Archive for the ‘On-line journal’ Category

‘the chips are down’

Posted in Life beyond the chess board, My own endeavours, On-line journal, Personal Interest & Experience on September 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Welcome back to my blog after a hiatus of nearly a month. Once more I sit with the lights off and air con on, only this time there is a carefully placed humidifier below it for I have upped ship and sailed off to the desert. Although locations do, some things never change. Again I sit naked in front of my computer in the dark, yes it’s the middle of the night. There is a can of diet Pepsi to my side, which I have only just started. It is 12.41 am exactly, and having slept already, I am all yours. A fortnight ago I fell into the habit of going to bed at 6 pm and waking up in the middle of the night, this is no exception… .

Since the Olympiad, I have put chess to one side and just got on with my life. No games played on line. No on line events followed either. No chess at all for a month or so, whilst my glorious summer holiday ended and a working life resumed. I don’t know what constitutes downtime for I don’t know how much time must elapse, but we could say we are in one…well I just stopped thinking about chess per se. In terms of motivating myself to get back into our beautiful game, you could say ‘the chips are down’ with no allusions to jiggery-pokery in play, only the use of metaphor.

Today, a major event in the chess calendar begins:

All eyes will be on the world champion and the gathering of elite players he is pitted against. I won’t be following it for it starts past my bed time. But I do recommend you take a peek.

I will sign off now. I am in a land that fielded a team at the Olympiad which I could beat quite easily if I wanted to. Does this alter my interest in chess itself, I mean to be in a non-chess playing nation of sorts? Well it does but oh-so slightly. More importantly, life moves on and whether we like it or not we must readjust to changing circumstances and what they ask, or demand, of us. I am no longer on holiday and cannot watch chess tournaments unfolding at my leisure, as much as I may like to.

I will touch base again once I have thought of something else to say.

Mark. J. McCready 12.53 am, September 2nd 2022

Room 306, Helwa Apartments

Sakaka, Saudi Arabia

That’s me to your right,. Taken four years ago. Shot style: headbanging mode methinks.

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An act of kindness

Posted in On-line journal on August 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »

It’s fair to say that from the very first to the 500,000th time I nearly had a heart attack at the chess board I wasn’t too bothered about it but there were times between the 500,000 to the 1,000,000 mark where I was. Nobody wants medical emergencies at the chess board but even in the current Olympiad we had one, in which an act of kindness helped save the day.

Medical emergency during the 2022 Chess Olympiad R3 and the generous act of the opponent

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With modernity stereotypes are easily displaced

Posted in On-line journal on August 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »

These days it’s a crime in all first world countries to allow your offline life to remain dominant over your online life, and carries a jail sentence of variable lengths ranging from half a minute to a few days…well so it seems.

It is, of course, the rest day of the 2022 Chess Olympiad in Chennai. You might wonder what chess players do on their day off. Stay in their room and read books? Go for a walk in a park somewhere? Maybe even go for a coffee and chat chess with fellow players? The public perception of chess players isn’t, on the whole, positive. We aren’t renowned for being the most exciting bunch on the planet and are often thought of as bookish and boring.

Well, I have linked below a video or two of the Bermuda Party, the central feature of the rest day, and it does a pretty good job of breaking down certain perceptions of what chess players might do on a day off. Like most, if not all, they party!

If I may be allowed to bring my warped sense of humour into the post, I’ve watched both videos and can confirm there were no punch ups on the dance floors. No knuckledusters seen! No one was bottled or baseball batted and no one was hit by flying pints, flying chairs and flying tables! Just thought I’d let you know! Do take note of how young the audience is. Most non chess players would find all this rather surprising methinks when in fact it’s all quite normal.

Mark. J. McCready 11.10pm August 4th

BKK

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Something very slight is going wrong

Posted in On-line journal on August 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Preferably, today won’t be like yesterday and just total chess. At some point I am going to take a closer look at some very recent posts. I don’t know who I am talking to in them, and that is not right at all. You don’t need to be able to define your audience but developing a voice matters, and when that voice is pitching a message to unknown characters, something is definitely wrong.

It would appear I shall have to pull back and take a look at what is going on here because if the purpose for writing remains unidentifiable what are you writing for in the first place?

Just perhaps I have become too self-indulgent and need to give it a break. refocus and stop trying to make everything humorous. I think we can safely say overkill is rapidly approaching.

That aside, I very subtly pick up on a sense of loneliness in play…I am trying to talk to someone but who?

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If I see you walking, if I see you talking, what am I supposed to do?

Posted in My daughter, On-line journal on August 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

There’s focus, there’s amusement, there’s hilarity, and there’s self-indulgence. I am guilty of all this week but most of all the latter, which you could argue is the sum of the three parts before it. Why? Simply put I can’t express the total amusement I had over the posts regarding shrines a few days back, and in truth I’ve been in love with my blog since then, or at least in love with the idea that more humour would follow on, which it did. Irrespective of how amusing you think I may or may not be, I consider myself to be very funny at times and have been on form all week.

As wonderful and refreshing as that may be, it saddens me as I type, so much so that something has to change with immediate effect for the simple reason that in the past few days I have neglected my daughter, along with everything else in this world. And that is unacceptable because I have very little time left with her before I return to work. It is true that I spoke very little to her today -now that cannot be allowed to go on.

Fewer posts may follow this week or perhaps they won’t. Perhaps the time of writing will change from daylight hours to evening hours, as is the case at this very present. She lies next to me asleep in this cold dark room. Everyone is sleeping except myself. Of the 4 people sharing this space, 2 of them have Covid, it has been confirmed. Inevitably I will pick it up if I haven’t already. Something is wrong already, I can tell but cannot quite tell what it is yet. But that is immaterial… .

A cardinal sin has been committed and I am disappointed with myself for letting it happen. Because of the very nature of who I am, it’s my job to know myself exceptionally well. That I do because I have to. I’ve always been obsessive, today is just one more example of that, and a very cheery one in certain respects, saddening in others. One of hardest things of the job of remaining human and one step ahead of humanity for the most part, is accepting your own values and the vulnerability they bring with them. I love my daughter too much to allow such mistakes to be made and not picked up upon so quickly. Yes it’s not a crime to make yourself happy and love what you do but it is a crime to forget what is most important of all.

Mark: ‘you’re giving me a hard time, what am I supposed to do with a hard time, especially from you?’ You are supposed to remain in love with A Flock of Seagulls playing and stop beating yourself up. No harm has been done, just precious time wasn’t seen as precious. The flip side of all that is you’ve had 6 solid weeks of company and have, in my own little way, grown fond of and very used to it.

What I have to conclude upon is I will forever be an academic with conclusions forefront in my thinking, in addition, I took my love of writing to a new level recently. The content about the guy who smashed up a shrine had me chuckling away for days there. I was entertaining myself like never before and brought many online friends into the humour on different platforms as I could not hide my joy, I really couldn’t. There are no morbid tales here, just a disappointment with myself for allowing priorities to be reordered temporarily. So Grace goes back to being the primary focus, and writing stays secondary. I should not write in the day anymore, that’s her time not my time. Whilst they sleep, well that’s different.

This is what I am supposed to do? The way that you smile reveals a shadow from the past or so the song goes, oh well. What I am supposed to do now is link a song. Can you guess what it is and who it’s by?

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First win on the board

Posted in On-line journal on August 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Laos won their first match of the Olympiad today, beating Central African Republic 3-1. That’s a big well done for them.

I hope it brings happiness to whoever follows them back in the capital.

Laos must surely be the freest Communist country in the world.

Many like it because it is so open.

I do too and always go

by bike.

Vang Vieng, so often rained when I was there. Vang Vieng is a very good example of what can happen if law is not enforced and life itself is considered cheap. Those who went there looking for what it had to offer still today constitute the most repulsive bunch of backpackers imaginable. Between 2000-2010, it was one place not to be, and I simply cannot say why on this website. The hardest thing about living in Asia is understanding why they place so little value on life itself, and in Vang Vieng Westerners thrived off the lack of rules there. Truly, truly awful. No one cared about anything except their next drink at the bar, the next high or next thrilling river ride. One Englishman wanting to impress announced how he would be doing back-flips at the bar in one, whilst others just stared at you to decide if you were in with their crowd or not. Too much of a loner and too unpretentious by far, I never got involved, I never gave eye contact, I just fucked off the first chance I got to leave it’s own little crowd alone, trapped in its own little time-warp almost. Perhaps the only danger Laos has is it attracts people you would much rather avoid, and plenty of them too. Pseudo hippy, pseudo cool school wimps I used to knock fuck out of when I was younger. If you don’t dress the part, look cool hanging out, and get excited over river rides, then you aren’t in, and are blanked or snubbed. With nothing ingratiating about your behaviour, you just aren’t in I’m afraid, and so we’re not going to talk to you or even look at you. That is the class of backpacker you will find in Vang Vieng. My advice -don’t fucking go there or if you do just talk with your fists.

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Not for vanities sake but a better sense of bringing things home

Posted in My own endeavours, On-line journal on August 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Upon reflection, if I visited a site such as this, I would want to get to know more about the author in some shape or form. Well I do try but I don’t really make that possible because of the lay out style I have chosen (although the side bars are clearly there to offset that). I haven’t made a name for myself in chess so slotting me into the overall scheme of things mean I come out as just another chess enthusiast/addict with a blog all his own. But that simply won’t do as so many are in the same boat, thousands in fact. So I shall break rank and enable you to put a face to the posts, so you can see who is writing (this rubbish) this humorous if often inward looking content. This is an attempt at personification of the site, and you could argue that all sites should show similar intentions now and again. A chess player I may be, and the subject of the site is chess but it is called McCreadyandChess, so pics of my life beyond the board are not beyond the parameters of what it was designed for.

I’ll add some photos from facebook, taken over the years but you should know I used to be a photographer and so some pics reflect the creativity I was once noted for, but only a few. The rest depict the colourful life I have ended up with to some degree but they barely scratch the surface tbh and there’s nothing I can do about that. I put the pics in gallery form, so you can just click on them and scroll along. Maybe they give a clearer sense of who is writing or something. The title of the site does the job here I think.

Whilst a photographer 2008
Chat Am 2013
BKK 2017
Cycling gear 2017
Night club fun 2017
Night club fun 2017
Night club fun 2017
Kuwait 2008
Luton 2019
BKK 2019, that’s my daughter Grace
Phuket 2013
I do sometimes wear an inverted cross, it symbolizes a love of metal -that’s all.
BKK 2019
Riyadh 2006
In the classroom Cha Am 2013
Cambodia 2002
2013
2008
Photoshop skills
Kuwait 2008
Pattaya 2008
Japan 2008
Chiang Rai 2007
Those dreaded months as a photographer 2008 Al Ain UAE
Abu Dhabi 2008
Kor Fakkan, UAE 2008
Pattaya 2006
Kuwait 2008
Kuwait 2008 when I was running 130kms each weekend
Kuwait 2008 (my killer look according to someone)
Kuwiat 2008
Kuwait 2008
Abu Dhabi 2007
Think I was only 4 here
BKK 2007
London 1998

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A newer update

Posted in On-line journal on August 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

To restate the obvious, the title of this website is McCreadyandChess. This means you will get my interpretations of chess related content, some of which is factual, or there will be personal stuff, usually chess related although not always. So McCreadyandChess could be thought in those terms and as I have restated enough times I NEVER write to be read. The general shift in direction is towards personal stuff, as I have lead a colourful life and I love to write. Combine the two and the temptation to put pen to paper is always there. Like it says in the side headings, on the whole the site is becoming increasingly more inward looking. You could also argue that I am becoming increasing disappointed with/cynical of both chess journalism and chess theory as a literary genre, so you won’t see much of either of those from now on most likely.

I was thinking of introducing non-chess related content, starting with ‘Bird Wrestling’ but have decided against that as it doesn’t fit into what was said in the previous paragraph but since I am always on-line I cannot promise that things which make me crack up laughing for a good day or two won’t find their way in. We have seen that of late with the guy who visited a shrine and I can’t promise we won’t again but the humour levels will, in my opinion, be way above normal, so I hope for forgiveness, and always hope that whoever comes to my site, their first thoughts are ‘what the bloody hell is all this’ and leave with ‘what was all that about’. Ultimately, if someone leaves with a wry smile -that’s good!

In the months before I temporarily agreed to become a photographer by profession (not recommended) in the UAE, I played about endlessly with Photoshop CS2. Here is a picture of myself from that time.

Sci-fi me from Abu Dhabi
It just so happens that my life online remains dominant over my life offline.

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Panic in the analysis room

Posted in On-line journal on August 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Your game has only just finished. With your opponent you courteously enter the analysis room for a look at the game. You sit down together and it starts normally, then suddenly you have a massive panic attack. Visions of shrines, demons, and the wrong lottery numbers, overpower your mind and run riot within it. Flustered and emotionally charged, you jump up and start shouting in another language. You can’t think straight nor think about your game anymore. Many people are alarmed and stop what they are doing, some children look scared almost. Some minutes pass before emotions are held in check again, then it happens again. The same visions return but this time there are extra visions of being tasered by police too, as well as many bottles of booze. It causes you to have another panic attack rendering analysis impossible. Your walk becomes a limp, your head a mess. Your opponent doesn’t know what’s happening and asks what is wrong. What should you say and do?

Ride out the storm. Yes more panic attacks are coming because the visions reappear but we can ride it out.

Or you could bring the analysis to an early end as it isn’t getting me anywhere.

Or you could decide not to invest time and money in the lottery anymore.

Or you could emigrate to Russia and become an alcoholic.

Could you re-alter your sense of time somehow and perhaps avoid being tasered…oh and don’t smash anything else up.

Maybe go for therapy and go on medication?

Now look at this, I’ve got to finish this post up. I’m getting visions of visions which are warping into my own sense of humour.

Last option: make tea not war!

M.J.McCready 0607 August 2

A dark room in a big city.

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Tragedy

Posted in On-line journal, Personal Interest & Experience on August 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »

I so nearly forgot that tragedy lurks round every corner and can’t be avoided indefinitely. Regarding the lottery, in the mid 90s there was a very tragic case where a young man killed himself because of the lottery. He spent time wondering whether to spend one pound on a valentine’s card for his girlfriend or putting it on the lottery. He chose not to play the lottery that week but his numbers came in and he would have won. But he spent that money on a card and got so angry with himself, he killed himself. A real tragedy I heard over the radio. Sympathies for his family… .

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