A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

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Matthew Turner
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A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by Matthew Turner » Sun Jun 03, 2012 6:47 am

Anders Breivik is looking for a friend to play chess against. The telegraph seem concerned that chess might send Anders crazy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... buddy.html

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John Upham
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by John Upham » Sun Jun 03, 2012 9:58 am

If you can recommend someone that might accept this honourable mission then this place seems to be suitable location to nominate him or her.

I have drawn the attention of The Telegraph correspondent (Nigel Farndale) to this thread in the hope he can obtain a ticket.
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Jonathan Bryant
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Sun Jun 03, 2012 10:02 am

Matthew Turner wrote:Anders Breivik is looking for a friend to play chess against. The telegraph ...

The press do so love their "international serial killer plays chess" stories. See also

Russia's Alexander Pichuskin
France's Michel Fourniret
and just the other day
China's Yang Yongming


Naturally, the reports are typically full of gross errors and the alleged importance of chess to the story does not always stand up to close (or even vague) scrutiny.

Arshad Ali
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by Arshad Ali » Sun Jun 03, 2012 12:47 pm

This, then, is the calibre of writing in the Telegraph. Pathetic.

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sun Jun 03, 2012 1:01 pm

It is rumoured that Ian Brady and Peter Sutcliffe play chess. I don't know if the Telegraph's owners, the Barclay Brothers do.

The Telegraph seems to have totally lost it in the last few years. They sacked their (rather good) cricket correspondents, and made use of local reports which were published under bylines of imaginary staff. Unfortunately one day they had reports on matches at opposite ends of the country apparently by the same individual...
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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Sun Jun 03, 2012 2:12 pm

I support the more interesting question re the article is - does Nigel Farndale play??

I see the blurb at the top repeats the tired old canard about chess "driving people mad" when (as W R Hartston once said) the opposite is nearer the truth :wink:
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Jun 03, 2012 2:29 pm

Matt Mackenzie wrote:I support the more interesting question re the article is - does Nigel Farndale play??
He's written on chess before, see http://members.multimania.co.uk/csarchive/hast0203.htm which mentions an interview with Karyakin around ten years ago.

Jonathan Bryant
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Sun Jun 03, 2012 2:57 pm

Matt Mackenzie wrote:I support the more interesting question re the article is - does Nigel Farndale play??
I would have thought it highly likely that he does have a fair amount of familiarity with the game and does play at some level.

A supplementary question could be: "what do we mean when we ask whether Nigel Farndale 'plays'?".

Plays like us?
I think we'd need further evidence before we concluded that. We're rather freakish after all.

Knows the rules, pushes a bit of wood and perhaps even has a rating on some internet site or other?
Quite likely ... but then by that definition nearly everybody (or at least more than 50% of the population) "plays". Hence it not really being so surprising that it's not too difficult to find people who have both committed violent acts and who have at some point in their lives also played a game of chess.

Of course we can ask this question - and ponder the chances of somebody with an awful lot of time to kill being interested in taking up a hobby that can suck up hour after hour - but then we don't have a column in a national newspaper do we? Who wants to trouble themselves unduly when you can just toss out some cobblers and get yourself to the sherry cabinet.

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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by Paul McKeown » Sun Jun 03, 2012 6:19 pm

The Norwegian prison authorities are looking to find a chess partner for Breivik? I would recommend a Muslim grandmaster of non-white racial origin, wearing a tee-shirt bearing a picture of Saladin on the front and the slogan "EDL are w*nkers" on the back.

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Tristan Clayton
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by Tristan Clayton » Sun Jul 15, 2012 5:29 pm

Those following this thread might be interested in the '60-second idea to improve the world' from this week's edition of The Forum from the BBC World Service: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00vbzrs#synopsis

The contributor, Ukrainian writer Andrei Kurkov, argues that prisoners should be encouraged to play chess. The theme of this week's show is 'navigation', and Andrei sees this idea as a way of bringing a sense of direction into prisoners' lives.

For those who want to listen to the whole episode (and it is a fine programme!) this item starts about 23 minutes in.
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David Gilbert
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by David Gilbert » Mon Jul 16, 2012 1:45 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:It is rumoured that Ian Brady and Peter Sutcliffe play chess. I don't know if the Telegraph's owners, the Barclay Brothers do.

The Telegraph seems to have totally lost it in the last few years. They sacked their (rather good) cricket correspondents, and made use of local reports which were published under bylines of imaginary staff. Unfortunately one day they had reports on matches at opposite ends of the country apparently by the same individual...
We used to send a chess team down to Broadmoor until one year we found Ian Brady waiting on top board. By all accounts he was a strong player. However, he and his team were well (possibly over-) medicated as their performance seemed to deteriorate as the powerful drugs took effect and they started to doze-off! I think we stopped sending a team after that. Your regular Axe murderer was fine - but no one wanted to play Brady.

I've played cricket against the Broadmoor cricket team. The match was not reported at all by the Daily Telegraph, nor any where else for that matter. The two teams were required to sit apart during the Tea break. This was the usual arrangement, and not just because the Plymouth poisoner was keeping wicket and Arsenic Arthur had been fielding down at long leg!

Sean Hewitt
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by Sean Hewitt » Mon Jul 16, 2012 2:19 pm

David Gilbert wrote:We used to send a chess team down to Broadmoor until one year we found Ian Brady waiting on top board. By all accounts he was a strong player. However, he and his team were well (possibly over-) medicated as their performance seemed to deteriorate as the powerful drugs took effect and they started to doze-off! I think we stopped sending a team after that. Your regular Axe murderer was fine - but no one wanted to play Brady.
Some mistake, surely?

I would have thought it certain that such matches were discontinued not as a result of the heinous nature of the crimes committed by the opponents, but by the heiinous nature of the ECF membership scheme?!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

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John Upham
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by John Upham » Mon Jul 16, 2012 2:25 pm

Teams from Broadmoor play in the Aldershot and District Table Tennis League.

The A Team (no pun intended) play in Division One.

All of their matches are home ones and the visiting side must reveal their team details two weeks prior to the match for vetting purposes.

I've no idea if anyone has been tempted to take a cake with them with a nail file inside.
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Richard James
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by Richard James » Mon Jul 16, 2012 2:36 pm

For information on chess in Broadmoor (including my game against a guy who killed his mistress with a samurai sword) see here.

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John Upham
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Re: A slightly bizarre article from the telegraph

Post by John Upham » Mon Jul 16, 2012 2:57 pm

Would the hospitality have included teas and coffees served by Graham Young?

Had he been making notes I might have had cause for concern.
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