I didn't think there *was* a Finnish laugh. I've seen at least ten Kaurismaki movies and I can't recall laughter. And he makes comedies.

In its place, there's an exquisite deadpan irony that would have Buster Keaton and Sam Beckett churning in their urns.

So, a whinny. Well as long as it doesn't frighten the horses. As Viv Stanshall put it:

"That breezy English day/ on the Brighton racecourses/ The wind blew your skirt up/ and it frightened the horses/ we were young, we were young/ but so fright'fly, so terribly, in love ..."

It's not that the Danes don't do irony. They do it very well, like most things they do. But they somehow spoil it by pointing it out: now I will do irony in my perfect English, yes?

One day in Copenhagen, I was walking down a long street when a sudden rainshower began. I had no coat or umbrella, but about half the shops had awnings or overhead balconies, giving protection to those on the inner lane of sidewalk. It was possible to shelter at these points and dash between them. The problem was the steady stream of umbrella-carrying Danish pedestrians coming in the other direction, who hogged that inner lane even when they didn't need to, and forced me out in the wet street several times.

In Ireland or Britain, which also have a climate with random rain, there is a culture of rain courtesy. Here, umbrella people would step out, allowing non-umbrella people to stay in cover. Such ideas simply don't occur to Danes, or city ones anyway.

My sister laughed and said it was a perfect illustration of Copenhagen behaviour. Umbrellas are like cars, a bubble of personal space, freeing the user from having to interact with others.

Heh... I love that. :D

Interesting family you've got there. You were going to tell me about them, one of these years, as I recall. :p

<Cars seem to do that *everywhere*, but as a non-driver I've never felt the urge to experience it.>

I've been thinking about a Conrad-@-Waugh fiction, set in a bureaucratic version of Papua New Guinea, proud of its linguistic heritage, with a law compelling foreign organisations to use local names. So 'the base of god' has to rename itself 'ars-bilong-bigpela' ... I could eat a pidgin.

Butty DiGress is heading for a fatwa.

I'm pretty sure about this.

These scientists in Italy just happened to be studying the breeding habits of toads. Main ingredients: copulation, croaks, toadspawn. This was already known (by Pliny, ironically), but in their creepy scientific way they wanted to *know more*. And they got their wish, when 95% of the toads broke off breeding and vanished. Five days later there was a big earthquake.

Toads have been around for 450 million years. Plenty of time to evolve an earthquake detection kit. The reasoning is that even though quakes may be statistically rare - too infrequent for natural selection under normal conditions - the fact that a toad colony left all its genetic material in one spot - viz, toadspawn - made it vulnerable to wipe-out. So they evolved a way of telling, maybe by sniffing radon gas or detecting proto-trembles. It takes a lot to make a toad break off breeding, but the whiff of impending genetic death seems to work.

And this is a forum for winners. Frankly, frogs are dying out. So I've gone over to the dark side, warts and all.

Pliny is ironic because he died during the CE 79 eruption of Vesuvius, probably killed by vented gases. In nearby Pompeii, they found the world's oldest known advertising pun -- a sign for a local wine named Vesuvinum.

Bet it blew the top of your head off, that vinum. The rich romans probably stirred in local toadspawn before a trip to the vomitorium.

Where have all the vomitoriums gone? Ireland has hurling stadiums, but it's not the same.

It was always assumed, a tad stereotypically, that the <Frog's Pawn> was 1...e6. Given my fondness for the French Defence, and gastronomy, and astronomy, and so on. Is the <Toad's Pawn> just a different opening? Perhaps our neighbor, Peerts?

No. It is a move in the middlegame. It is a pawn move that means the ceiling will collapse soon, as if by magic. It is where combinations and chemistry begin.

D'ya think you may be a tad Pole since then?

<To compensate, I now have clear glasses and a new beard and moustache.>

Uhh... a moustache is bad enough in itself, but I think I really must object to the beard, Yerroner. Beards are so ... patriarchal. :s

<hooverum> heh

<Toad's Pawn> I suggest ...g3, as in

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. O-O Bg4 6. h3 h5 7. hxg4 hxg4 8. Ne1 Qh4 9. f3 g3 0-1

T Garner vs L Rowland, 1979, a game I have also duplicated once - in <correspondence>! (and in blitz many times) - except that my opponent played 8.Nxe5, but that makes no difference...

"Shaving is behaving" as some wise person once said. But *not shaving* isn't just simple inertia. Especially if you want that Mephistopheles look.

"Why this is Hell, nor am I out of it".
As Mephi said to Faust when the doctor asked how he escaped from eternal damnation ... Marlowe's version, and he knew a thing or two about it.

This doesn't apply among us mere mortals. I believe almost any opening is playable between players rated under 2200, and almost all games are decided in the middle or endgame.

Doesn't stop me trying to work on my openings, which in fact aren't particularly eccentric. I used to play some weird stuff, sometimes with good results (beat a FM with 1.b3 g6 2.Bb2 Nf6 3.g4, drew a simul as black vs Tony Miles with 1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5 3.Nd2 b6, which Miles himself took up later) but I decided to be more solid in my 21st century reincarnation.

You want strange openings, ask <mack>. I envy his sense of freedom, to tell a truth.

(Not 'the' truth, of course ... when is there ever only one?)

My ignorance of the Spanish is a historical accident, like Cortez the Killer. I only played 1.e4 for a few months as a schoolboy before discovering the English/Reti systems. During that time I played Italian or Scotch, and never got round to 3.Bb5. It would be unthinkable to attempt it now -- though certain games I admire (Tal's great win vs Hjartarsson in the 80s, or the 1st game of the Fischer-Spassky '92 rematch) show how the Ruy is strategically close to the hypermodern stuff I usually play.

But I *do* win quickly sometimes. I won a game in 12 moves after playing 1.e3, which I enjoyed. And <Tabanus> posted this game which he found on another database -- I still haven't submitted it to CG.

<Game not in cg database:>

[Event "ch-IRL"]
[Site "Dublin"]
[Date "2007.07.02"]
[Round "3"]
[White "McCarthy, G."]
[Black "Khonji, H."]
[Result "1-0"]

<It's what GMs play *against other GMs*>

Yeah, I know... but, but, what if my opponent turns out to be a GM in disguise?! :s

BTW, should you ever want to try it at home, ;) this 'B sac in exchange for an h-file attack' idea is only feasible if your opponent hasn't made a d-pawn move yet; after d3 or d4, White has Ng5 (protected by the B), blocking an immediate Qh4. White can still be put under some dynamic pressure, but chances are he'll survive it, and then you're just a piece down.

I *am* aware that most chessplayers would settle for 'good'.

I posted a game here last year -- my sole win from the Galway tournament that both <mack> and I played in -- where I did something similar: Ng5, he plays h6, I leave the Knight in situ for the next 5 moves, and it can't be taken.

The unusual feature of this game is that I was castled kingside and he wasn't. This amused me: it's probably the reason I *saw* the tactic (although <Eyal> pointed out some improvements). So ...hxg5 would capture a piece *and* open a file for his Rook against my King. He still couldn't take it, as my queenside threats were even stronger.

I should dig it out and add it to that McCarthy corpus, I guess. Though I've sent 'em my win vs Joyce and I try to alternate wins and losses. For form's sake, or sump'n.

BTW, I just noticed an entirely accidental pun. <Frankly, frogs are dying out> woulda been a clever allusion to the Franks ... if there was any intent in it. As you know, I'm a sucker for intentionality.

White, rated over 2450, starts well and has a won position by move 34. Then he begins to play second-best moves, just maintaining an advantage but failing to find the kill. He misses several wins while Black, Stoering, rated over 100 points lower, defends well. For about ten moves White misses clear wins, Black clings on, and eventually gets counterplay which forces a perpetual.

I love this stuff. Far more interesting than most elite games and most victories, yet draws have a bad rep.

Yep. :)

<Toadspawn will dedicate part of its collective (un)conscious to the capture and preservation of Remispartien -- especially *wild draws* where you shake your head and wonder howdafugg the guy survived.>

For starters, there's the groupie aspect. Where's a GM without his/her cloud of sexually attractive followers?

Then there's the problem of, ahh, *entry fees*. To tournaments. And *paying* for hotel rooms with nobody in them. And the risk of being spoken to by people who fail to cringe and curtsey ...

There's a cartoon I like -- an encapsulation of the peculiar tenacity of the English class system -- which shows a serf straggling home after a hard day at the Lord of the Manor's dung mines, covered in bat guano. His wife waits at their humble half-roomed cottage ("bijou artisan dwelling" in real-estate-speak) ... and holds up their snaggle-tooth baby serf for Dad's inspection.

All the anagrams of Domdaniel are taken. All. Die old man, Old Mandie, Idle Monad, Nomad Lied, Deli Mando, Demi Dolan, Do mad line, Linda Mode ... I tried dozens. Somebody is squatting on my anagrams.

So now I'm <entropanto>. A short theatrical event for children in a dead language.

Meanwhile, Derek Crozier -- who set cryptic crosswords for the Irish Times for almost 70 years -- has died age 92 in Zimbabwe. In recent years he couldn't trust the mail system, either physical or electronic, and gave batches of crosswords to visitors to smuggle to Europe. Some of my relatives are currently in Zimbabwe and may have helped or not.

You have to be careful round Bob. You know, <President Lincoln preceded by foolish face (6)>.

For an epitaph, I thought: <Yet in town setter's age counted (6-3)>

He would have done better in his sleep, of course, and often did. A guy on a train once challenged me with the clue <HIJKLMNO (5)>. H to O. Water.

What do they say at the end of a chess game? Fin de partie.

What does it mean? *Find the party*, obviously. You just have to know where to look.