Clarity, however, is in short supply here in Toadspawn. Bill - <WBP> - said something in clear once, but it turned out to be a typo. Otherwise, um ... well, there's *chess*. But it's too benthic for human intellects.

But it seems some guy in Irish radio just put it in all the playlists.

Speaking of Scandinavians, this just in too:

Event: FICS rated blitz game
White: AnnieK (1444)
Black: NN (1049)
Result: 1-0
Time Control: 600+0
Date: 2010-04-21
White Clock: 9:18
Black Clock: 9:9.

You may have heard that thirteen of us rule the world in secret.

Where, I see, "what would ordinarily follow comes first". Vulgarly known as a *timeslip*, but it's easier to make a rhetoric device than a time machine.

With this in mind, and noting the familiar hype and hysteria attendant on World (chess) Championship matches, I thought it was time to emulate Garry Kimovich.

It has been established that I can't play chess like Kasparov, but I *can* write about My Great Predecessors.

Holmes, meerschaum pipe clenched firmly in his teeth, had climbed a tree. A half empty hypodermic syringe, containing what Watson surmised to be a 7% solution of cocaine, dangled from his fob. He hung loosely, upside down, from a nearly horizontal branch of the great oak. As on previous occasions, he seemed to be deep in thought: yet Watson felt that something was not quite right.

“I say”, he said. “Holmes, my dear fellow. Well, I mean to say …”

Holmes swivelled imperceptibly to fix the doctor with a languid yet penetrating stare. Watson momentarily felt like an insect beneath an alien microscope. He thought of other penetrations he had seen, in medical school and, well, serving her majesty overseas. He looked more closely at Holmes, donning his medic’s persona as a token suit of armour. Was the fellow opiated to boot? Some sort of, what was it, speedball?

But that was a decoy. He was being manipulated by his own expertise, his medical interests used tactically to redirect his attentions. Like a conjuror or a chess player.

With a massive effort, Watson forced himself to concentrate. The copse was quiet. The body of poor Reginald had not been found, and the police had yet to arrive. So there was no question of headlines like ’Cops find Corpse in Copse’. But he was on the right track: he was certain. Holmes’s vast powers of deduction sometimes caused him to underestimate simple puns.

He looked around. A walk in the fictional woods, his Italian colleague, Dr Eco, called it. Was it as simple as that? Not seeing the wood for the trees? Or being on track? A … a … shrubbery? They had beaten a path through the arboreal undergrowth to get here, and the needle had left its inevitable track marks on Holmes’s arm…

No. No. All decoys. Lures, tries, doubles, false solutions. He knew that Holmes already had the answer.

Eccentric as his pose was, it betrayed his conviction, his almost careless aura of certainty. By Jove, he thought, there it is! His old friend was punning in body language: remarkable, really.

But people had been committed for less. Watson had signed the papers himself, with barely a frisson of regret. Society had to be protected. He had, however, no wish to see his friend go the way of poor Wilde. A deviant, indubitably, but his punishment had been excessive. One had to allow some latitude to genius, whether one found it rogering chaps or climbing trees. He spoke firmly.

“Holmes”, said Dr Watson, “you are the finest sleuth the world has ever seen. But, dash it, you’re not a giant sloth. Kindly disembark.”

As Holmes sheepishly clambered down, Watson found his thoughts turning to lambs, to ovine bovines and dogs that disembark in the night. He wasn’t out of the woods yet.

So thanx. I'll get around to my other great predecessors -- I'm thinking Isaac Newton, Attila the Hun, and William 'the Great' McGonagall -- in due course.

As the latter said:

Sadly, research - that old spoilsport - indicates that both game and tray were fictions. But I like those smothered mates on an unmoved King: they're so much like composed sui-mates, and yet ...

Isn't White's penultimate move, 10.Nf3, a bit, well, *trappy*...? It invites the mate, obviously. And Black has played so poorly that White has every reason to try it, and will have a large advantage in any case.

But 10...e6 would have survived for a while, no? While there was a clear win with 10.Nd6+ exd6 11.Nxc6+ Be7 12.Nxd8 Rxd8 etc, even though White *only* wins a Queen for two Knights.

Pretty, though. And why not pursue such things? Jefferson advocated the pursuit of happiness, while Gore Vidal noted that this pursuit could one day succeed in catching up with happiness and perhaps even *overtaking* it.

QUESTION: <1. What is ridiculous name?>

FACT: Zia Gok Alp is ridiculous name. That's a real person and you should google it- the name is hilarious but the person most certainly was not.

PS- note to Germans: It is cruel to name your daughter "Grauben."

FACT: Articles are entirely unnecessary. Their primary function is to drive Asian people insane when they try to learn English. We could do them a great favor by teaching them only Yorkshire English.

That's dead right. Probably I should calm down a bit but good luck on that.

click for larger view

Analysis by Fritz 11:(all dpa)after 1.Bg4+

T + H = TH.

Yet educated people talk about "dropping your H" -- as if 'th' represented some compound sound rather than a common phoneme that so happens to have no equivalent letter in the alphabet.

Most people who use this sound regularly, such as Icelandic speakers, have a letter for it. (Ze French, zey do not have zis sound, but zey get by ...) Many - including the Anglo-Saxons 1000 years ago - use two signs, for the voiced and unvoiced versions, eg þ, and ð.

The voiced version, with vibrating vocal cords, can be heard in words such as 'that' and 'there'. The unvoiced sound is the one in 'thin' and 'thanks'.

One way to tell the difference is to touch your neck and feel the vibes. Alternatively, replace the 'th' sound with another, such as 'F' or 'V'. If 'V' sounds right, it's voiced; if 'F' fits, it's unvoiced.

Vat sounds fick, but it's fought-provoking and vat's vat, fru fick and fin.

Like the two different th-sounds -- 'edh' and 'thorn' in Old English -- F and V are the 'same' consonant, differing only by virtue of being voiced or not. Other such pairs are D and T, B and P, G and K.