And everyone moves with the speed of a striking snail.

If I wanted to shut up, then I would. Presumably. If I still can. I'm not about to test this hypothesis, however.

Same here.

There better not be a "pattern" emerging here!!

Whatever bit of national pride that I thought had left me for good, seems to raise its tiny little voice in a most peculiar way...

Perhaps a quarter of an ounce of paranoia (VERY early this morning, I detected a mouse near my computer desk, runnig down my electricity cable, into a cardboard box, after which I chased him like a rabid badger, but "it" managed to escape -- just haven't been able to, you know, really "relax" anymore...) in there as well... Maybe a bit more. Very nice.

*Peers around caddishly*.
It's quite rotten of me, sordid even, to do *number stuff* when <Jess> is indisposed and basically not here to tell me where to stuff it. But, at the moment, I like numbers, chess and art ... and all three seem to me to be the same kind of thing.

And today I got a copy of a classic book that I'd never got round to reading: <Number: the Language of Science> by Tobias Dantzig.

It was published in 1930, and it's the mathematical equivalent of Nimzo's <Mein System>*. I don't think it contains much that I don't already know (but *a number* of pages contain novel information).

It's the way he tells 'em.

Einstein said it deserved "a lasting place in the literature of the world". For once, the shameless old blurbateur may have been justified.

Now, some Bach or Scott Walker to go with it? And a glass of something vaguely vintage-ish, like myself.

Incorrigible old snob, really. Chess books not good enough for ya? And what's with these *book* things anyhow? It says in the *sacred DVD* that God created the internet 5008 years ago, plus or minus *a number of years*.

Could be right, at that.

* No, it's not quite the equivalent of Nimzo: it's more historical and less praxisistical. Maybe Courant's *What is Mathematics?* is closer to The Spirit of Saint Nimzo. Dantzig is more like Reti's 'Masters of the Chessboard'.

"Your only men", my *royal Erse arse*. That only leaves chemistry.

I may have to think about *giving up chess again* ... it's that bad. Hubris clobbered by mild-mannered little old Nemesis.

But I'll give it another go, with a change of policy. Instead of trying to be brilliant (some chance!) or even forcing the pace and sacking bits for the initiative, I resolve to try being *really boring*.

I shall do nothing. I shall play solid waiting moves. I will let my opponents make the mistakes. I shall study endings, and employ them to score points.

And I will not concern myself with the prospect of quick wins, never mind queen sacs. I was boring before. I can be boring again, especially when the the prospect of marginally futile tedium is the only thing standing between me and early retirement.

Time to trade up, or down, again.

On the funny side, it was 15 moves: my quickest loss in twenty years.

Your many distinctive posts always take me away to explore places I haven't been to in a long time. They can also be formulated in picturesque experiences of thoughts in pictures from my past regrouping themselves into a new set of ideas and concepts. Really, it's just an amazing experience! :)

I have only a small favor to ask of you... (This decidedly is not a 'But' or 'However'). <grin>

Having struggled with the 'Prologue' to my 'Chessforum' for well over a week now... For the moment this can be seen and viewed there:

<A new prologue -- *TBA*

I'll let <Domdaniel>'s wise words suffice for the moment...

"Combinations and chemistry are your only men.">

Literally I've searched and read hundreds of quotes dealing with 'hope, inspiration, good will and peace' to bring in the new year. Still, I can not find what I'm looking for. Perhaps it was never really there for me to find or discover...

The favor I would like to ask is if I may use your wise words <"Combinations and chemistry are your only men."> for my prologue? Also, I wanted to ask how I should credit this quote? Yes, I have searched that specific quote too and it always leads me back here to <CG.com> ~lol~

To <Domdaniel> or <Er, <anon>?>

Thanks in advance for your time and thoughts! :^)

Best Regards, - Mal

Chess is a sub concious homo erotic fascination of the desire of men to be close to their Fathers.

They protect their Fathers thinking all is lost if their Father is mated.

They fear their Mothers (The Queen) and yet it is their Mothers that give them strength.

They pretend they can do without their Mothers tempting them to sacrifice her.

The mating of the opposing King is their Homo-Oedipal sub concious fascination.

The tipping of the King in resignation the subjugation of their manhood.........

It's sort-of-based on a line in Flann O'Brien's novel, At Swim-two-birds. A character (Jem Casey, the People's Poet) has a ballad with the refrain "a pint of plain is your only man".

<In times of trouble and lousy strife You still can find a darling plan
You still can turn to a better life:
A pint of plain is your only man>

So, ah, I just chessified and pluralized it, I suppose ... anyhow, it belongs to the world now.

But the most extreme - and, well, silliest - version of this stuff that I've seen was in a 1970s book by Alexander Cockburn, *Chess and the Dance of Death* ... published during the Fischer boom years, when chess was cool, and publishers fought for the rights to chessic books. Which didn't last long.

Cockburn turned to other subjects, such as politics, and wrote some much better boohs.

Oops ... *books*, I mean.

What could *that* Freudian slip mean? Something infantile, with its blending of boo-hoo and boobs? Chess as, well, *toilet training*?