“I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.”
Michel Foucault
On Friday the twenty-third of December, the last eighty-five kilometers of the three hundred and more I cycled through and through this week took me to Bangkok Chess Club and back. There I played in a blitz tournament, and although a little tipsy at times, I put many people much higher rated in serious trouble, with everyone saying I am stronger now -don’t ask me how! The tournament winner I played in the last round, after the game my Lithuanian opponent rated around 2300 ELO said he was very worried about my kingside attack and was somewhat relived to win through! It was a great evening. So nice to see friends after all that has happened of late, check the video below to see what Bangkok Chess Club is all about. And before you ask, yes I do wear a bandanna, and Endgame clothing also http://www.endgameclothing.com/ , and yes the shorts I wear are army shorts, Calvin Klein of course; the colour coordination is (from top to bottom) dark green, dark blue, dark green, and then dark blue bike below -excluding the heavy orange belt. And why? I’m Irish/Scots by ancestry, that’s why. Why is the hue dark in both cases, well just look into their respective histories to find that answer. But just before you peek at the vid, Peter’s good website can be found here. http://bangkokchess.com/
I appear @ 0.15 and 1.18, BKK itself appears @ 4.00.
Chess is about struggles is it not?
“I’m no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls.”
I was there, I played Black, it was a Ruy Lopez, Chigorin variation. I still remember his look at me after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 occurred, he thought ‘Should I play 3. Bc4 or Bb5’ he played the latter. His book on the Lopez back then was the best book still to this day written on it and btw yes he does have a 100% record against a certain GM names Gary Kasparov…no wonder I lost!!!!
Sweby adds details about Mardle’s award of a C.B.E. Assigning a home to William Ward is dubious. Himself aside, Mardle is the best chess player Luton has ever produced, and professionally, the most accomplished.
Tell me why I don’t NOT like Mondays? Ha ha, no need to since the question is rhetorical.
It’s because on Monday next week I thought I’d saunter off down to some place called London and mill about in The British Museum. There, I shall meet former Luton player Nick McBride, and together we’ll have a look at the Lewis Chessmen.
“In everyone there sleeps A sense of life lived according to love. To some it means the difference they could make By loving others, but across most it sweeps, As all they might have done had they been loved. That nothing cures.”
Faith Healing -Philip Larkin
Depart here: arrive there. I amabout to ‘win the exchange’, to put it metaphorically for ahead is an ascent into the sky by A380, leaving behind a bid farewell to the fragments of a life long since passed, still echoing, resonating into that to come: the resumption of the life I chose, the airline chosen to carry me there, and my child waiting for her father to carry her, therefore, an exchange of locations awaits. I will ‘win the exchange’ but it is not without an evinced sense of sorrow. To cherish that disparate fragment left behind so deeply, I will miss it…I know how I will feel and think during take-off next week: ‘Into my heart an air that kills’…one day next year the Bedfordshire chess scene will feel like ‘the land of lost content’, that I can tell … .
Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
A Shropshire Lad v.40 A. E. Housman
Behold the spectacle of Bedford Chess Club! Before departing I went there to see both it and its members new and old. It was great to thank Mr. Paul Habershon for the help he has given and to be escorted to the bar by Mr. Nigel Staddon, now 87 years old, able to answer the questions I posed. It was also a pleasure to meet Mr. Steve Pike, and have a chat at the bar… in fact I wonder and ask myself did I spend more time chatting in the bar than in the club watching games? All in all, truly amazing it was and whether or not I had drunk cider just before never mattered…not that I would ever do such a thing you understand being on the medication that I am!
Oops! Now where’s that delete button gone?
At the centre of the county scene flourishes Bedford Chess Club. I was so welcomed, it was so very touching but within my heart a sadness spoke too, it said ‘When you close the door as you leave, you must say goodbye to not just the members but the club as a whole’. Many I met were kind and so polite, happy to see me again. There was much to talk about and part of me wanted not to go but to stay… .
I left the building and there something left me…when the exit door was opened it jarred then splintered through my heart…but I remembered as one door closes another opens, and close it I did…so upon the street I stood alone… .
“Loneliness clarifies. Here silence stands Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken, Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken, Luminously-peopled air ascends; And past the poppies bluish neutral distance Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence: Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.”
Here -Philip Larkin
There, stood staring into an avenue empty, my brain stopped processing for a split second or two: then I heard the trees arching over rustle in the wind that gusted suddenly, saw the street lights become brighter, felt the pain of ‘farewell’ sharpening, and for a moment I was disorientated.Towards the train station I walked happy but sad, sad but happy as I had an evening so inspired by the courtesy and company of others, and it cannot be repeated… .
To the action… .
In Bedford 3, I offer assistance to Steve Pike’s son at @6.10 then appear!
Farewell beloved Bedford Chess Club…it was such a pleasure, I do hope one day I will see you again…once I have won the exchange (of locations) and played on with a better position…perhaps I will return with my daughter to play also…if I can free us up… .
“Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.”
Henri J. M. Nouwen
Life moves us on. And on. And whilst at the station awaiting an extortionately priced train to where I grew up, that afternoon of horrendous delays extended long into the evening… . It was then, and only then, that my love of the chess club in Bedford became perceptible as a dissonant fragment of a life long passed by, thus a cynical epiphany occurred. I told myself, ‘what I tolerate, so must my child, as she will endure what I endure’. Crap train service as always, for example. I told myself, ‘If you tolerate this (extortionate and crap train service) then your child will be (the) next (to tolerate this extortionate and crap train service)’… .
…on what this site initially became…on what this site is now becoming…on what this site cannot become…
On what this site initially became…
…once upon a time, the chess-related musings of an adrift academic were bound playfully and electronically in this online journal of sorts. They grew and grew as the decade did too. I kept on because I love to write whether I had much to say or not; therefore, being read by others was usually of little or no importance, comparatively speaking. Content was based on personal thoughts and experience on various topics with no intended audience borne in mind. With topics broadening, my own take on things always shaped the narrative I constructed: I often thought I was insightful but never that I was right. Sometimes imagination gave rise to originality: and of that I have always remained proud. I often introduced humour, believing that I am funnier than I really am. Sometimes, I found my own style antithetical to the conservatism I believe chess is plagued by -oftentimes that has put a gracious smile on my face… .
On what this site is now becoming…
…this site is now becoming a collaboration of chess in Bedfordshire: much more so of the past than the present -that has become the dominant trend. I document the history of chess in Bedfordshire as much as I can, and as time has passed I have become more thorough and resourceful. However, I am not a trained historian as my background lies principally in philosophy but yes it is true I did study some modules on history as both an undergraduate and a post-graduate too; furthermore, I have trained myself up, particularly in terms of postmodern history. Since 2015, I have only read history and historiography as well as those philosophers who have been so influential on postmodern history, such as Nietzsche (whom I once wrote a 19,000 word dissertation on, entitled: Can the Will to Power be Found in The Birth of Tragedy?), also Richard Rorty and Foucault and I suppose certain structualists such as Claude Levi-Strauss too. Regarding postmodernism, mostly I keep to Hayden White, Keith Jenkins and Alan Muslow.
Some friends and former playing partners back home describe me as the ‘go to guy’ for the history of chess in Bedfordshire. This compliment says more about the lack of interest in the subject than my own endeavour. As mentioned, I am too adrift from academia to feel chuffed. Rather. I tend to lament that my historical research, like my chess, just isn’t what it should be. Even though I may well have a broad understanding of Bedfordshire chess history courtesy of the volume of research put into it, all of which began in 2014, this is not something I am particularly proud of. Nonetheless, out of courtesy compliments are graciously received. If the truth be told, I just see it as my job and only that – after all someone’s got to do it and no one else is that interested!
Amongst the many others, I have created three categories: ‘Bedfordshire Chess’ and ‘History of Bedfordshire Chess’ and ‘Luton Chess Club’. This website is slowly moving towards a consolidation of those (all of which can be found in one of the toolbars to the right).
On what this site cannot become…
…I like to be both creative and amusing when I can be, factor in that playfulness has been an ever-present factor, the content of this site should be thought of as multifarious. It could be said I continue to enjoy undermining the conservatism I believe chess is underpinned by even after all these years, and often try to use humour to do it still, believing I have got better at it. Consequently, despite the general direction its going in, this site cannot only be about Chess in Bedfordshire and nor will it be. It may become noted for that yes -in fact that’s been the case for years already even by established historians, archivists, and whoever else. External factors aside, this site is titled McCreadyandChess. I cannot, nor will I not, remove my own personal thoughts and experiences of chess from the posts of this site -especially if I think they are funny or original for they constitute my writing at its very, very best. In addition, the number of categories alone tells you that breadth of content is important to me. I am proud of my site, it is identity conferring and that is how it shall stay -end of story. All you really have are: ‘Some thoughts on the beautiful game’, which, incidentally, just happen to be my very own; nothing more, nothing less, take of it whatever you please… .
A side note on how to read old Tom Sweby's columns
Not perhaps, but quintessentially, Old Tom Sweby is best thought of as a passionate devotee to the newspapers he wrote for. He was well read and knowledgeable of the Bedfordshire chess scene and well beyond, given that he was the president of the S.C.C.U. once upon a time. He was generally well-respected and rubbed shoulders with many, if not all, of those eminent within British chess circles. It would, however, be a critical mistake to see his column is primary source material entirely. That it is not. You will also find secondary source material quoted too, and the reliability of that is not quite as Tom hoped. Given that he wrote for decades, this is to some degree inevitable, and after all we are all prone to error whether we realize it or not. Thankfully, with regards to old Tom Sweby, they are infrequent and for the most part old Tom continued to document events and developments in the Bedfordshire league from the get go as best he could but, of course, everything lies open to interpretation. Despite this, and generally speaking. this does indeed make him informative and thus worth reading. Dare I say his columns constitute a narrative describing the latest developments, match reports and changing nature of the Beds league...he knew his audience and wrote according. This manifested itself over decades but brevity was always in play courtesy of the restictions imposed by writing a column. Should you wish to read a in instrumental figure of the Beds' league post WW2, you are quite welcome to peruse what has been posted here... . :-) I should, however, point out that as the decades wore on he gradually moved on away from narratives concerning the Bedfordshire league towards affairs both historical and international. The reasons for this are multifarous, old age was a predominante factor presumably, however, the bottom line is with regards to how the Bedfordshire chess scene developed post WW2: old Tom Sweby is your go to guy. He wrote more about chess in Bedforshire than anyone else did but given he was a Lutonian and writing for a Luton newspaper there is both bias and greater coverage of his hometown than the rest of the county.
Gallery
I’m either 10 or 11 here
1982, myself versus Brian from Sunderland.
At the Thai Junior chess championships. My daughter of course.
Pattaya 2011
2011
Thai Junior Championships
2008
2011
Around 2011
2011
Pattaya 2009
2011
Kuwait 2008
2012
2012
2011 BKK Chess club
2011
2011 Thai Open
2011 Thai Open
2013 approx
Around 2014
2010
2012
Around 2011
2011
2011
2013
Around 2011
Around 2011
2020
2011
2008
2011
2013 or thereabouts
2010
2017
2014?
2010
2024
2024
2024
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