Raymond Keene new site

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JustinHorton
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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by JustinHorton » Mon Sep 24, 2018 2:08 pm

Gerard Killoran wrote:
Mon Sep 24, 2018 1:37 pm
'Professor' Frederick Trowman-Rose

People might wonder why there's so many of these fake people with fake titles and fake CVs and fake organisations about. I won't claim to understand exactly how it works (I'm not sufficiently interested to find out, as it happens) but basically, it's useful to grasp that much of what Ray does is connected with Tony Buzan, who's a charlatan with a successful business model.

Some of what Ray and Tony do is directly Buzan empire stuff, some of it more ad hoc, but basically it involves holding events, which people pay to attend, under the impression that they are attending something important with (in one way or another) important people. Obviously if you can attract actually important people to help front your events, so much the better. And you organise events like this, or this, or this, or the Brain Trust dinner, or what you will. You make a bit of money off the marks, you make some useful contacts for next time, and so on.

Also, if you do some of this, you get to meet like-minded people who are interested in being part of your circle, which is where your Trowman-Roses, and your Kasperskis come from.
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Roger Lancaster
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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by Roger Lancaster » Mon Sep 24, 2018 3:46 pm

Following this Attila Babenyecz, Miklos Bartha, Dr Zsolt Bodnar, Csaba Horvath de Csapod, Eva Szakaly, Prof marques Frederick Trowman-Rose and Ilana Zsigmond de Lemheny were invested into our Order, who took their solemn Oath. On their behalf Dr vitez Zsolt Bodnar thanked the Order, promising future work for it. This was followed by appointments and awards which contained the appointment and award of vitez Szabolcs Losy de Visi as High Captain in the United Kingdom.


Why on earth are we even discussing this nonsense?

David Robertson

Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by David Robertson » Mon Sep 24, 2018 3:59 pm

Roger Lancaster wrote:
Mon Sep 24, 2018 3:46 pm
Why on earth are we even discussing this nonsense?
I enjoy communing with my inner novelist.

But seriously, some people take this seriously. That's how serious it is!

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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by Roger Lancaster » Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:18 pm

David Robertson wrote:
Mon Sep 24, 2018 3:59 pm
But seriously, some people take this seriously. That's how serious it is!
Well, yes, and some people believe that the moon is made of green cheese but I'm not sure we need give the proposition further credence here.

Incidentally, I'm not sure that Justin is correct in describing Tony Buzan as a "charlatan" - although I suppose it's largely a matter of opinion. He seemed, when last I looked, to be well-respected in Mensa circles and that - unlike some of the organisations described here - is a legitimate active organisation.

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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by JustinHorton » Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:27 pm

However not many people do think that about the moon, but the interesting thing about these scams is that they do seem to attract an endless stream of mug punters.

This is interesting because it happens, interesting becase of the absurdities involved, but also perhaps interesting because there's a dubious quality to it too. I partly mean the sort of thing Gerald mentions, but also Ray's occasional interest in promoting quack science and fake scientific outfits like the Institute of Brain Chemistry.
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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by JustinHorton » Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:36 pm

Roger Lancaster wrote:
Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:18 pm
Incidentally, I'm not sure that Justin is correct in describing Tony Buzan as a "charlatan"
As a species we are not large like the Whale

He's a purveyor of nonsense.
Roger Lancaster wrote:
Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:18 pm
He seemed, when last I looked, to be well-respected in Mensa circles
God, who cares. People who think they're smarter than the rest of us are absolutely the target for certain kinds of grifter (investment scams for instance are very much aimed at this audience).
Roger Lancaster wrote:
Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:18 pm
and that - unlike some of the organisations described here - is a legitimate active organisation.
We can file this under what I said above, about it being useful to attract actually important people, or shall we say legitimate people. One such in Ray and Tony's circle, for instance, is Michael Crawford, an actual bona fide Professor who nevertheless is perfectly happy to front up the Institute of Brain Chemistry.

Getting respectable people to say you're respectable is key, and it's always been particularly key to Ray. So Mensa people say Tony Buzan's legit? That's great news if you're Tony Buzan, but it doesn't make his nonsense any less nonsensical.
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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by JustinHorton » Thu Sep 27, 2018 7:11 am

JustinHorton wrote:
Sun Sep 23, 2018 2:25 pm
If we turn our attention to The Gifted Academy (where's that photo taken, out of interest?) of which Ray is a Trustee we may note that it has managed to accumulate - among the tat like the World Intelligence Network and Think Buzan - an impressive portfolio of Associates, including the Royal Society of Medicine, the British Psychological Society and Imperial College London, all of whom, we can be one hundred per cent certain, have consented to having their names and branding used in this particular way.
Or not as the case may be
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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by Roger Lancaster » Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:21 am

Justin evidently feels strongly about this, certainly more so than I do, but to equate it to investment scams would in my view be overstating his case. I regard astrology, for example, as a bogus activity but not worth railing against despite the fact that it evidently makes its practitioners a certain amount of money. Pursuing this analogy, I can also see why others - astronomers, perhaps - might be annoyed at astrologers making a living from what they consider a load of nonsense. Having said that, it's relatively harmless - unlike investment scams, it won't ruin anyone.

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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by Angus French » Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:50 am

It wasn't so long ago, under Phil Ehr's leadership and with the support of other directors, that the ECF was thinking of getting involved again with Ray Keene and started making moves in that direction.

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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by JustinHorton » Thu Sep 27, 2018 10:33 am

Roger Lancaster wrote:
Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:21 am
Having said that, it's relatively harmless
Telling people stuff you know to be nonsense, in exchange for their money, because you think they're mugs, is not a very pleasant way to make a living, and it's not really all that harmless either. There's a few reasons for this - for instance, it can cost the marks a lot of money and it can easily stray into the area of fake medicine, fake science, fraudulent diet advice and so on, all of which can cost people more than their money. It can involve all kinds of improper conduct, like setting up fake organisations, including charities, to persuade gullible people to hand over their money. I don't think this is all right.
Roger Lancaster wrote:
Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:21 am
to equate it to investment scams would in my view be overstating his case.
And indeed I didn't: I pointed out that people who think they're smarter than the rest of us are the typical audience for that kind of scam.

Still, while we're on the subject, "oh this sort of thing isn't very serious" is not a very clever view to take, since small scams, left on their own, lead to larger scams, and then people do get hurt.

But people have had long enough to realise this, haven't they?
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Roger Lancaster
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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by Roger Lancaster » Thu Sep 27, 2018 1:51 pm

And indeed I didn't

Indeed you didn't, and I was careful to use the words "would be" so as not to imply otherwise, but mere mention of investment scams did invite the inference of moral equivalence.

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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by O.G. Urcan » Thu Sep 27, 2018 2:12 pm

Anyone who does not have Raymond Keene's 2017 book on Tony Buzan but is concerned about claims in it which are misleading, or worse, may like to see what is in the "About the author" section on page 6:

zzzzkeene1.jpg
zzzzkeene1.jpg (91.58 KiB) Viewed 1735 times

Among that section's many other boasts is one on page 5 about a so-called "Oscar for world's best writer on chess":

zzzzkeene2.jpg
zzzzkeene2.jpg (49.35 KiB) Viewed 1735 times

The book does not mention that this so-called "Oscar" was from the so-called "International Chess Writers Association," a mysterious body created by an associate of his.

Regards,
O.G. Urcan

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JustinHorton
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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by JustinHorton » Thu Sep 27, 2018 2:28 pm

Should anybody want to hear the list of Ray's achievements being read out, it's on one of the videos on his site (the one where he's addressing a meeting with Greg Hands MP).

It could be used as a memory test. Maybe Dom O'Brien does it already.
Last edited by JustinHorton on Thu Sep 27, 2018 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by Paul Cooksey » Thu Sep 27, 2018 2:33 pm

The sandwich shop near where I work has started to have a copy of the The Times.

Nice to see Ray taking every opportunity to promote Everyman chess books given their well documented contribution to his column over the years,

I was unsurprised to see Ray recommending his mate Steve's book last week. But today's recommendation of Steve's translation made me smile.

Marginally off topic I did once buy one of Steve's book, with the intention of making fun of any errors in analysis. But I underestimated him. He had cleverly not included any analysis.

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Re: Raymond Keene new site

Post by JustinHorton » Fri Sep 28, 2018 7:07 am

"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com

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