Theme songs (for closing night *Dislocation Disco*) include:

The Electrician, by Scott Walker ("If I jerk the handle you'll die in your dreams")

Torture You, by Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias ("I don't want to talk to you, all I wanna doo-ooo-ooo is torture you ...")

Ch-ch-chillout room: *Music for Dentists*, Brian Eno.

Expect a fight between the Traditionalists ("A strong right arm and an indifference to human suffering") and the postmodernists ("Data extraction doesn't *have* to hurt, it's just more fun that way...")

Enquiries to the usual numbers. No amateurs.

But I was within a klick of the Irish Championships this afternoon, and I didn't bother looking in. Two years ago, I played in the event -- now I chose to visit an art gallery instead. I may be retreating or even resiling from chess itself.

A capital crime in some jurisdictions.

Scandal was caused, apparently. But the incident has been purged from all the obvious biogs.

Dear Mr/Ms Domdaniel

We represent [insert name of client] whom you have defamed/ slandered/ libelled/ insulted/ mysteriously persuaded to unhitch their life from the Normality Wagon.

Under the laws of [insert name of regime/ junta/ dictator] you are liable for damages/ bribes/ get-out-alive money, payable in any solid currency. Swiss Francs and Canadian Dollars preferred. Bills should be unmarked, out of sequence, washable, and have happy pictures.

We expect/demand payment at your convenience/ inconvenience. Or else our regulator - the secret lovechild of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Klaus Kinski - will pay a visit.

We hope you enjoyed 'Eyeless in Gaza'. The audio version is less thrilling, we hear.

Sincerely,

Nigel Warpe

Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek & McMingus

I vote for-

<Mein Kampf or Yours>

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH

Also-

<We Have Huskies>

And one more

<Young People are Stupid>

Ok <Branko> once told me to read back from page 1 of forums to see "what you were like a few years ago."

I didn't do it.

But last night I went through roughly the first 100 pages of this forum.

<Dom>

1. Did you know that there are large swathes of deleted posts? I"m not sure who what or why- but from the context of the thread- you can tell this is true.

2. Your combination of computer-human analysis, and your articulation of that analysis, was exactly what's missing from Centaur chess today. I almost copied and pasted one on the Umansky page but I figure I already caused enough trouble.

3. You used to write differently. I won't say more- check it yourself and see.

4. Three years ago I was a stupid person.

I may still be, but I almost died of embarrassment reading what I said in here and how idiotically I said it.

5. That old <Kat> is no slouch- He was practically laughing when he advised me to do this. He had just done it himself, so he knew I'd be startled.

More bad news....

On the forum banner front.

My laywer <hms123> will be contacting you shortly.

A *rotten borough*, said commies like that poof Shelley. Did his poems last? Will they survive? Compared to proper business enterprises like <Ozymandias & Son, Purveyors of Hydrogen Sulphide to HM the King Who Lost the American Colonies in His Drawers and Could Still Paint the Planet Pink for a Larf>.

I came across a real - and hilarious - case of 'by royal appointment' a coupla days back. You get those in Canada? Queenie's royal crest on a product, and a discreet endorsement. All those castles to upkeep with product placement and a few mil per annum from the 'civil list'.

Parasite, ich? Ach, ich dien!

Anyhoo, back in the world, I was beset by dive-bombing insects. Yes, even here, during a damp and dismal summer. So I bought a can of flyspray, trade name Vapona.

And I sang Dylanesquely to the flies - "Vapona, come closer, shut softly your all-around eyes ..."

Then I read what it said on the can. "BY APPOINTMENT TO HM QUEEN ELIZABETH II MANUFACTURERS OF SHOE, LEATHERCARE PRODUCTS AND INSECTICIDES"

Well, hey hey hey. How'd *that* happen? Moolah, dosh, and a tongue extended patriotically in the right quarters? Or was it this little Mom'n'Pop - sorry, Mater-et-Pater - business, polishing the royal brogues by hand, with real spit and homemade polish? And one day they noticed their spit could kill insects better than agent orange? And huzzah, Mater & Pater get rich, HM remains fragrant and insect-free, everyone's happy, there's a marked increase of cheer in the kingdom, joviality and good temper and unbitten bosoms in the royal palaces...

Except, of course, in those cases where the owner of the royal bosom actually *wanted* it bit. It takes all sorts, even among inbred royal families.

Heh. Next subject (as HM would say) ... have it washed and stripped and manacled to the royal four-poster ...

I would put it thusly. I can write (almost) anything in (nearly) any variety of English. So I choose a different register, from time to time, for what may well be good reasons, strong drink, toxic drugs, or unforeseen side-effects. Like I say, good reasons.

It is true that discourse changes. One grows into this place. One gets more friendly with (certain) people.

You're a very certain person, you know that?

And - the upshot - my tone and style change. Not just between you and me, but generally. I let myself get over-familiar with CG as a corporate entity, and it'll slap me too.

As to deleting. Yes. One reason that I don't delete now is a kind of vague embarrassment over my delete-o-mania in the early days. I nuked the whole forum clean a few times, zapped everything. I innocently thought that to work properly as an analysis forum in the Nickel-One game, I had to zap anything non-pertinent (or even impertinent) -- 'cos this was the very first such forum, based on a concept expounded by <twinlark> and soon improved by <Ohio>.

Ironically, with hindsight -- apparently at random -- the forum originally had a sequence of posts about *drugs*, of all the unlikely topics. And I wasted them all, to have a pristine space for stuff like <this forum will analyze 19.Qd1 ... any volunteers for Kh1 yet? ... come in, NN, we need you> and all the other forumista crap.

I were the first that ever burst into that engine'd sea. Of course I soon got bored and assigned myself the less onerous tasks, only taking over the forum-directing from twinlark when he needed a break.

This happened while you were away. I had nobody else to go *really* word-smitten zany-like-a-jinx with, though Larkers and I hit the Beer page with hilarious results once or thrice.

And a posts-per-minute rate that would terrify Ibiza.

Is that 'change'? Here's some Aldiss, from 'Barefoot in the Head', the acid-sci-fi book I read when I was 13 and had my brain rewired without chemicals ... it's about choice and multivalent possibilitiers (yeah, sic) ... "and always eternally a hive of selves" ... from memory, then, purists and pedants duck, Freudians sharpen your quills ...

<At this bare fence
I once turned left
And became a different person.
Laughed, where else I cried
And now sit looking at Japanese prints
Silver carp and damson tart.

I have another name
All things have other names
And will that change them?
And will that change them
As I am changed?
But that the dear light
Goes in her hand
Away among the childhood trees
In the perspectives of my mind
It never dwindles.
I always live with myself,
And that's too much.>

Let's just say some of your flights of fancy have not been neatly aligned with consensus reality. But the numero uno single most untrue statement I've ever seen you make is:

<4. Three years ago I was a stupid person. >

Yeah, sure. And Abe Lincoln was a Swedish transvestite who started the civil war to free *me* from onerous deadlines, and eventually bring about a world where people could afford to do without education.

There's nothing I put here or anywhere else that's factually untrue.

I don't need to lie on a website, thanks very much.

As for "stupid" that's a value judgment, not a "whopper"-

Viz- not factual or unfactual, but a perception.

But as for actual facts about myself, what I was doing then- or now-

No whoppers.

You show me even one-

I don't take kindly to people lying on the internet.

1.My academic career
2. My job history
3. My family or friends in the carbon world
4. My travels
5. Books I've read and Movies I've seen.

Sadly, it turns out that we're different types of Cretan after all - you from the truth-telling tribe, me from the whopper factory.

Don't tell any of the puzzle heads who hang out here, or they'll plague us with meta-mini-morphic trick questions like "If I were you, and I were to ask myself a question ... would I lie to you/me?"

I just heard a guy on the radio say "I'm not going to comment because whatever I say will be open to interpretation".

What did you mean, exactly, by saying I'd be the first to admit I tell "whoppers"?

I'm surprised you couldn't tell your post upset me-

Also, don't call me a <Cretan>.

I don't call you "names" like that so don't do it to me.

I don't make up stories about myself on this website and pass them off as the truth.

Do you?

That's what "whopper" means in Canada.

Hopefully this is just a matter of word choice and connotation.

However, I'd appreciate you clearing this up for me without turning your response into some kind of joke or clever wordplay.

What you wrote upset me- And what you just wrote me now upset me more, since you did not answer any of my questions to you- and your response was flippant, which really surprised me since isnt' it obvious that what your first posted both upset and worried me?

So I'd like you to take that seriously, Ok?

I don't misrepresent myself or my life here- but if by "whoppers" you meant obvious jokes-

Like "during my career as a rodeo clown" etc. etc. then just tell me that's what you meant.

Please.

You can't seriously believe for a second that I was consciously trying to insult or attack or defame you in any way? Never, ever. If something got lost in translation, I apologize.

But, hey, slow down a moment, please. What's going on here? Did I accidentally stumble into ... I dunno what.

The 'Cretan' thing? Just another of those obscure references which you have so expertly and flamboyantly decoded in the past. Now it seems you want this boy flambeed or flayed for verbal abuse? From my POV that's so left-field it's like somebody else hacked into your persona.

Epimenedes the Cretan says "all Cretans are liars". A prehistoric logical joke about people from Crete. And nothing at all to do with cretins (which derives from 'Christian', as in 'that poor cretin is also a Christian soul') or, for that matter, your ex-PM, M. Chretien. Just a (relatively) indis-Crete joke ...

By whoppers I meant ... what did I mean? Obviously not anything about RL. I'm no good at trawling thru the back pages for examples, but I'm pretty sure you sometimes say things like -- *like*, OK, 'cos I'm making this one up, being too lazy/inept to find a real example -- like ... oh, I can't even think of a plausible example. Those very funny chunks of hyperbole you do.

I'm very, very surprised, is all. Would it be *bad* if I said it feels like somebody switched to poker halfway thru a chessgame?

You know that flippancy is what I *do*. What's truly weird is that the case in question doesn't seem in any way unusual, or extreme, or risky ... or even slightly insulting.

Though I've told you before that I don't really 'get' insult anyway. The concept eludes me.

But if you believe you've been insulted, sorry.

If I think of anything else to say I might use a less noisy channel. But I'm flabbergasted, both by the initial reaction and its continuance. Somebody - maybe both of us - is misreading something hugely.

If this thing wasn't 'real' I'd actually be fascinated by its webby contours -- genesis of flaming and human escalation mode, and all that. But since it's real the first priority is to de-escalate it.

Maybe I should follow the example of Monad a coupla years back, and retreat forever into dignified silence after being 'nuked' by the 'Domdaniel' character. Though on that occasion I had a weapon and used it on purpose. This time, it seems to me that I was just doing what I do.