English Chess Forum

"The Prince is not taken very seriously in Australia "

That is good - I loved the contrast of the Aussie lady and the royal expert with plummy voice, who possibly never imagined they would be in such agreement with the other one.

There is an earlier discussion of the Kasperskis at viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7373.

I was amused to come across this old Private Eye piece about Don Morris, in which he is quoted as claiming

over 1 billion Mind Sports players globally

.
No actual 605 million chess players, but not bad all the same.

Anyway, note the mention of Tony Buzan, and these two phrases in particular:

with BGN having cost its financial backers all of their £3m, one might have thought he’d know better than to venture back into the world of mind sports

and

making one wonder how many of the Penguin’s pals are involved with the new venture.

Well, here we are, eight or so years on, and what we have is a Buzan and mind sports linked venture involving Morris, Ray and quite a lot of the Penguin's pals.

Best of luck to the investors, eh?

There is a great deal of information in the section headed "Raymond Keene and Tony Buzan" on this webpage.

Ray Keene is good at diverting rich people's money into chess. Other people are good at checking facts. It amuses me that over the years Ray Keene has trained an army of amateur fact-checkers to follow him around correcting everything he says for the benefit of the 12 people who care. They're not throwing a spanner in the Keene industry, they are the Keene industry.

Today is Penguin Awareness Day (trending on Twitter too)

David Robertson wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 20, 2020 1:43 pm

Today is Penguin Awareness Day (trending on Twitter too)

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 15, 2020 9:02 am

And indeed in the wording "Tony Buzan's 'Mind Map Book' will do for the brain what Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time' did for the universe."

I wonder if Ray just came up with the line and over time it's gone from being attributed to, say, "Raymond Keene, Times chess correspondent", to simply "The Times".

Here it is with just "The Times" attached to it.

And here it is with the full Raymond Keene OBE etc etc. (Also cited in comments here.)

Both those Buzan links retrieved from here, by the way. I missed a trick when writing that one: had I looked into Aulis I might have spotted that when not publishing Tony Buzan, their speciality appeared to be The Moon Landing Was A Hoax books. This should help make it clear from what kind of well Tony Buzan was filling his bucket.

I've swapped some emails with the CEO of the Tony Buzan Group.

I was curious about the valuation they were putting on their own company (not to mention the possible effects of that
valuation) which they reckon to be ten million quid.



So I emailed to ask how that figure was arrived at



I got a reply from a long-term Buzan staffer, passing on the query to the CEO



and indeed this morning I got a reply from the CEO. Not a very detailed reply, but I guess it's quite useful to see in itself.



There was something else I wanted to raise



and he was happy to take another question



so I asked.



No reply to that one yet. I'll let you know if anything arrives.

No reply to that one yet. I'll let you know if anything arrives.

Seems an entirely legitimate question although I suppose it's also legitimate to reply that, with a smallish shareholding such as this, the extent of the shareholder's control in the company [ie. Buzan Group] is likely to be minimal. To which, in turn, the response might be that one is frequently judged by the company one associates with. Interesting.

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 21, 2020 12:31 pm

To which, in turn, the response might be that one is frequently judged by the company one associates with.

Especially if, you know, it's an old mate (one of several such involved) and hence somebody who will have been invited on board in full knowledge of their track record.

From this gentleman's LinkedIn profile:

Leonard M Fertig

CEO, Entrepreneur, Advisor, and Board Director
Hove, Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom 500+ connection. Contact info

The Tony Buzan Group Limited

Columbia University in the City of New York

About
CEO, Entrepreneur, and strategy consultant with credentials in the media, travel, education, and technology industries. Dealmaker who has founded and built numerous businesses and forged partnerships across a dozen countries on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. After founding, managing, and advising businesses in the technology and media business, I am concentrating my time in helping young successful businesses grow. This includes helping them extend their products and markets, improving business models and business plans, identifying and evaluating resources and services, finding and negotiating deals and partnerships, and helping them raise additional capital.

Specialties: Executive Management and Board Directorship of public and private companies, Business model and strategy, International deal-making, financial analysis, operational analysis, developing business plans, developing business vision and mission, branding and identity, making acquisitions, and developing new businesses, products and services.

Yeah, he interests me because he's the one name I didn't know in the list of shareholders - except Sania Alam, and a moment's research shows her to be a Buzan staffer. Everybody else is either Buzan (they tend to have the smaller holdings) or Ray cronies-and-family (they tend to have the larger ones) though there's obviously a degree of crossover.

The crowdfunding campaign has been cancelled, Seedrs tell me (confirmed here).

Anyway I note that Ray's so-called charity has got to the end of February without filing its accounts, something that would probably concern its independent examiner if they were independent and did any examining.