*Prat*, one 't', is 'a fool', possibly derived from an old word for buttocks (hence 'prat-fall'). Shakespeare used it to mean 'a fall landing on the prat'. Unlike a spring landing on the bum, a winter landing on the ice, or a summer landing on the moon.

The Shakespearean buttock sense was sometimes spelled 'pratt', as it dates from the age of *Free Love & Speeling* (1950s? 1590s? ... something like that). But <prat = fool> is normally seen with a single 't'. Tea for two it ain't, okay?

But yeah, what a pratt. Crack and all.

Speaking of Beckham, number two son, Romeo, aged eight, is making his debut as a fashion designer. Which is fine, in terms of 21st century celebrity and prodigyhood. If I were Mom Posh (an improbable concept, I admit) I might be a tad worried about number one son, Brooklyn. Is he dealing? Does he carry a gun? Does he have a posse of pals with Noo Yawk accents and a propensity for violence?

If there was any history of sibling rivalry, I'd worry about a very small fashionista being dredged from the East River. That's well within the range of stuff that *normal* Moms worry about, so I'd guess that Posh Mom has trouble on her hands.

David, an old-fashioned metrosexual - the kind of guy who wears dresses and votes Conservative - will stay out of it. Never signed up to be role model for the world, did he?

Speaking of sport, William Gibson makes what looks like a tiny error in his new book, Zero History. A character named Fiona, a motorbike courier in London, refers in passing to 'hockey', meaning the ice variety.

In England, hockey is a field sport - like hurling, but slower and more genteel. The other game is called ice hockey.

Now we have <Chaffonyms> and can *really* confuse the records.

Clem, however, does not seem to have been the happiest of campers. While researching his story (with key nuggets supplied by <whiteshark> and <Bob Crisp>) I found this self-description by Ingleby, circa 1860:

<"I am morally weak in many respects. In some matters I have been systematically deceptive, and occasionally cowardly and treacherous. I am passionately fond of personal beauty; but on the whole, I dislike my kind, and my natural affections are weak.">

Definitely a chessplayer, I think. Perhaps with deep urges to play the French, but forced by social norms to push it out to ...e5. When he talks about 'his kind', I don't think it's something sexual (he was married, not that this meant anything in the Golden Age of Beards).

Not to be confused with <The Age of Golden Beards> - that was the Vikings in Kievan Rus and Vinland.

Every American President between Lincoln and McKinley had facial hair: 40 years of Oval Orifice Face Fungus. Then it left, never to return. My theory is that the Presidential Beards were an advance battalion of HG Wells's Martians. When Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley were all shot, they reckoned the game was up, and launched the rockets.

<and occasionally cowardly and treacherous> ... I almost envy the poor guy. Most days, I get to do 'cowardly', but it's been years since anyone gave me the opportunity to do something genuinely treacherous.

I'll survive. I've been a cult figure four times over, and there are plenty of gallery heads and film people who think I'm the best art/culture critic around.>>

You were in almost exactly the same place some months ago by your own choice. Chin up! :) You'll be fine.

Here is our Dream Team for <Papua New Guinea>:

I recently posted the following message on the Pogo game page. Not so much making a strategic point as making sure everyone got the whiff of my <Eau de l'Erudition> aftershave. Even though I've stopped shaving.

<That which is overdesigned, too highly specific, anticipates outcome; the anticipation of outcome guarantees, if not failure, the absence of grace.>

So, my dear Mrs Alekhine, you see that *the absence of Grace* is a very bad thing indeed. The line comes from *All Tomorrow's Parties* by William Gibson, where it is spoken by a mysterious assassin named Konrad (he even has his own wikipedia entry -- Konrad (assassin), as opposed to Konrad Adenauer, Konrad Zuse, or Konrad der Pfaffe ('The Priest', They Called Him ...).

Konrad looks like a German Professor, and excels in the Tao of Terminating People. In his final scene, he is hustled into an elevator by security goons to be hauled before the boss. Reaching for the weapon concealed in his clothing, he is pleased that there are only seven of them, and they are young and over-confident, and quite lacking in Grace.

<The USA seem to be suffering>

I do indeed have Gysin's signature on a copy of The Third Mind.

Heh. I was about to add "like most of my books, I don't know where it is" - then I glanced about a foot to my left and saw it embedded between Taussig and a Russian grammar, next to Duchamp's letters. Eclectic, or what?

<Far worse, I fear. It's this persistent delusion many people have that there is something called 'playing like a 2342'.> Precisely, and more "true" than most will *ever* realize, not just "on first thought."

<I've played dozens of people with that kind of rating (including a few of the players in the current olympiad), and sometimes even beaten them. Usually, however, I lose. That's because they come at me with guns blazing, full of confidence. Put the same guys up against a Chuky or a Kramnik and they play like scared rabbits, use bad openings, and blunder.

It's psychology, and chess is riddled with it. For some weird reason, chessplayers hate to admit this.> Exactly - they (most of them) "hate" it because it takes them out of their pathetic little comfort zone, where they can hide behind their numbers and do not have to face the rigorous analysis of a game played badly, cowardly, like a scared rabbit, shaking in fear, to avoid facing the awkward self investigation as to why, and how, one entered a game with a <bad attitude>, and learning from that.

Good stuff <Dom>, and your comments at several games by ChuckerForce, also at the Olympiad page, are spot on; Ivanchuk in this form, is, and has been ever since the 90s as I can remember, one of the most beautiful and powerful creative minds ever in chess, rivaling Garri K. at his best.

Scary.... I caught on to Chuky's mood and zone immediately, while replaying (the first *I* replayed. of his 100% string) his Sokolov massacring, and realized this is one of those special times in chess, moving me to the very very outer edge of my seat, which doesn't happen that often with me.

An added delight here is the glorious unimportance of "age" as we see Ivanchuk stir up the juices and utilizing them in all the right places, like a well oiled machine... I do hope he will keep playing competitive chess and will delight us like the Korchnois and Beliavsky's of this world, or like Karpov getting all nervously excited again when he slugged it out in the monster 42-round Blitz extravaganza, last year at the Tal Memorial. Respect!

On the Chucky-Sokolov page I even had to think back for some reasson at the imposing name of a new "module" that I bought "as a kid", as a follow up on the Classic module that accompanied my first ever sensory board chess computer:

I think it was a <Scisys> machine, and the name of the Module was:

Hyper Modern Super Strong

equals Ivanchuk. heh

I mean the precision execution and vision in the Jobava game today...

Chuky reminds me of Korchnoi, when he was at his peak. Incredibly deep and imaginative moves combined with a fierce will to win - and equally capable of playing an attack or a heroic defence plus counter-attack.

I see that some Russian guy managed to draw with him today, with white. He must be good.

It's a self-explained paradox, featuring you:

"very broadly" is at odds with "a typical 2300 player"

the "very"-part, but of course there is a measuring tape, somewhere...

Plus it should never be interpreted as a fixed attribute, as you say, as it is a purely by definition flawed, and statistical(ly-agreed upon), approximation.

There might be the fitting/fixating of a pattern, but then you'd have to become very specific and proven accurate to settle "your" case overwhelmingly.

Darn it!!

Good verse by the way.