Aliens

[Paul McKeown]

Ilyumzhinov

[Steve Rooney]

That is priceless. I love the question about whether there are official guidelines for government officials who may be contacted by aliens.

[IanDavis]

Some people criticise the political arena of Russia, but this is proof of just how thorough, robust, and public centered they are. Does Ilyumzhinov show any of the tell take signs of suffering from Alien Abduction?

I'm not sure what these are, but I am sure you can find out by watching Star Trek for long enough.

[Ian Kingston]

Chessvibes mentioned this as well today. It also has a small picture of a Predator playing chess against an Alien - wallpaper sized version here. Anyone brave enough to point out that Black doesn't move first is welcome to do so.

[John Saunders]

I'm told the following story has appeared on BBC News and Ceefax in the past couple of days...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8662822.stm

A Russian MP has asked President Dmitry Medvedev to investigate claims by a regional president that he has met aliens on board a spaceship. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the southern region of Kalmykia, made his claim in a television interview.
MP Andre Lebedev is not just asking whether Mr Ilyumzhinov is fit to govern. He is also concerned that, if he was abducted, he may have revealed details about his job and state secrets. The MP has written a letter to Mr Medvedev raising a list of his concerns.
In his letter he says that - assuming the whole thing was not just a bad joke - it was an historic event and should have been reported to the Kremlin. He also asks if there are official guidelines for what government officials should do if contacted by aliens, especially if those officials have access to state secrets. Mr Ilyumzhinov said in an interview on primetime television that he had been taken on board an alien spaceship which had come to planet Earth to take samples - and claims to have several witnesses. He has been president of Kalmykia, a small Buddhist region of Russia which lies on the shores of the Caspian Sea, for 17 years. The millionaire former businessman has a reputation as an eccentric character. As president of the World Chess Federation, he has spent tens of millions of dollars turning the impoverished republic into a mecca for chess players - building an entire village to host international tournaments.

You couldn't make it up, could you? And yet the stuff about the president of FIDE claiming to meet aliens is old news in the chess world. And what do we do? Bovine lot that we are, we have a chuckle amongst ourselves but then, reflecting on the fact that we elected this nutter to be our president (begging the question "who's the biggest nutter, him or us?"), we shrug our shoulders and say "what can we do?". If Cameron, Brown or Clegg were to claim they met aliens, it would be instant electoral suicide but Kirsy The Clown is still a strong contender for re-election as FIDE president. Unbelievable.

[Alex Holowczak]

It appeared too in the "Aliens" thread just beneath this one...

[John Saunders]

Sorry, I hadn't spotted that. Maybe the threads could be merged?

[Alex Holowczak]

Carl or Jack will sort it out soon.

[Carl Hibbard]

Carl or Jack will sort it out soon.

It is done

[Jonathan Bryant]

... Kirsy The Clown is still a strong contender for re-election as FIDE president. Unbelievable.

Questions of whether he has or has not been involved in political assassination don't seem to have harmed him much in the chess world either.

Pimping Hans Ree again:

There's (another) excellent chapter on Kirsan in The Human Comedy of Chess.

Chess & Bridge have it on sale for £5. Short of walking into the shop and stealing something I don't see a better value chess book acquisition being possible.

[Roger de Coverly]

It's in The Sun

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... ction.html

[John Saunders]

It's in The Sun

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... ction.html

Yes, and unfortunately it mentions his association with chess. I'm bracing myself for a media telephone call. "Yes, we know our president thinks he was abducted by aliens and, yes, some of us voted him in knowing he was mad, and, yes, there's a good chance some of us will vote him in the next time too." If you can think of any better answers to the likely line of questioning, let me know.

Let's just hope they don't get hold of Garry Kasparov's equally bonkers belief in the so-called 'New Chronology' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_(Fomenko)).

[Roger de Coverly]

The Times as well

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 118769.ece

[Kevin Thurlow]

Interesting that they were wearing yellow space suits - perhaps they were window cleaners?