Archive for the ‘Life beyond the chess board’ Category

Solidarity in the St.George’s Defence

Posted in Life beyond the chess board on October 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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Curiouser and curiouser

Posted in Life beyond the chess board on September 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I think I can hold it for the simple reason I can generate counter play.

If I stick the king on d6, I can push the e-pawn when the time is right. Whether I am right or not, I shall find out in due course. I also have the option of pushing the f-pawn to slow my opponent up.

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A fanciful quest for identity…

Posted in Life beyond the chess board on August 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Should we both warp and strictly adhere to Collingwood’s concept of what history is, we could argue that Bedfordshire was the stopover point of a Grandmaster smuggling ring during the cold war. With strict adherence to Collingwood, the claim is unchallengeable and irrefutable if and only if intentionality lies at the very heart of discourse thus of history too.

Ok so I have no evidence of the above claim concerning a smuggling ring in operation and neither has anyone else but that’s not the point. It’s unfactual but history, for Collingwood, is about establishing why people wanted the things they did, in particular what they had in mind. Since the governments played with their cards close to their chests always to resort to ‘the facts’ as Ranke would is rather pointless as you can never unearth them all anyway. A pertinent point is if we warp into the equation a dose of drunken deductive reasoning we could argue pre-conceived notions of my country’s strength in yesteryear doubled up as pretext for positional play left without discourse until now. Again its factuality or lack thereof remains inconsequential but also partially explaining why no Soviet or American Grandmaster showed their face in the Bedfordshire league despite its ‘locality’. Whether what found counts as identity-conferring is, perhaps, rather fanciful if not overtly playful academia. (Note to self@ Mark, if you recall you wrote an essay about Collingwood’s devotee Dray during your MA, and there was nothing fanciful or playful about that if you remember those long April days.)

Is it 2.30am already? Hmmm, abandon academic musing and conjecture for a game of blitz on-line then bed methinks… .

R.G.Collingwood. An academic whose works you really do need to read in order to understand him.

Olcmarcus

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On-line beasthood

Posted in Life beyond the chess board on July 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I’ve agreed to play in my first on-line tournament, now all the rage as pandemic sweeps the globe.

I became an on-line member of my home town chess club and that’s the organizational body.

It’s an unprincipled decision because the digital revolution we are currently undergoing is pernicious. You can’t compare on-line tournaments to those in the real world, to do so is ludicrous and unworthy of consideration.

But with a blind love of chess pushing the agenda, I shall participate, and try to be at my best.

Wish me luck. Being rusty I will most likely need it… .

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That time what I was seeing, I could not believe…

Posted in Life beyond the chess board on March 31, 2020| Leave a Comment »

As some of you may know the incredibly beautiful Arriane Caoili has passed away at a young age. I met her once in London and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. So much so I walked over to her game to see if she was, in fact, a chess player -and yes of course she was.

Condolences go to her family, Lev and all her friends;

Farewell and may you rest in peace.

Mark.J.McCready

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A curious thing…

Posted in Life beyond the chess board on March 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »

To have matches cancelled, leagues, tournaments, and much more…what to do? Risk death just for a hobby? I hardly play so no effect here but I do pity those actively engaged in what must be trying times.

All the best. Pandemic aside, I hope it makes you stronger.

I have my writing projects to give me some, but not much joy.

MJM

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33545

Posted in Life beyond the chess board, My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on March 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Word count is 33545.

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The Relief

Posted in Life beyond the chess board, My own endeavours on March 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »

It’s 0446 March 13th. Finally I’ve finished. The project I have been working on for 19 months was completed in November but much re-writing had to take place and the editorial procedure was drawn out and repeated twice, so that’s three times in total. Finally its all done now and I don’t have to write anymore.

Just need to add about ten quotes and selected pics. I doubt whether I shall bother with an Appendix, so a proofread and off to the publishers it is.

Phew!

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How quaint self-imposed exile is.

Posted in Life beyond the chess board, My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on March 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I -and no I’m not telling you where- came here to write and to read. I am engaged in a major project that will have to be sent out for publication, what comes of that you shall stay informed of. There is a second project too a second too perhaps but for that I am still reading more postmodern history than doing the research, which per se only started a few weeks back…

I’m very happy to say that I have just finished the second draft/editorial procedure of my main meaning only one more is left. My writing style has tightened so much there may be much to do but I doubt it. Should I stay focused it should be finished. Then I have to let it slip in case something I have forgotten emerges. The publishing company will have decide the genre themselves. Of course I know exactly what it is but I am as unpretentious as I was 1000 years before I was born, so it is up to them. Six-eight hours of writing and 2 hours of reading a day undisturbed. Bliss.

And so an afternoon of rest beckons then the final draft begins. It’s probably the only thing I will ever write where I do want people to read. When I said I come from a hardened working-class background, believe me I was not joking. How many of you reading this have seen with your own eyes your board knocked over because your opponent his ripped of table legs and -Bruce-Lee like- went smacking pupils in the head, bollocks, shins, back, legs, arms…ok so he was going to be expelled shortly anyway for throwing a typewriter at another students head but yes, there is plenty of contact which will raise however many eyebrows you have. Oh btw I never lowered myself to such behaviour, whilst all that went on I only booted in study cubicles, booted chairs about, and hilariously threw hundreds of books out of the windows along with several classmates…there is content far more graphic than that believe me. I’ve had a colourful life, let’s just leave it at that, word count is at present 32793. That will jump at least 5000 words as sections and quotations are missing.

I will keep you posted.

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Who’s zoomin’ who?

Posted in Academia, Life beyond the chess board, Personal Interest & Experience on March 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Oh boy it gets so hard. The Westminster Gazette publishes something in full. The next day about six other newspapers follow suit. Do I assume they just copied? I’m an academic! I can’t just do that! It is as reprehensible as it is irresponsible. Ohhh, headache time… .

Big job ahead… .

MJM

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