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In a recent podcast I talked about Chess Tantrums. The subject cropped up again this week, with examples from my two favourite games, chess and tennis. I’m concentrating on the tennis  outbursts of Andy Murray and the chess rants of Magnus Carlsen ...

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Wit and Wisdom October 24-31, 2023

@Kangeroos991
Well done Scotland. Protester holding a placard saying ‘Scotland hated Trump before it became fashionable’.

@SayeedaWarsi
To Hamas I say End the violence and Let them Go 
To Israel I say End the Occupation and Let them Live 
#CeasefireNow 
@TonySpeight1
This lady is one of the few relatively recent appointments to the HoL. She deserves her seat and the country is better for her common sense interventions.

@JudithArnott
'Arnopp's #Tudor books have kept me enthralled through lock down. I would recommend them to anyone interested in Tudor history.'  
@Tudor tweet
Your books look interesting. I must confess I found out about them while looking for a different set of Tudor books 

@waynemeadows
The @PBS show “Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover” was terrible. It was a very one sided liberal cry session that wasn’t really about his takeover at all.  It was two hours I’ll never get back ...

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Defender or Enemy of Free Speech? Review of ‘Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover’ on PBS

The PBS programme screened in the U.K. on 29 October 2023 revealed Elon Musk as both a defender and an enemy of free speech.

Some of us Twitter users are in a state  of denial over the brutal cutting down of our favourite Social Media platform by its ruthless new owner Elon Musk. His act of Twittercide shows a disregard for the affections of users both for the now defunct little blue bird and for the compatibility of brand name and symbol. 

Clearly, Mr Musk has  total self-confidence in his business decisions. After all, haven’t they made him compete so successfully in the Croesus competition recently, outperforming other super billionaires such as Bill Gates, King Charles the third, and the assorted highnesses of the Gulf States?

In October 2020 in the run-up to the presidential election, Twitter made an unprecedented move temporarily to block tweets on the New York Post’s news story about Hunter Biden‘s laptop. The tweets were judged both unreliable and potentially damaging the the election success of President Biden,

President Trump lost the election, and used the censorship by Twitter as evidence of the big steal. 

The Twitter content team warned against the Twitter site being used to encourage an insurrection. Trump was temporarily blocked by Twitter.  Musk called the block a great mistake which had undermined his belief in Twitter, calling it an example of ‘the woke mind virus’.  His anti woke attacks made him a popular free speech advocate. In 2022, Twitter blocked a Musk platform, the Babylon Bee, an outlet for the free speech views. Musk began his move to take over Twitter. At first it was a friendly business relationship.  He was about to join the board when further dispute led him announce a hostile takeover.
Within a month he announced his arrival in a a typical off-beat way. ‘Let that sink in’. 
He couched his intentions accompanying this quirky tweet with a video of himself carrying a kitchen sink ...

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Who are your friends, and should your boss know.

I interrupt the planned agenda of the Didsbury Lit & Phil Society to gather views on a news item from ITV about disclosing workplace friends to their HR department.

The meeting is reported unedited. Extraneous noises are due to late-arriving members and supplies of coffee. There was some confusion about the recording of the meeting as some members had been engaged in their own conversations as I set the scene.

Listeners may find some of the discussion disturbingly frank about workplace practices. 

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The Great Fruit Fly battle. A New Weapon in the Fight.

A public service broadcast on dealing with a fruit fly invasion. Views expressed are personal and should not be acted on as if backed by expert authority.

After nearly three months of intensive battle, the invading army of fruit flies are being driven out of the stronghold established in my  kitchen area.

It has been a savage fight to the death. Some months ago the advance troops arrived. Many were kamakazi flies arriving in squadrons seeking death by appearing and plunging to destruction shortly after I had poured a glass of Budgeon’s red. 

I estimate the average number arriving on a mission and getting through to their target were around six. I refuse to grant them success in ruining my drinks, so I estimate I have swallowed approximately 200 flies since early summer.

The neighbourhood fly watch reported similar attacks on fresh fruit left exposed to the invading forces in nearby kitchens. 

An action group was assembled drawn from members of the Lapwing Literary and Philosophical Society, who also drew on the scientific expertise of my neighbour Dr Glycol ...

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Wit and wisdom of the Website formerly known as Twitter.  October 20, 2023

An excessive number of tweets recently have been about the Israel/Gaza situation. I will deal with that topic elsewhere. Here are a few more humorous posts. Some are in longer ‘threads’ than usual: 

@simonharris_mbd
Let me be very clear regarding my baby formula fundraiser, as I keep seeing people moaning about what parents spend their money on. 
I don’t care if it’s other household essentials. 
I don’t care if it’s alcohol. 
I don’t care if it’s cigarettes. 
I don’t care if it’s drugs. 
I don’t care if it’s Sky. 
I don’t care if it’s Costa. 
I don’t care if it’s depleted uranium. 
I don’t care if it’s not-yet-depleted uranium. 
I don’t care if it’s some sort of ‘halfway’ uranium where you get a small discount if it’s only depleted a little bit. 
NO INNOCENT BABY DESERVES TO GO HUNGRY 
@ostarali 
Sorry, I don’t understand. Real baby milk comes for free!  My two children never had a drop of formula and never went hungry. Both now fit, strong, healthy young adults.
@mike_paxman
My formula has gone off because I stored it next to my uranium. Will I be eligible for more?

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Chess Tantrums.

The chess world has once again been gripped by a tale involving Magnus Carlsen and possible cheating by an opponent.
Magnus is no longer chess world champion. This is because of an earlier incident in which Carlson publicly accused his young opponent of cheating. After the game, Magnus pulled out of the next world championships, and has remained somewhat in the wilderness since.

Now competing again, he loses again to a fellow grandmaster, who plays a brilliant game, which was subsequently described as a masterpiece. In his post match interview, Magnus claims he had been distracted by the electronic watch being worn by his opponent. Very quickly, his remarks were taken to be another accusation of cheating. Despite his efforts to clarify, Carlsen was unable to damp down the fire he had started. To make matters worse, computer analysis showed his opponent had played at such a high level, that it was almost beyond his playing strength. 

Magnus is acquiring a reputation as a bad loser. This is a shame for Chess’s superstar of his generation, and arguably of all time.

Writing in the discussion site Quora, a fellow grandmaster mused about the way Chess players resign. Sometimes gracefully sometimes badly he commented. An example of a gracious loser is Boris Spassky, many years ago, after losing a game to Bobby Fischer. Immediately afterwards, Bobby gave a public demonstration of the game that was so brilliant it caused Spassky to stand and give Fisher a well deserved ovation ...

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William Brown, Mrs Bott and the Bubble Gum mystery

When school teacher Mr Naismith took on his duties as Chess Master at the Village Hall, he little expected to become embroiled in a mystery involving Mrs Bott, the dinner lady at his school and mother of Elisabeth Bott, close friend of William Brown, who were two of his chess pupils. 

Master surveyed the scene ahead of him at the village hall, home to East Lincolnshire Chess club.
His dream was reaching completion with the recruitment of the six new junior members to the club. Tonight, they were to receive their first lesson in writing down the chess moves.

In front of him, on the long club table there were six boards with chess sets arranged on them in a line. Seated at each set was a junior, and opposite  a volunteer from the ranks of the senior members of the club. 
He picked up a spare queen and rapped it on one of the tables.
The hubbub subsided.

“Good evening, all” he began.
“Good evening, Master” the juniors chorused. All except one. Elizabeth Bott. She was crouched over her score sheet protecting her work from William Brown seated at the next board.
He decided it best not to draw attention to Elizabeth. She often forgot to address him by his correct chess title, using his work name of Mr Naismith. Her mother was a dinner lady at the School he taught at, and  where the other juniors were recruited from. 

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Artificial Intelligence and real creativity. How I discovered the potential of ChatAI

I recently offered Morgan, a young member of my family, some advice in her career as a writer. It turned out I learned far more than I expected, as the following extracts from my LWD notes demonstrated, in the form of emails to Morgan and her writing Partner Rhys.

Me

Hope you have been getting my weekly newsletter. my idea is to draw your work to the attention of personal contacts. Many of them are interested in books, and more generally in what I’ve called everyday creativity. So we could amplify what message you want people to hear to about ‘brand M & G’ At present your very professional website does that. Next, it’s up to us the find a message which eventually reaches book buyers, but also editors, commissioners of chat shows, magazines and so on. In other words we create a message which could be in the shape of a short news item. This could be expanded into different media, podcasts, etc etc.

Morgan

Something like this? 

Morgan Rickards and Rhys Jones are a Welsh writing duo hailing from the Rhondda, UK. Friends since school, they have both been fascinated by Celtic mythology and classical fantasy. When they are not climbing mountains or kayaking the rivers of their beautiful and rugged country, they are writing about alien worlds and bloody medieval sagas. 
Their next adventure is currently in the works, expanding upon and exploring more of the Godless world and the characters introduced in their debut novel, The Long Road. Full of intrigue and adventure and interesting characters that are faced with great physical, mental and moral challenges, this is definitely a duo to keep an eye on and a story not to miss.. 

Me

I think I can work up something from your blurb

Morgan

I fed the start into ChatAI, asking it to finish the short article. And this is what it churned out!

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Before you have a recognised grade you will have have a provisional grade which is explained below. Grades change as you play other graded players and the authenticated results are published regularly.

Theses  estimates were provided by Hakon Strand, a chess correspondent and data analyst who likes to classify himself as a friend of the once and perhaps future chess world champion, Magnus Carlsen. He was responding to the question 

My ELO chess rating is a 1630. Am I advanced or intermediate? 

Strand replied as follows:

Generally, it goes something like this:

<1200: Beginner
1200–1600: Club player
1600–2000: Strong club player
2000–2200: Expert
2200: Master
2300: FIDE Master
2400: International Master
2500: Grandmaster
2600: Strong Grandmaster
2700: Super Grandmaster
2800: God mode 
Strand provided the answer to the question as follows: 
If your grade is in the 1600 you are an above average club player.

I go on to look at the range of grades for a club playing in a Northern  Chess League
TR

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