Well I have a few questions from a friend of a friend of a friend, and I need an Intelligent, honest, current chess tourney playing, streetwise-ish, Brit to give me an answer (<Meme> was unavailable for comment ;) )..

Okay... If *You* personally wanted to buy 30 chess boards and sets, and 30 analogue chess clocks, not knocked off, all at once In bulk, not second hand, and not top of the range stuff, but not rock bottom tat either, where would you look to begin with? Ebay?
Do you have any contacts you *personally* could go to? If you had 24 hours to buy the aforementioned 'equipment' where would you go first?? And more Importantly.... How much would you be looking at In English £££'s ??

Any good advice and help, and I'd be grateful mate...

And, uh, I don't. Not really. I don't buy stuff through ebay, so I can't vouch for it personally. I do know that most sales of legit chess stuff -- boards, clocks, books, DVDs, etc - tends to be handled now by specialist chess dealers. So, In the UK, I'd probably start with the London Chess Centre, who have a shop in Baker St with large supplies of everything chess-related - http://www.chess.co.uk/

I haven't been to the shop since they moved from Euston last year, but the same people still run it (and publish CHESS magazine).

As for the clocks, it *should* be possible to get a good deal on analog clocks somewhere, with so many clubs and congresses and even individuals switching to digital.

Iv'e been looking for over a week now at vinyl roll out boards and other cheap stuff, but I don't want that, so thought I'd ask active players here too because they know more about the chess tourney scene than I sure do..

I'll just have a look around, because even though I admittedly still know dodgey people, even they won't come up with chess clocks when I look In the back of their van's!!

Iv'e just had an Idea thats kinda grown legs over the last few week, and I could get the sets themselves, but they'd be "seconds", plus I'd have a good Idea where they came from!!! So that's definately a No-No...

I'll ask Mark Crowther by email, we're from the same city, and Iv'e already done my homework (Or my girlfriend has, bless her) on everything else I'd need to hold an unrated event..

Just need the pieces now :)

BTW.. If this turns out like <TheFocus>'s book, or <LMAJ>'s students, please feel free to mock me like I have them Lol..

They've got the great advantage of having their bums wiped by ceilous mums & don't have to devote time to the art of living. But I like beating them : )

There are a few slight differences between chess tournaments in Ireland and England. Venues, for one thing -- it's been normal here for years to hold weekend congresses in hotels, but this is only catching on in the UK now. I suppose Ireland had more hotels looking for customers once the tourist season was over, and attracted by the idea of guests who rarely left the building and used the bar and restaurant a lot between rounds. Which in turn meant players travelling from England and elsewhere to sample the 'atmosphere' at events like Bunratty.

I've always read it as Meme-the-Cat, which seems the 'obvious' way of breaking it down (if you know what memes and cats are, and have met a definite article or two).

But 'Memet' also makes sense. One of my weird dictionaries tells me that 'Hecat' was a mysterious goddess (Shakespeare spelled it Hecate). And 'Memet' -- like Mamet, Mammet, Mommet, Mummet, Mahomet (etc) was one of a large number of English names for demons, all based on warped versions of the name of the prophet.

So 'Memet Hecat' has real demonic cred.

Can't argue with google.

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3 weeks is a long time to change pace though. I'd get quite tired after the first day or so. Pacing in itself is fairly energy-consuming - let alone when you have to change your rhythm every other random time-interval.

How does that even work?!

Perhaps one to skip as well.

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