Posted in Academia on May 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
When I undertook a Masters degree in Philosophy, I once asked my lecturer a question concerning Dennett’s account of consciousness that he could not answer.
Here Dennett offers an account of chess computers that may be seen by some as being outdated.
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on May 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
You don’t want to spend the night only playing chess do you? Why? How about you mix it up and play other games also, wouldn’t that be more enjoyable?
Just look at this cutting from The Bedford & County Record, December 28th 1889. There’s an ad with a proposal in it to generate interest in something special. To get people playing games. To get matches happening.
Posted in Quaint Chess History on May 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
The Bedford Record once again.
Myself aside, who in their right mind plays chess at 4am?
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on May 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Once again special thanks to The Bedford & County Record for it’s sumptuous reportage of how things once were. A predilection of modernity across the globe is to think we are better off now than we were before -progress they call it. But is it cumulative with all things? I thinketh not. Look at those fine Bedford folk before the outbreak of WW1, and the evenings of games they had in each others’ company. They knew which side their bread was buttered on, that’s for sure. Want to read on?
That’s the way to do it, is it not? But can we learn anything from how things once were before the advent of the Bedfordshire Chess Association formation and the Bedfordshire league? Although they were formed for the purposes of competitive chess locally, regionally, and then nationally, are the chess clubs that formed afterwards any better than the ones beforehand? Clubs created only for chess rather than games evenings, which functioned as chess clubs for chess only. Does it need to be asked why we no longer have games nights in clubs with more than one game on offer and couldn’t we ask whether chess sections could be housed within them if necessary? Is moving with the times always for the best? Must this involve selecting a venue cheap, empty and soulless rather than one accommodating and geared towards entertainment? Draughts and billiards have lost their popularity but chess has not, why is that? It seems to me that the clubs they used to play chess in were, generally speaking, more pleasant than what we have today, and that’s progress is it?
Mark. J. McCready
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on May 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Once again we may offer thanks to The Bedford Record for its reportage and giving us an account of The New Conservative Club, Bedford and what it was like for chess players in our county. Did they have it better back then? Note there was a ‘chess room’.
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on May 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
History can teach us a great deal if we are willing to pay attention and take note. In this post we shall see how our Bedfordshire predecessors had a broader understanding of what an evening of board games should entail than one based on just turning up and playing chess, which has long since become the accepted norm.
In a previous post this week, (https://mccreadyandchess.wordpress.com/2024/05/02/w-ward-plays-for-luton/) I showed how the industrial revolution to some degree shaped chess in Bedfordshire since matches between towns and cities connected by the newly developed national rail service became prominent and were more frequently reported on. We saw how Luton challenged Watford to a match held in St. Albans, a city reachable by train from both Luton and Watford, what with the train being a preferable option over horse and cart. Luton and Bedford also played each other with regularity, being connected by train since the 1860s.
I have uncovered reportage which suggests our board game lovers from the past had a better time of things than what we do in modern times or at least a more wholesome experience. It should be noted that both clubs were classified as Liberal clubs but this should not be mistaken for political persuasion amongst of county fellows. Instead it most likely indicates that superior venues with better facilities were chosen over, say draughty church halls by we chess players wanting a game somewhere. In Bedfordshire during the 20th century there was a shift away from clubs with political affiliations towards working men’s clubs. And although working men’s clubs tended to signify a membership of employees from the designated company, that did not hold true for all members, and similarly, membership at clubs supporting political parties did not necessarily denote political persuasion but rather a liking for clubs with better facilities, frequented by friends and family most likely.
The reportage comes from The Bedford Record and is, of course, pre WW1 -something poet Philip Larkin has something to say about. A games night of billiards—-draughts—-chess. That’s got to be better than turning up just to play chess, surely? If not better than more wholesome. Just imagine it, a few pints as well, conversation and conviviality by the bar too, more games, more fun – a real night of it!
But what do we do if it dawns on us that they knew better in a bygone era? What then? Alternatively you could tell me to shut up!
Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;
And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;
And the countryside not caring:
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat’s restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;
Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word – the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.
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.
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