... I had high hopes for Stellwagen some 5 years ago, but his rise to the top has been halted now it seems...

On the lighter side, <Asterix and the Belgians> more than amply confirms <Deffi's> point.

And that's not to mention the fine <lace> and <sprouts>, either!!

Up, Belgium! Up, Camuludunum!!

You are so right Mrs. Deffi, I was the one salivating over the beauty of Belgian women a few weeks ago, but the Belgian men are surely nerdy enough to not notice that?

(heh good thing I dont know of any Belgians at CG.com, which says a lot in itself...)

<Ziggurat> Oh yes, Amsterdam is the place for beautiful women... One almost gets used to seeing a knock-out stunner every few seconds, of which a large portion is a tourist...

A recent study showed that Amsterdam is the most culturally diversed city in the world! (No kidding, something like 180 different nationalities)

Oh I can see you now
All of my phoney friends
You've been laughing all these years

The old women are here
Too old to give a damn
They've brought along the kids
Who don't know who I am
They're thinking 'bout the price of the funeral bouquet

Nicolas Boreas: insane megalomaniac film director in 'Barefoot in the Head' by Brian Aldiss. Thanks to some hallucogenic, Boreas "saw more of his bore-arsed self than he could wish or hope to see".

<innarestingly insane Belgians in fiction> Belgian Waffles, perhaps? OK, that was very lame. But cut me some slack, man, I'm out of practice--it's like dropping a pawn in the opening after taking two years off from the game.

Actually, I won tournaments when I was ill a couple of times before. Once I shoulda been in hospital with severe eye trouble, but insisted on playing with dark glasses and a squint. I mowed 'em down. Nothing like a little photophobia.

hehe

Things have changed a little since then, MON AMI !

PS A. Braun drew his game against cellar dwellar Ruijgrok, a name which, if my memory serves me correctly, is familiar to you...

Front running can be difficult.

There are four Belgian Grandmasters, although three of them -- Malakhatko, Dgebuadze, and Chuchelov -- may have originated further east. The 4th is Luc Winants, born 1963, currently rated 2525.

Lower down, we find 19 IMs, many of them non-imported. They include Michiels, Van der Stricht, Dutreeuw, Claesen, Vandevoort, Van Beers, Laurent, et al.