I tried this. I got as far as the being-paid stage, if only part-time. By then I'd been at university for eleven years, so I ran away to become a film critic. In due course, I saw how bad most movies are, and ran away from that as well.

<(Cut to an upper-class drawing room. An elderly man lies dead on the floor. Enter Jasmina and John.)>

Jasmina: Anyway, John, you can catch the 11.30 from Hornchurch and be in Basingstoke by one o'clock, oh, and there's a buffet car and... (sees corpse) oh! Daddy!

John: My hat! Sir Horace!

Jasmina: (not daring to look) Has he been...

John: Yes - after breakfast. But that doesn't matter now... he's dead.

Jasmina: Oh! Poor daddy...

John: Looks like I shan't be catching the 11.30 now.

Jasmina: Oh no, John, you mustn't miss your train.

John: How could I think of catching a train when I should be here helping you?

Jasmina: Oh, John, thank you... anyway you could always catch the 9.30 tomorrow - it goes via Caterham and Chipstead.

John: Or the 9.45's even better.

Jasmina: Oh, but you'd have to change at Lambs Green.

John: Yes, but there's only a seven-minute wait now.

Jasmina: Oh, yes, of course, I'd forgotten it was Friday. Oh, who could have done this.

(Enter Lady Partridge.)

Lady Partridge: Oh, do hurry Sir Horace, your train leaves in twenty-eight minutes, and if you miss the 10.15 you won't catch the 3.45 which means ... oh!

John: I'm afraid Sir Horace won't be catching the 10.15, Lady Partridge.

Lady Partridge: Has he been... ?

Jasmina: Yes - after breakfast.

John: Lady Partridge, I'm afraid you can cancel his seat reservation.

Lady Partridge: Oh, and it was back to the engine - fourth coach along so that he could see the gradient signs outside Swanborough.

John: Not any more Lady Partridge... the line's been closed.

Lady Partridge: Closed! Not Swanborough!

John: I'm afraid so.

(Enter Inspector Davis.)

Inspector: All fight, nobody move. I'm Inspector Davis of Scotland Yard.

John: My word, you were here quickly, inspector.

Inspector: Yeah, I got the 8.55 Pullman Express from King's Cross and missed that bit around Hornchurch.

Lady Partridge: It's a very good train.

All: Excellent, very good, delightful.

(Tony runs in through the french windows. He wears white flannels and boater and is jolly upper-class.)

Tony: Hello everyone.

All: Tony!

Tony: Where's daddy? (seeing him) Oh golly! Has he been... ?

John and Jasmina: Yes, after breakfast.

Tony: Then ... he won't be needing his reservation on the 10.15.

John: Exactly.

Tony: And I suppose as his eldest son it must go to me.

Inspector: Just a minute, Tony There's a small matter of... murder.

Tony: Oh, but surely he simply shot himself and then hid the gun.

Lady Partridge: How could anyone shoot himself and then hide the gun without first canceling his reservation.

Tony: Ha, ha! Well, I must dash or I'll be late for the 10.15.

Inspector: I suggest you murdered your father for his seat reservation.

Tony: I may have had the motive, inspector, but I could not have done it, for I have only just arrived from Gillingham on the 8.13 and here's my restaurant car ticket to prove it.

Jasmina: The 8. 13 from Gillingham doesn't have a restaurant car.

John: It's a standing buffet only.

Tony: Oh, er... did I say the 8.13, I meant the 7.58 stopping train.

Lady Partridge: But the 7.58 stopping train arrived at Swindon at 8.19 owing to annual point maintenance at Wisborough Junction.

John: So how did you make the connection with the 8. I3 which left six minutes earlier?

Tony: Oh, er, simple! I caught the 7.16 Football Special arriving at Swindon at 8.09.

Jasmina: But the 7.16 Football Special only stops at Swindon on alternate Saturdays.

Lady Partridge: Yes, surely you mean the Holidaymaker Special.

Tony: Oh, yes! How daft of me. Of course I came on the Holidaymaker Spedal calling at Bedford, Colmworth, Fen Dinon, Sutton, Wallington and Gillingham.

Inspector:' That's Sundays only!

Tony: Damn. All fight, I confess I did it. I killed him for his reservation, but you won't take me alive! I'm going to throw myself under the 10.12 from Reading.

John: Don't be a fool, Tony, don't do it, the 10.12 has the new narrow traction bogies, you wouldn't stand a chance.

Tony: Exactly.

I agree, so I change jobs within the University without having to leave. I can teach a different topical seminar just because there are some new books I want to read and talk about with some smart students.

I have also been involved in planning new buildings, re-vamping the library, and all sorts of things that interest me for a while until I run to something else.

(<glued to his inseparable pint?>

Glued to = inseparable

Ok - considering context and back-ground fair chance? Not sure.

I always enjoyed spotting pleonasms, though you wouldn't want one obstructing something, like freeways and gateways. Veins.

GOOD POINT.

It is quite possible to be glued to a pint *glass*, he added pedantically. But the *pintiness* of the said pint - what a scientist might term its cubic capacity - would undoubtedly diminish rapidly. And then it wouldn't be a pint, would it?

Anyhow, young Mr mack has decades to go before he qualifies as an eternal anything.

It takes aeons, it does. I used to be a hemisemideity, you know? Did somebody tell me that the great god Pan was dead? How times change. Ramble, ramble.

Consider the game Karpov vs Larsen, 1979

The kibitzing there outlines my theory about Karpov's double: all soviet VIPs had doubles. In this case, the double was instructed to play a quiet opening and let Tolya take over on move 20. But Tolya overslept and the doppelganger attacked like a madman.

My point here is to introduce some new terminology. We know, thanks to researches in the field by <Niels> and <Jessica>, about *Fawn Pawns*.

I looked up 'fawn', which has several meanings, some of them different. It can be a young deer, especially an unweaned one. It's also a colour. And the verb can mean to grovel, toady, kowtow, cringe or beg.

Now observe 'Karpov's' pawn on a6. It looks a little like a classic Fawn Pawn, driving a wedge into ... uh ... nothing in particular. In fact, due to Larsen's astute pawn play, it soon gets cut off from its buddies. White needs to keep a rook on a1 to guard it. Arguably, his failure to move this rook to the kingside around move 28 may have cost him the game -- he needed it to continue the attack. If the a6 pawn had been sacrificed, black would have lost time taking it -- and moved a piece, perhaps even his queen, away from the kingside.

This pawn is a <Bambi> -- a fawn pawn whose mother has been shot, and who needs defending, the poor little mite.

click for larger view

Just look at the miserable wee creature on a6, tying down a whole rook, and doing nothing but whimper "Me don't wanna die-ie-ie..."

It should not be confused with <La Bamba>, which I'll get around to presently. Or with <Atom Bomb Chess>, now popular in North Korea.

I'm terribly sorry about this, old chum, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to murder you for your job.

Atom Bomb Chess: when a pawn promotes, it explodes, destroying itself and all pieces, friendly or otherwise, on adjoining squares.>

To not be confused with the actual chess variant, <Atomic Chess>, where any capturing piece destroys itself and all pieces on adjacent squares, <except> pawns...

I suppose I could have misunderstood an explanation of <Atomic Chess>. But I still claim actual actuality. There's room on this nuke-infested planet for two kinds of atomic chess, surely?