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To the glorious victors in a historic chess battle 

Sing it from the Church Inn Cheadle and from the Ballrooms of Bramhall. Rejoice in the playgrounds of Poynton and the wilderness of Woodford.
For a great victory was won by the East Cheadle chess chiefs (ECCC) against the formidable warriors from Urmston. 

Draw close, as I relate the wondrous feats of our heroic pawn-pushers this glorious day.
When our winter of defeats turned to glorious summer.  When a seemingly inevitable loss became a time of celebration.

Our opponent, by one of those turns of fate, were none other than the same Urmston club at which we regularly risk life and limb in crossing their fortifications cunning ringing their ancient township.

And this is how it happened, with comments from the exhausted heroes, still recovering from their near super-heroic feats.

Every game had unexpected and at times heart-stopping features. Picture the scene at the start. The special chess sets reserved only for the crack troops of the first team were taken out of their special Tupperware containers and were readied for action.

A first psychological blow was the familiar faces of Dave and Kieran Newton among the Urmston warriors. The Father and Son duo been strong first team regulars for us, before an unfortunate set of circumstances led to their defection and to our rivals in our most dangerous away matches, to tales of which have been chronicled in earlier podcasts ..

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April Fools day has a cultural history in various countries, often involving jokes and even dressing up.I wondered about its history, 

but, could  I even trust the usually reliable Wikipedia to give me an honest answer? Maybe a mischievous wiki prankster might slip in some bogus news. I decided not to risk it, beyond noting traditions were often associated with a national victory over a rival nation.

So I carried out an empirical test. I turn to The Guardian to search for this year’s April foolery. In the podcast I explain a few of the news stories in the April 1st edition, and offer a challenge to any listener who would like to take on the Guardian in its yearly efforts at fooling its audience ...

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From  Shakespeare to Punk Rock and Punk Chess

In this podcast I trace the origins of punk, from Shakespeare to today’s music scene and the rise of the chess punk.

My interest in punk in general, and punk chess in particular drew my attention via Dr Google to a poem by from the great English poet and satirist John Dryden..
Mac Flecknoe; or, A satyr upon the True-Blue-Protestant Poet, T.S.[1]) is a verse mock-heroic satire written by John Dryden. It is a direct attack on Thomas Shadwell, another prominent poet of the time.

In his vicious poetic attack on his literary enemy, Shadwell, Dryden begins his poem  poem begins in the tone of an epic masterpiece, presenting Shadwell's defining characteristic as dullness. He is Dryden subverts the theme of the defining characteristic of an epic hero by giving Shadwell a negative characteristic as his only virtue.  There is very little ambiguity about it - Dryden uses classic tones is saying that Shadwell and his work are no better than excrement. 

The reference to punk can be found in the couplet in the poem about a nursery in the land of NonSense ruled by, who else, Shadwell, crudely throughout disguised as Sh-. Readers would have no doubt about Dryden’s target ..

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The Midnight Library, by Matthew Haig. A book review.

19 years before she decided to die, Nora Seed sat in the warmth of the small library at Hazeldene school in the town of Bedford.
‘Nora, dear, it’s natural to worry about your future' said the librarian, Mrs Elm, her eyes glimmering like sunshine and frost. Mrs Elm made her first move. A knight hopping over the new row of white pawns. ‘Of course you’re going to be worried about the exams, but you could be anything you want to be, Nora’.
Nora pushed a pawn forward two spaces.

Thus starts the spectacular novel by Matthew Haig, one of the most imaginative and prolific English literary figures.

[Don’t panic if you aren’t one of my chess-obsessed friends. The novel is not about chess, although its first paragraph naturally hooked me.} 

The powerful central conceit is an exploration of ‘what might have been’ in the life of Nora Seed, a character who increasingly came to regard her life as a series of missed chances, some relatively trivial, some very important, such as her decision three days before her marriage to announce to her distressed about-to-be husband that the wedding would now not go on ...

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Paddy Gallagher
@pad_gal
The James Webb telescope continues to take stunning photos of the cosmos; 
this image is of an asteroid named 
POT 8 O found in the Kuiper belt…
@JonathanLevitt7
The Russians have announced plans to build a docking port on the asteroid for 24 military grade Spudnik spacechips. Donald Trump will be joint financing the development and opening a golf resort alongside.

DavidHarpham77
Thursday question. Did the inventor of the door knocker win a Nobel prize? 🤔 hope that works for you. 
Me
Door knocker, No bell.  I had to work on that one.

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The politics of chess. The case of Shohreh Bayat

It should not be a great surprise to learn that top level Chess, like other sports,  has its share of politics.  A case study is that of the gifted Iranian player Shohreh Bayat.

Shohreh, now domiciled in England fell foul of the chess authorities some years ago, but her case was brought into the headlines recently by an investigatory report by CNN on which I have based this podcast.

In 2020, during the women’s world chess championships  Shohreh was criticised in Iran for not wearing the appropriate headscarf. 

Enter the Chess Federation President, Arkady Dvorkovich. 
President Dvorkovich served as Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister between 2012-2018 following a stint as the Kremlin’s top economic adviser. He has always maintained that his political stance does not influence his work for FIDE, the chess organising body. He has also pointed out that he was one of the most senior establishment figures in Russia to question the war in Ukraine... 

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Porridge takes a goodly while for the body to digest, which means it releases its energy more slowly, keeping you feeling fuller for longer. This last property can also be blamed for the "porridge glow" many people experience when entering crowded public transport in the mornings.

The Porridge song

With acknowledgment to George Gershwin 

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My weekly visit to Poynton. I remember last week’s excitement and ambulances at Waitrose. No such drama, but the trip was not without interest.

I came across an example of unexpected behaviour which prompted this podcast, and brought back memories of a crazy football cup semifinal the previous day. 

The story unfolded shortly after I had negotiated the perilous free passage zone, which replaces pedestrian crossings and traffic lights as you approach the centre of the little town of Poynton.
I can now relax, as my journey only requires a short drive down the High Street and a left turn into the Waitrose store awaiting me.
Traffic was moderately heavy and slowing  down ahead of me. I waited patiently and  I caught sight of a young man striding along the pavement/sidewalk to my left. I could only describe his stance as brimming with confidence and even joy. As he approached I could see he was wearing the black tracksuit which also bore the red insignia of Manchester United football club.
For months, Manchester United supporters appear in public with all signs of their favourite team concealed from other passers by. But today, supporters of the club are still celebrating a famous victory over Liverpool the day previously. 

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@JohnWest_JAWS
Economists have calculated that the 30 pieces of silver given to Judas Iscariot would today, accounting for inflation, be worth £10m.

@Iratus Ursus Major
This very successful poster tweets in lengthy and sweary threads. His visual self is of a great bear.
 [I have abbreviated a recent post contributing to the recent debate on returning to traditional British values].
'Can anyone please explain to me which exact British traditions or values are suppressed / destroyed/ cancelled / ruined / stolen / taken away (select whichever term you would like to use) when we as a progressive society demand that issues around racism, anti-semitism, Islamophobia, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Homophobia or any discrimination against marginalised groups are called out?'

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Chess Memories. Has Stockport become East Cheadle’s bunnies?

The pulsating twist and turn of the events means  that my reporting may on this rare occasion fall below its customary high standard of accuracy. 
As I recall, on my arrival at our place of many a mighty battle, the visiting players had arrived, and discarded the extra layers of clothing they wore, after learning that members of the last team to play there were still suffering from frost bite. 
I consulted my briefing notes. As usual, we were outgunned according to ranking, but not outrageously so. If we all played above our rankings, an unexpected victory would be ours.
But the realist in me warned against optimism ...

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