Unless. Unless this ability carries over to the modern world. Is a predator-avoidance gene useful in chess? Did Petrosian have it?

Hmm. I may have the outline here for chapter 12 of my pop science book 'On Making Mad Passionate Babies' ...

There's a thing called 'stotting' that certain animals do when being chases by wolves etc. They leap randomly in the air -- as if saying "Ha, I'm so fast I can do ballet, and still escape - go chase somebody feebler and spare us both the hassle".

It was terrible. Every night after RS (Relativistic Supper) They made us kids sing "I'm in love with Jacques Derrida" (by Scritti Politti ... it still makes me wanna *deconstruct* ... to *take apart my baby's heart* ventricle by ventricle).

And the games, oh god the games. One of us was a "sign" and another was nominated a "thing". Then we had to prove we were different, which isn't as easy as you might think. Any appeal to observation ("But I don't look like her!") was dismissed with a line like "Don't be such a lookist little turd. Anyhow, I might be blind. *Now* prove it..."

In the end, we had to produce our dangly bits to show that signs were different to things. And even then ... the horror, the horror.

I'd have denounced my later self and accused him of being a "scientificist hegemonic swarm with calculus-roader tendencies" and sent myself to work in the mines. We had "Kohl mines", "Limpet mines" and one VHS copy of the movie Enemy Mine. And the Kampf Mine, though nobody ever came back from there.

Anyhoo ... you don't really want to heard about my 23 years in a PoMo Cult that made the Maharishi seem like a cross between Nelson Mandela and Yogi Berra.

Or do I mean Nelson Rockefeller and Yogi Bear?

That's the trouble with Relativism. All those absurd choices.

However, maybe I'm lapsing. Starting to think we just don't have time anymore for "Research Has Shown". We'll need to switch to "Research Will show what it's told to show".

Those who do not understand the past, and all that. I had the unpleasant experience today of sharing a railway carriage with a bunch of thugs whose team had won a football match. Not soccerball hooligans, but followers of the amateur game of gaelic football -- the indiginous Irish version, like Aussie rules in Oz or ("American") football in the United States of Same. It has distinct rules (round ball, hand passes, two methods of scoring, games with robust tackling and frequent points scored).

Gaelic (aka 'Gaah' from the acronym Gaelic Athletic Association) has about 120 years history of annual championships in football (aka 'bog ball') and hurling ('stick ball'). Somebody recently dug up a 1930s newsreel clip about hurling, part of an American series showing 'funny' sports. They found two emigrant teams in New York and filmed them at play.

Or else they got actors, as everything is wrong. The players use hockey sticks and hit each other. They're all distinct Irish types: the thuggish leprechaun, small and quietly malicious; the big ugly oik wielding his manly weapon in hands like tractors; and the technician, who tries to play the ball and is battered by the other 118 players for his trouble.

Thing is, GAA never had hooligans. It was followed mainly by rural folk who had great pride in local teams - and since the game is still amateur, the best players in those local teams can be selected to play in the top championship games.

Of course there's been money under the counter for years. What I heard today was just nasty and stupid. The winning team, I think, play in white -- and their idiot supporters, along with other moronic chants -- were actually shouting "Up the KKK".

Now, these under-educated children wouldn't know a Klansman if it stepped out of a DW Griffith movie and lit a fiery cross under their mother's pet spaniel.

It was still ugly. If this is sport, give me something honest and manly (or womanly), like art.

[Event "3rd olm final"]
[Site "Hamburg GER"]
[Date "1930.07.13"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Marshall, Frank James USA"]
[Black "Duchamp, Marcel FRA"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "E12"]
[EventDate "1930.07.13"]
[PlyCount "76"]

On Saturday July 24th, the News section of the Guardian newspaper (of London, formerly the Manchester Guardian) ran a full-page feature with the headline:

<No more lashings of pop and jolly japes as Enid Blyton gets a 21st-century makeover>.

Blyton, of course, was the Grande Dame of English kid-lit. Kharry Pottair is one of her many offspring. But even in her heyday she was much lampooned ... it was always too easy to make fun of Blyton, and to make fun of the people who complained about her.

These included local councils who sought to ban her books from schools and libraries on both leftist and rightist grounds. Some complained that the children she wrote about (eg the Famous Five, one of whom was actually a dog, but let's not get into speciesism) were too middle-class and too white. Others objected to the presence of golliwogs (a bizarre type of doll for children, popular in the first half of the 20th century, something like a black-and-white minstrel made of wool). Others noted that two of her most popular characters, Noddy and Big Ears, shared a bed ...

So, about 30 years ago, her publishers discreetly airbrushed her work, taking out stuff that was too blatantly racist or sexist or offensive in other ways. (There is no evidence that reading Blyton turns children into fascists. Indeed, it's been suggested that children start out as fascists, and authors such as Blyton provide a modicum of perspective that helps them to grow up...)

Suggested by me, that is. But did you ever meet a fascist who could tie his own bootlaces? It's an infantile personality disorder. QED.

Which brings us to 'lashings of pop'. The problem now, it seems, is that young folk no longer understand the quaint kiddy argot used by Blyton's 1930s-style children. (Pop is a sugary drink; lashings means 'plenty'; 'lashings of pop' is a special treat for children, with large amounts of liquid sugar.)

Her British publishers are getting with the program, like. Proposed textual changes include changing "that's rather queer" and "it's quite peculiar" to the simple "that's strange". A real young person would use none of these, and would probably suggest you were being 'gay' without realizing that the word ever connoted either joy or homosexuality. Whatever those are.

Dick's line "she must be jolly lonely" is being changed. Jolly is no longer an all-purpose intensifier, and a jolly good thing too.

(In the northwest counties of Ireland, 'wild' is an all-weather intensifier, so a dog might be described as being 'wild tame'. That's the trouble with intensifiers: they run into paradoxical circles too bloody jolly wild easily.)

I think 'lashings of pop' sounds distinctly sadomasochistic, but that's just how my jolly mind works. It does, however, help to explain the limerick.

Oh yes. Dick, Julian, the girls and the dog - aka the Famous Five - meet a character whom Blyton described as 'a dirty tinker'. The new version will simply call him a 'traveller'. Blyton didn't mean to be disparaging, they say.

- I work in the City. What do you do?
- Me? I'm a dirty tinker.
- I say, how jolly.

If this jolly tinkering continues, what will remain of the racist, sexist, classist, hegemonic subtexts that made Britain grate?

Brit-Men-of-Kent Chess: c'est fini. A couple of minutes before 9pm GMT, with both clocks running down, the last game in the British Championships ends. Micky Adams won the actual title a couple of rounds back - he finished today with a draw vs Peter Wells and a score of 9.5/11.

Meanwhile, there was a savage tussle for 2nd place, decided only when Nick Pert beat Stephen Gordon on move 86 of a fascinating N+B vs R ending. Pert, with N+B, eventually won a pawn and liquidated the rest, leaving a technical N+B+P-vs-R -- but Gordon still came up with neat stalemate traps before finally conceding.

This left Pert in clear 2nd place on 8/11, with another 6 players just behind on 7.5. Ryan Rhys Griffiths - the only one in the leading bunch that I've played - beat a GM and drew with Houska on the run-in, before losing his last game for a total of 6.5. As the only untitled player in the top 20, the boy still done well.

He's good at endings - he easily held a slightly worse Rook ending vs Houska by activating King and Rook for max counterplay. It used to be the case that teenagers were vulnerable in such technical situations -- but now all the promising teens get one-to-one GM training (Griffiths works with Baburin - when I lost to him in 2007 he was rated about 2050, but has gained 200 points since then).

I enjoy watching events like the British or Irish championships far more than a super-elite GM event. Elite vs Elite is, frankly, boring: but watching Adams mow down 2500-rated 'normal' GMs is a wonderful sight. It's a reminder that these guys (who beat me up when we play) are vulnerable after all ... and that *everyone* plays differently against higher-rated opposition.

I've seen, for example, Simon Williams - an inventive and original English GM, highly effective against weaker players - simply cave in against Adams and Svidler. Why? Partly because he went against instinct and tried to play solidly -- knowing that if he tried his usual tactical slugfest they'd simply see further than him, pinpoint a flaw, and exterminate, he tried solidity ... and got wiped out anyway.

There's also a fascinating use of the clock in these rating mismatches. Houska-vs-Griffiths (a "Queen's Indonesian", where ...b6 and ...Ba6 is followed by ...b5) was one example I saw. Both players follow theory up to maybe move 12; then another 3 or 4 moves are played to ensure that any possible preparation is left behind; and then the stronger player thinks for a solid hour, trying to penetrate deep into the game, to see the endgames arising from various forced sequences etc. When they finally pick a move the next ten or twelve moves are lashed out in seconds, before another long-ish think around move 30-32, then a dash to the time control.

Korchnoi used to play like this 30+ years ago. I can't see how it's an optimal strategy. Admittedly, you might find a winning line, or a route to a technical advantage, during that first think - and your extra 200 rating points will make your opponent worry that you've found something, even when you haven't. But you need to be a first-rate blitz artiste, with lashings of pop if you don't find a win.

It's good to see a quasi-novelty that I recognize or remember from last time round. Now I just need somebody to actually play one of these lines against me.

Also, this "I've never played a Spanish" story is starting to be a drag. (And not even a *bra drag*). One should always be willing to dynamite one's myth ... therefore I am now willing to play the Ruy.

Now all I need is to persuade myself to play either 1.e4 or 1...e5. That might take some doing: this is deeply unfamiliar territory, and I tend to get crushed by engines in open games.

Fail again, fail better.

As Quentin Crisp said to me once (he said it to everyone - Quentin's whole life was a routine by then): "So what does it matter if you're mediocre? Strive to be the most mediocre person around, a prince among mediocrities ..."

Close enough, nicht wahr. I don't know the proper call-and-response, though.

There's tempoverlust, and there's Lebensraum. Other cases include the <Van't Kruijs Reversed Everything>: 1.e3 e5 2.e4 ... ... and the *Grande Burro* or *Queen's Spanish* ("Hey Queen Isabella/ Stay away from that fella") which transposes from a Chigorin French: 1.e4 e6 2.Qe2 e5 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.Qb5 ... usw.

I've played the Munster Attack (1.Nf3 Nc6 2.a3 e5 3.d4 e4 4.d5) a few times, and never lost. But one 'secret weapon' that I'm still working on is the PADDY -- <Prophylactic Anti-Dutch Dirigible Yahoo> Opening.

The idea is simple, if you accept a few principles, such as (1) the French is sound, even after 1.d4 e6 when White has a choice of e-pawn or d-pawn systems; (2) quite a few Black players who go 1.d4 e6 have the Dutch up their sleeve; (3) the Dutch must be stopped -- the 'naive' move-order 1.d4 f5 gives White such options as 2.h3 and 2.Bg5, not to mention the Staunton Gambit 2.e4. These are trickier after 1...e6, though the h3+g4 gambit still works.

Which brings me to my brilliantly simple idea: 1.d4 e6 2.g4!

Try playing a Dutch after that. On the negative side, White is playing a Spike -- aka Grob's Angriff -- with nothing to aim at, Black being uncommitted to anything.

That could be a problem. I couldn't possibly comment.

I think 1.e4 e6 2.d4 b5 is daft, btw, but I have an unwarranted soft spot for 1.e4 e6 2.d4 c5 (which can be reached via 1.d4 c5 as well as many other routes).

It's been called: a Franco-Sicilian, a Franco-Benoni, and a Barcza-Larsen System (both Giddy and Bent played it in the 1960s, with different plans). And yes, it *is* Giddy and Bent, as defences go.

The main problem is When White insiosts on a Sicilian. Black can try, eg, 1.e4 e6 2.d4 c5 3.Nf3 a6 4.Nc3 Qc7 ... but he'll have to play ...cxd4 eventually, and we're in Taormina.

And to look at clumps of painted shamanic wood. Bit like chess, really, before plastic and it's infamous slogan, "Kraft, Standfestigkeit, Weisse".

What did Plasticman say to Eraserhead?

That is absolutely wrong! Do not listen to this man! There is certainly no reason whatsoever that the Dutch are lulling everyone to sleep with 'oh look, we are tiny and harmless' only to conquer and slay for a new world order.

The next time they reach a World Cup Final, they will be permitted to win. Three excruciating defeats is sufficiently character-building for one small submersible nation.

I still think they're going to have the put the whole country on stilts - but that shouldn't be a problem for the people who gave us Gouda, Edam, the VOC, tulipmania, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Euwe, Timman and other Dutch Masters.

That's one jam-packed (scuse me) sentence if there ever was one, heh... Right on target. Some doubts here and there on the sufficientlicity regarding the character building, but darn it, you're close. England's predicament seems even more dire, also examplified by the fact that we invented the Bilderberg conferences.

Did you know that today we had the famous Gay Pride manifestation here in Amsterdam? Not a candidate for your list though, I think...

Many interesting subdivisions there also, like the Grey Pride, European Pride, Pride on Stilts versus the IMF... The works!

But there was Rain on their Parade, thankfully.

I recently caught up on a 2007 movie, a - bear with me - romantic comedy, in which a man accidentally is persuaded to replace, instantly, literally picked right off the street in Amsterdam, Sinterklaas... He of course is in it just for the money, and doesn't have the remotest sense of how to play the role of Sinterklaas (variation on Santa Claus) in a "politically correct" way... In fact, in the movie he becomes a "cult-figure", an instant star, as he appears in all kinds of TV- and children shows, completely bashing the traditional image and reputation of 'Sinterklaas'. <Michiel Romeyn> is starring in that role, and he is bloody brilliant beyond compare. The film's title is "Alles is Liefde"...

But such gems, really stand-out performances, appear more often (problem is they have to enter my radar!), in several genres, and of course it's the synergy and magic of the script, casting, direction etc. all coming together that allow a good actor to really shine.

<soul>. Soul music. Or a hypothetical cartesian dualistic entity composed of 50% light and 50% mucus, moving around inside the body.

<conscience>. Dunno. But if a King has one then a play is said to be the thing to catch it. This is Hamlet's Gambit in chess.

<spirit>. Masked cartoon character drawn by Will Eisner. Liquor. Brio. Elan vital. And anything that goes woo woo woo.

<instinct>. A perfume evolved from bee poo.