Emergency Board Meeting - Draft Minutes

[John McKenna]

A terse admonition, or demolition, by Judge Justin of the statements of the accused?

Good of Andy M to break the most recent statement into bite-size chunks.
The proceedings are still too dense please allow me now to condense them further -

State Prosecutor: I put it to you that you are in Kirsan's pocket, are you not?
Accused: I STRONGLY maintain that Kirsan has nothing on me. Though I admit we once shared a hip pocket.
Prosecutor: Ah ha! And what were the contents and their value?
Accused: Only various assorted promisory notes not worth the the paper they were printed on and worthless IOUs.
P: Was there not a sum of petty cash therein?
A: No, just loose change.
P : Can you at least account for that?
A: Not really.
P: Why not, pray?
A: It was lost through a hole in the pocket.
P: I may have more questions for you later.

[Colm Daly]

All this seems to have more in common with a James Bond movie and little that relates to English chess? Andrew Paulson is clearly a very bright, brilliant and energetic man who somehow has found himself at the center of English chess. The how and why being big questions that perhaps need some consideration.

Just unfortunate that this has resulted in..........ah sure what the hell do I know.

One question I have just out of curiosity. Can Andrew actually play chess, and if so, any idea of playing strength? Club player? Plus 2000 level? Plus 2200 level? International level? Just wondering.

[John McKenna]

All this seems to have more in common with a James Bond movie and little that relates to English chess? Andrew Paulson is clearly a very bright, brilliant and energetic man who somehow has found himself at the center of English chess. The how and why being big questions that perhaps need some consideration.

Just unfortunate that this has resulted in..........ah sure what the hell do I know.
One question I have just out of curiosity. Can Andrew actually play chess, and if so, any idea of playing strength? Club player? Plus 2000 level? Plus 2200 level? International level? Just wondering.

Too bally true, Colm, it's a variation on -

From Russia with Love

Starring:
Andrew Paulson as the SPECTRE hatchetman
Simon Spivack as the SMERSH colonel
Nigel Short as Lieutenant Commander Jas. Bond

Can Andrew play chess?
You might well ask - can a Brazilian play football?

[Roger de Coverly]

One question I have just out of curiosity. Can Andrew actually play chess, and if so, any idea of playing strength? Club player? Plus 2000 level? Plus 2200 level? International level? Just wondering.

For want of a better word, you might describe him as a "social" player. Like the FIDE President perhaps, although some biographies suggest he used to be a Kalmyk junior championship contender.

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 93#p123285

[John McKenna]

For want of better words - just so Colm knows - I am a socio-pathological player who once won the Folkestone Major (outright) and who competed in the amateur section of the great Dublin Irish Telecom Tournament but drank too much porter to remember the details. As a consequence I wrongly claimed hereabouts to have met you there but it has since come back to me that you were in fact Colm Barry! At least you seemed to be so to me when I awoke from the wake at the end of that magnificent event.

Edit: Still not right - he seems somehow in my mind to have become you. Yes, that's it, I think.
Therefore you may have inadvertently become him - in my mind that is. In other words I mixed up the two yous.

[JustinHadi]

socio-pathological

[John McKenna]

Hi Justin, funnier still - I found that word in an online survey and found I fitted the descripton to the 't'.

[JustinHadi]

Hi John,

I rarely play chess anymore. Too many socio-pathologists about. Suggest we wait for the next episode of the Il'loon/Paulson/Kasparov saga.

Justin

[John McKenna]

Couldn't agree more, Justin.
It is almost as gripping as the Foundation Trilogy.
ECF the Foundation, FIDE the Empire but who and where is Hari Seldon?.
Sorry to hear you are not playing much chess.
Have sometimes thought of giving it up but the game itself is beautiful.
It is us humans who can spoil it and bring it into disrepute
Anyway, we shall see... and who knows what will happen in the next episode of the ongoing drama
As Paolo Casaschi implied in another thread - it keeps us entertained like our own soap opera.

[JustinHadi]

who and where is Hari Seldon

We might ask Paul Krugman to help out.

[John McKenna]

Justin, thanks for that idea - I am sure that some of Paul Krugman's ideas would help in the wider world. In the corner of the chess world we inhabit here you may remember another Paul...
Paul Cooksey, who seemed to be a kind of chess world 'liberal' with a number of interesting ideas about 'liberalising/liberating' the ECF from what ails it - in his view.They were worth a try if all else fails. The problem is nothing much else is tried - the chess conservatives continue to rule. Even when 'big business' neo-liberals get the leadership they cannot last more than 3 to 9 months, if that, before being neutralised and eventually forced out, or so it seems.

Now there seems to be another lull, here on the forum in the, in the struggle between the two men about whom this thread is really about. Phil Ehr 'opened' the proceedings and things snowballed from there. I may have influenced certain parties to stop the interesting but hard to follow debate that developed in this thread. Perhaps it should have taken place even more explicitly - in threads like Martin Crichton's Should so-and-so resign... rather than being hidden away here. Maybe I should have steered clear of it - I will from now on.

So, if Andrew Paulson, Simon Spivack, Nigel Short or anyone else starts the debate again (not that I am calling for another slanging match or inquisition, myself) here, there or anywhere I will keep out of it - I've had my say, in my own inimitable way.

[JustinHorton]

(I mean apart from the entertainment value of the whole feud. I can't offhand think of anything quite like it. We've got seven weeks to come of this sort of fun and games?)

Apparently we have!

[Richard Bates]

(I mean apart from the entertainment value of the whole feud. I can't offhand think of anything quite like it. We've got seven weeks to come of this sort of fun and games?)

Apparently we have!

What a bizarre interview. AP is giving every indication of being a bit demob happy to me...

[JustinHorton]

"I had no idea bribery might be wrong until I fell out with Silvio Danailov"

[Roger de Coverly]

What a bizarre interview. AP is giving every indication of being a bit demob happy to me...

The more invective directed at Kasparov, the more credible the theories that his bid for the ECF Presidency was some sort of FIDE attempt to undermine the ECF's long established anti Kirsan stance.

But complaining that Danailov is a bit dodgy is one of those sayings about bears and woods and Popes and Catholicism.