Not saying I hear it every day, but it wouldn't surprise me if I did.

But don't get me started ...

<spissitude>, meaning 'density'.

All-time favorite (according to Ray Keene, Jon Speelman is also a fan of this word, found in Chambers dictionary):

<taghairm>: a form of divination, carried out wearing a bullock's hide under a waterfall (Scottish).

Doing crossword puzzles, when all else fails, I use the 'chess engine for solvers' - http://www.crosswordsolver.org/ - a 'cheat' site that feeds back words with given letters.

So, I was checking 8-letter words of the form ---T-I-T ... and got 'district' (which was correct) along with the quite unexpected, um, 'hitlist' with an 's' before it.

Hahaha, I laughed myself silly.

You have just discovered the joys of the "delete" button.

(17) Girl in grass plot around sundial, she hopes (7)

She hopes? Could be something like 'aspires' but how do you explain the other bits of the clue? Could be an anagram of 'sundial', maybe, but how does the grass plot fit in? Any other words for sundial? Gnomon?

Suddenly, I remembered Lewis Carroll. Who had explained some of the nonsense words in 'Alice', such as 'chortle' being a mix of 'snort' and 'chuckle'. Didn't Jabberwocky have a word meaning 'grass around a sundial' ...

Es Brillig war.

Il brilgue; les toves lubricilleuses...

No, no, the *English* version ...

<Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...>

That's it! A 'wabe' is the grass around a sundial ... wrap it around a girl's name, Ann, and we get: <Wannabe>

Which the dictionary defines as "someone who aspires ineffectually to a particular lifestyle or image; a vain fantasist".

Nothing like *our* heroic but wascally Wannabe, of course, inventor of the Wannabe Gambit, 2.Ke2!!

ALL USERS!!! ... who find this type of CRAP offensive ... should e-mail him, (chess@chessgames.com); and request this. (One user might not mean much, the more people ask, the more weight I think that this RIGHTOUES request would carry.)

So I'm trying to avoid using the scumbag's (non-)name.

Unfortunately, at this, otherwise great CG.com site, Delete, Delete, Delete has been becoming an M.O. of late.

Blank bio!!!

Its good to be <Domdaniel> right about now.

-- Shakespeare. >

I think he was probably from Na Zillun -- he had a Richard Taylor-ish way with words.>

Well! Actually I just watched France beat England! Quite a dramatic game. NZ cant take anyone for granted...it's like chess!

Re Bill..not sure who he would support...but as a poet he is certainly up there with me!

I really cant see how they passed me over me for the Nobel!

But I was already a fan of Transtromer by the way so that is good he won I think.

Has someone been attacking you von Domski?

I think I just get ignored by everyone (or most everyone) which might be worse than being attacked!

I love the way, on this site, you can conjure people up just by mentioning their name. Met some great friends that way. Good to see you again.

Weird as it may sound, *two* somebodies have been attacking me. Well, one nobody and an unknown quantity, to be precise.

The nobody is a total cretin, previously called Lennonfan aka Lemming, who has had about 20+ sockpuppets deleted and keeps coming back.

His latest wheeze is putting criminally libellous attacks in so-called game collections or user biogs, where there's no whistle-blow facility. He attacked AJ and me (I'm an ex-con and a sex criminal, apparently ... if I really was, I bet I'd have the connections so that somebody would cut his toxic head off for £50). AJ and I can look after ourselves, but he also attacked Annie, who isn't involved in this. He's beneath contempt.

Yeah, I'm a bit pissed off. But I just got an email from CG promising 'special measures' to keep him out. Which is good.

The other attacker is a sockpuppet of some kind who didn't like my intervention when the ongoing Tagalog war spilled onto CG's own forum and made a mess. Some nut-job. Joined yesterday, wiped today.

These bums got no style, no sense of dignity, proportion, etiquette. No class, in the non-snobbish sense.

Sorry about the Nobel ... but isn't Transtromer in his 80s? You may have to wait until you're a bit more senile.

Years ago, while still in high school, I learned a lot of Shakespeare's verses by heart. The ones I had liked, in a sort of an eclectic fashion, without really paying much attention to the context.

I'll do my best. After I've written to Annie, who's top of the list and who may never speak to me again if I don't make *some* effort.

I was watching Carlsen vs Vallejo-Pons today, when this position arose after Black's 31...Rg3. It rang a bell, as I'll explain.

click for larger view

White is threatening b4, forking the Black Knights, just as soon as he has carried out a little piece rearrangement. Black's Knights have few escape squares - so Vallejo, in time pressure, is trying to stave it off by using his Rook to attack White's pieces. At the moment, b4 would leave the Nc3 hanging.

So White played 32.Ne4 and Black went wrong with 32...Rxg2. Taking the Knight is better: after 32...Nxe4 33.Bxe4 black can choose between 33...b6 (with an escape hatch) or the tricky 33...Nb3!? 34.Rd1 Re3 35.Bc2 Nc5. If White plays 33.Rxe4, then ...Rxg2 is good for Black - the Bc2 is attacked, and if it moves the b-pawn is pinned. Black gets some initiative to counter White's dangerous central pawns.

But in the game 32...Rxg2 33.Rd2 Rxd2 34.Nxd2 led to this position:

click for larger view

The fork b4 is coming, and despite a 'free' move Black can do nothing. His only safe Knight move is ...Nd7, but then b4 traps the other Knight anyway. Paco tried 34...b5, but Carlsen emerged with an extra piece after 35.b4, and soon won.

I've seen this idea before, especially with Knights short of squares. But it reminded me of an odd variation on the theme from one of my own games. I won, but I missed a very nice idea in the process.

Here's the position: I was Black, in my first tournament for 17 years.

click for larger view

I played 26...exf5 here, and won in another ten moves. What I missed was 26...g5, forking the B and N. It can be taken en passant, of course - but Black calmly replies 27.fxg6 fxg6, and White can do nothing to stop ...g5 being played for a 2nd time. His Bishop is pinned after the pawn recapture, and the Knight has no good squares.

I've looked in vain for a similar idea in other games -- pawn fork, e.p capture and recapture, and no way to escape the 2nd fork. Anyone ever seen it before?

"To Moro, and to Spassky, and to Tal..." is about all I recall now.

The same thing happened to me in Vancouver International a few years ago. The knife/l.opener was a yellow cedar carving by a Haida native artist. But, I got it back a month later, after it was determined I had not had any terrorist intentions :-)

After 'Hamlet', I was flying through London Heathrow, which had lots of x-ray machines even then. "Excuse me sir, is that a knife in your briefcase" said the security officer.

He then took it out, called over a fellow officer, and they checked its bendiness and fragility against some checklist. And gave it back to me.

Two months later, after the Nottingham launch of 'Robin Hood', I'm in the local regional airport. Where they simply confiscated a near-identical item.

These days, I'd probably be renditioned to a remote island for two attempts to bring a knife onto a plane.

And gnomes, elves, dryads and the ghost of Kevin Costner applauded him, as Sherwood Forest was saved from a fate worse than housing.

Actually, I *was* in (a) prison once. Interviewing the Governor about a new, exciting, arts-for-cons scheme, which quietly stopped working once the press had been ushered out.

But there's a definite frisson of something when a prison governor claps you heartily on the shoulder and says "So, is this your first time in jail, ho ho ho?"