English Chess Forum

A rather sad message from a past ECF President (2009 - 2012)

https://youtu.be/Hp15pVarv0U

Parts of what is in the video John linked above is also featured in this recent Daily Mail story:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/a ... attle.html

Don't miss him on the radio

a lot of sympathy for c.j. I wish he had let me know at Kingston chess club. but anyway we know now.
my boss at work partner at that time was dying for the same reason.
he was an ex-chess player and I arranged some postal chess with for him unlimited time and takebacks as he deteriorated.
we were close at work at that time visiting each others flats/houses.

Nick Grey wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 23, 2019 11:38 pm

anyway we know now.

What do we know, specifically?

his sad news.

...which is, specifically....

That he is in ill health and financial difficulty. Which specifically are you casting doubt on?

I purchased a copy of "How to Win TV quiz Shows" by CJ de Mooi. It is rather useful and informative especially as I hope to enter quizzes of this nature.

I think Brain of Britain would be ideal as I have a better face for radio.

Nick Burrows wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:09 pm

That he is in ill health and financial difficulty. Which specifically are you casting doubt on?

Well it's hard to say, Nick, since the video says very little you can actually pin down, which is why I was hoping the other Nick could clarify what he understood it to mean. But a lot of people are in ill health, or financial difficulty, or even both. Can we narrow it down?

Well he says it's health issues related to Aids, and that he has declared bankruptcy. Whadya want a doctors note?

Nick Burrows wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:58 pm

Well he says it's health issues related to Aids, and that he has declared bankruptcy. Whadya want a doctors note?

Well I wouldn't mind some kind of accurate account of what precisely his doctors are saying, no. I also wouldn't mind some kind of detailed and credible explanation of why he is in financial trouble, and (since he is now asking for funds) what those funds precisely are for.

When I say "credible", for instance, I mean a more likely account than the one here, in which CJ claims that he was arrested on an international warrant on the basis of what somebody wrote on Wikipedia. (Also see here and here, because the CJ video is a regular event.)

I don't think CJ's word has always been such a reliable guide to the truth that it can be taken as gospel, all the more so when his account of events is as unclear as it is now.

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 25, 2019 4:22 pm

I also wouldn't mind some kind of detailed and credible explanation of why he is in financial trouble, and (since he is now asking for funds) what those funds precisely are for.

But you're not going to give him anything anyway, are you? The video was not aimed at the chess community, which he has forgotten and from which he has moved on.

The only point I find interesting is his claim that his book was misquoted on Wikipedia. I certainly don't intend to buy it to check, but has anyone here actually read it?

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 25, 2019 4:47 pm

But you're not going to give him anything anyway, are you? The video was not aimed at the chess community

That's so, and yet it is being discussed on here, a website for the chess community, and hence my interest.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 25, 2019 4:47 pm

The only point I find interesting is his claim that his book was misquoted on Wikipedia.

Well he claims a little more than that - he also reckons that the passage on Wikipedia is what led to his arrest, which seems more than fanciful unless we really believe that arrest warrants are issued on the basis of Wikipedia entries, something which we have no reason to believe.

However, in so far as the passage itself is concerned, I have, as it happened, checked this out a little, because this item also came up recently on a Facebook page of which several people here are also members.

I haven't got the book, so I checked it out with the best tool available to me, which is Amazon's Look Inside function, searching for "canal". And, as it happens, I think it's right, that the passage that caused such a stir is not the same as the one which appears (as far as I could see) in the book: it's a souped-up version.

However, this souped-up version didn't originate from Wikipedia, I mean of course it didn't. It originated from the Mirror's serialisation of CJ's autobiography. Now I think that when a book is serialised in a newspaper, there are three parties involved, these being the newspaper, the publisher of the book and the book's author. Now how might a newspaper come to publish a version of this account that was more dramatic than the one in the book? Possibly any one of these three parties might be able to tell us.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 25, 2019 4:47 pm

The video was not aimed at the chess community, which he has forgotten and from which he has moved on.

He came to the World Championship Match in London last year.