And the sorting of rubbish into wet and dry was more crucial still. Ah, if only Thatcher had known that detail what larks she might have had - but neither larks nor history were among her strong points, were they?

I've read about 18th century sewage disposal in London -- eg, a trade of individuals called 'night-soil men', who collected, er, *night-soil* from big houses and sold it on.

Where? I'm not sure? To those who wanted *certain chemicals* perhaps, eg nitrates for fertiliser or phosphorus for whizz-bangs.

So 'dry rubbish [may be] shot here' turns out to be a common 19th century piece of signage meaning, roughly, "Refuse -- no bodily excretions, please -- may be ejected here"?

Then along came the great Sir Joseph Bazalguette -- who 'did' Dublin as well as London -- and developed modern sewers as we know them. Until about 20 years ago there was still a shyte-ship in Dublin named after Sir Jos, which did a daily "faecal sludge overboard!" routine in the pleasant snotgreen waters of the Irish sea.

Some of his paintings have been used as cover images on chess books by Lev Alburt and Sam Palatnik. I have two of these -- 'Chess Strategy' features a fascinating painting called 'Concentration': male figure in foreground stares at a chess position. Meanwhile, a piano sits untouched behind him, a nude woman figure looks wistful or irritated (echoes of Duchamp's short-lived first marriage, where the she in question glued the pieces to the board while he slept) and a cat waits to get some attention (or food).

But our guy keeps staring at this:

click for larger view

My opinion: quick win with ...Qxb1+ followed by g3-g2-g1(Q), if it's black's move. If it's White's turn, not much he can do to stop this - if he moves the Rook, white pawns get picked off and/or the black g-pawn promotes. I'd hoped to find a 'trick' knight-promotion line to deliver smothered mate at c2, but it doesn't seem to exist. Black wins. Our pensive guy is seeing it from the White side, which could explain why piano, cat and woman get ignored.

Other images: a triumphant figure about to sac its queen for a smothered mate (cover of my other book, 'The King in Jeopardy'); a figure shackled to a piano; 'two grandmasters', one looks a bit like Dzindzi ... etc.

Can't get the Presley/Cale song out of my head now.

"So if your passed pawn leaves you
You've nothin' left to push -
Take a walk down Zugzwang Street
Get mated by the Krush ...
You feel so isolani
I feel so isolani
We're so isolani, baby
We could die-ie-ie-ie ...."

Yes, you *told* me, and delivered, my friend... You *thought* I'd like the guys' stuff??

You *knew*

After clicking the link, I immediately was drawn to the this man's art, not only the chess related, but "Slow Homecoming" and following "graphite on paper" drawings are brilliantly done-- Very evoking...

And Mark Kostabi looks a bit like me in my prime! (ugh, scuseme)

I will be enjoying more of his work, for sure... But how in the name of Bea and Butt did you deduce that Diagram from that image?

He works magic with those clear lines and colours-- "I did it Steinway" is absolutely BEAUtiful...

I painted at a studio for recovering persons for a while and THIS IS THE STUFF I wanted to make!

sigh

The guy in charge there obviously put me on the wrong track, don't you think? (I with'drew', from that class... needless to say -- one cannot excel at everything)

It's quite clear that you are free to educate me further, art-wise... I am oviously mal-nutritioned in that respect, especially the last one and a half decade.

Inspiring, Dom. Daniel. Your timing is something else...

In truth, there are probably more radiant cats, pianos and women - even better chess positions - out there in netspace. It's the combination that makes it special.

So I went geurgling and found lots more. I knew I had to share this guy with you, even before I saw the shackled piano. I did it Steinway? Abso-bloomin-lutely.

I like his stuff anyway. Glad you do too.

Minor indirect massage for you at Joe's place, amigo.

I found -- in my club library of all places (they have their uses) -- an old copy of a book by Anthony Santasiere on the opening he dubbed <Santasiere's Folly>: 1.Nf3 and 2.b4.

It makes it even clearer that the idea of playing Nf3 first -- as in the Nimzowitsch Attack, 1.Nf3 d5 2.b3 and the Munster 1.Nf3 d5 2.a3 (which may transpose to a Santa's Folly) - is to avoid 1 ... e5.

Black can play for ...e5 anyway, but in each case some other price must be paid after such preparatory moves as 1...d6, 1...f6 and 1...Nc6.

First, it's not a King's Indian, no matter what it says on top. Black plays ...d5 and ...c6, making it a Grunfeld. It's ECO D78 or D79, the Fianchetto Slav-Grunfeld. I have a couple of older opening books -- BCO and MCO from the 1980s -- that give it a page or two, but it seems to have vanished from newer equivalents.

It has a boring, drawish reputation, borne out by statistics. But here Baburin crushes Nunn inside 30 moves -- letting the Black Queen invade because he has a deadly kingside counterstrike planned. In the end, the Queen is trapped in mid-board.

Weirdly, Baburin and Nunn played another game in this line about ten years earlier -- not in the CG database. It was also a short, brilliant win by Baburin, but quite different -- the sacs came on d5 and c6.

I recall having a brief discussion of the opening with Baburin -- I wondered if he knew of any book specifically covering Fianchetto lines against both Grunfeld and King's Indian (ie, the lines he plays himself).

He couldn't think of any -- but talked about move order, and the way Black players sometimes end up in the Gruenfeld just to avoid playing a KID.

"She looked like Sophia Loren
Ich habe meine Dame verloren
Ciao Bella, I cried
Like a traum deep inside
You wake, but in Bruxelles they're snorin'
Parmi les Belges ... is it not boring?
Il pleut dans ma coeur
Scheisse! It's pouring!"

Note #1: the Irish entrant in the upcoming Eurovision song contest - chosen by popular vote - is likely to be a stuffed turkey puppet named <Dustin>, originally handled by the makers of <Zig und Zag>.

Note #2: Zig & Zag, aliens from the planet Zog, appeared on Irish TV in the 1990s. YouTube undoubtedly has some samples, along with Dustin the Turkey, and a jive-talking rabbit on New York cable TV who liked to get Z-grade celebs to strip off ... so 90s, that emphasis on Helmut and Herbert Titz.

The current puppet emperors are a pair of lecherous old farts named Podge and Rodge. It's Irish TV, so the schtick (an stoic) is to have great crack (craic mor) by getting celebs to *talk about* removing their clothes.

- G'wan then, I dare ya! Just the wellies!

This panoply of perverse puppetry has been described (by me) as "Father Ted for intellectuals and acidheads".

Note #3: the line "I like a warm hand on my entrance is *not* attributed to a puppet, but to the 'alternative' comedian Julian Clary.

Alternative to what? Few comics are breeders in any case: it's the hours and the on-the-job misanthropy rather than any kind of sexual orientation.

Note #4: During my schooldays, I was entered for ... sorry, my name was put down for ... a <sexual orienteering> event. Running up mountains while doing crossword puzzles and burying the clues, while attempting to hide under a bush with a comely member of any appropriate gender. I came last, and there's no other way of putting it.

I gave it a thorough look-- and I feel Nunn made two cardinal, potentially dubious, positional decisions

a) (15...f5) which is risky, but not decisive, but it determines the superiority of the g2-LSB over the Bd7 -- esp. after

b) g4 fxg4? - where I think-- g4 Nxe5 --was called for... I think there is a tempo involved at that crucial stage, in order to play the needed ...Bb5 or ...Be8 in some lines...

But right you are that the attack following ...Qb4 is very neatly planned -- opening g-file, extra pawn in the center to allow a crushing e4 usw usw.... Everything "falls into place" for White at that point.

BRAVO Baburin!

It surely is not a boring opening with Kh1/g4/Rg1 plans - And White has space advantage and piece majotity on the K-side as well...

Ergo: Hardly ANY opening is "boring" IMO...

Why THE HECK has this not been analysed and categorized properly lately?!

Gee, when you have a palace this size, you could lose the Munster footy team in here.

There *has* been done some work in that Neo-Gruenfeld line... (My "why the heck" remark at the end was not a propos)

For starters, my engine's opening book follows Baburin - Nunn but has 14. e4 in stead of Rac1 -- interesting... But the CG database is already a few moves out of book there.... It diverts at the juncture from the link above -- where ...f6 appears at move 12 -- and 4 short draws are appear and 1 Black win. Two strong GM games in 2006 and 2007 - L Bruzon vs V Gashimov, 2007 is of interest because here Gashimov considerably improves his development with ...Rf7 and Bd7-e8 (which I suggested last night as a possibility - be it in a worse- AND different, position -- Rg1/g4 plan is not played by Bruzon)

Sooo There you go, bod, the pitch is huge and the possibilities endless, but it does seem that players think there is not much to be gained for White in these D79 & E60 transposing lines...

I would personally investigate this deeper, in order to rule out White winning chances. (further look into Baburin's ideas and resources for Black)

"I am bought, therefore I am."

-- M. Kostabi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Bj...

Looks like the wonder boy (pianist, gameshow host) is a clever businessman.

Q. "Why do you want to be famous?"

A. "Because fame is love, and I need love."

Unless I'm getting my lines mixed up. As you say, theory has not ignored these lines completely (TWIC devoted an opening theory special to it about a year ago) -- but there seems to be no definite name. I've seen Gruenfeld, Neo-Gruenfeld, Fianchetto Gruenfeld, Slav-Gruenfeld, and other combos.

One critical point is whether white plays cxd5 before black can play ...dxc4. There's also a 'solid' black line with ...e6, ...Nbc6 and ...Nfd7.

And it's definitely not any kind of King's Indian. All the various fianchetto KIDs are found in E60-69, with E60 the most 'general' version -- but surely black pawn structure is the key difference between Gruenfeld and KID?

Btw the Pablo Picasso you mentioned, is the song played in the back-ground of the Kostabi clip I posted a post up -- he really had the New York Art scene eating out of his hand at some point...

Cui bono? Kostabi gets a prominent credit, so maybe it works as advertising for him. I can't imagine Alburt & co being able to pay much for reproduction rights.

And they do make excellent chess book covers, better than most -- though some professional book illustrators might resent the prices commanded by a fine artist working in illustration style.

Ever since that illustrous moment you mentiond Kostabi, I found that I was unable to recall the feller's name, eg. when geurgling him, I got stuck...

"Words" like Stikkaboo, Bob Sticky, Bill Cosby, Konstipat-- started to pop up as I was struggling to come up with the name... Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - is another mind twist, and of course M. Huckabee...

This is about the first time, that I can remember, my brain goes hay-wire when I want to recall a name, THIS BAD - but I haven't called in professional help, yet, but decided to write down my experience, hoping for a restoration of order of some sort.

**************

Happy Valentine's Day! (To <Jess the Moves real fast>, as well)