Catching Up

I seem to have lost the motivation to keep this diary up to date lately.

Before christmas I invested in a new computer, a Samsung laptop with Windows 7 and considerably more power than my previous desk top tower type, and I've now just about got it all working, transferred all the files from my old machine, and reinstalled the key programs that I use. Now I should be able to catch up on all the updating work on my website, and on the Hastings chessclub site, that I have in mind.

Over the new year I played in the Hastings chess congress, just in the lower sections, and didn't do particularly well, but I'm hoping my grade may have improved slightly. I seem to be getting better at prosecuting an attack once I have obtained an advantage, particularly using queen and knight together.

Today (Sunday) I went to London by train, to attend the 11 am lecture by Kenan Malik at Conway Hall. The subject was "The Myths of Christian Europe". I thought it might provide me with some material for my own talk to Hastings Humanists on 9 February, which is on the rewriting of history by christian apologists.

I also stayed for a symposium held at 2.30 pm on the future of South Place Ethical Society, of which I am a member. It seems some members fear a "take-over" by the BHA, but personally I can see no harm in greater cooperation between the two organisations. I would also like to see the Rationalist Association involved. Some of the members there seem to hold strange ideas about what "Humanism" is.

Going to the first meeting meant getting up very early since there were works on the line and a bus service between Wadhurst and Tonbridge. The train left at 7.38 and I arrived at Charing Cross about 10.15. The return journey was longer due to waiting for the connecting bus and train. The "bus" was in fact a very long "Eurocruiser" coach which had considerable difficulty negotiating some of the sharp bends on the side roads and station entrances.

Weekend in Leicester

I spent the weekend from Thursday 29 September to Monday 2 October in Leicester, playing in the Chess Congress and attending meetings at Secular Hall. The weather was very hot and sunny, not what I had expected for this time of year, and not ideal for playing chess. However I suppose I can't really blame the weather for my poor results, just two draws (in the first and fifth games) and one of those was against a junior.

At Secular Hall there was a lecture on 29 September about the situation in Libya, though the speaker was a supported of the Gaddaffi regime, who described his 40-year rule as a type of socialist utopia! What is going to happen there in future is of course difficult to predict. On Sunday there was a meeting of a new History Group in the afternoon, and in the evening a most interesting talk on Thomas Babbington and his friends and family and their work for the abolition of the Slave Trade. They did a lot of the work in preparing evidence for William Wilberforce to use in his speeches in Parliament (from which Quakers and nonconformists were excluded).

I travelled to London by train, and to Leicester by coach. On the return journey, also by coach from Leicester I thought I would try the coach to Hastings. This proved to be a mistake, as the so-called 'Express' took nearly 4 hours! It began by going south-west to Mitcham, and so on to Coulsdon and East Grinstead. Then it went on a grand round tour of East Sussex, stopping at Uckfield, Hailsham, Eastbourne, Pevensey, Bexhill and other places.

Allotting Computer Time

Sorry I've not found time to post anything here for several weeks. Most of my time on the computer has been taken up either with Twitter or trying to improve my understanding of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) so that I can improve my website and also help to improve the Hastings Chess Club's website. If you click on the "Events" link you will be taken to a page I've designed, and you will find another if you click on the link to the page abour Jude Lenier's simultaneous chess display. I would like feedback to know how this style is perceived, whether the rest of the site should be updated similarly, and if anyone can offer suggestions for improvements. I've also done a lot of work on sections of my own website, but the pages can only be posted to the site when they are all ready, because they all link together, so there is nothing new to see there yet.

Queen Victoria in Warrior Square

There was a spectacular sunset this evening around 4:30. I went out with my camera to try to capture an image, but by then the view had changed, first the sun came out from behind the clouds, then it quickly set. I got some images, but they were similar to others obtained before. I ended up on the sea-front by Warrior Square and noticed that the statue of Queen Victoria was illuminated with a spotlight and that the plinth seems to have been cleaned. Hence the photo shown here.

I did very poorly in the Weekend Chess Congress, playing in the Minor tournament, since I managed only a draw, and that was against the youngest competitor, where I ended up with a knight and pawn against two knights and pawn. The middle game of the five, played in the evening of the first day, was weird. I made a muddle of the opening and was well down, then somehow revived to fight back to a winning position, and then went to sleep again in the end game and threw it away. Sheer tiredness I think. There are another five games to go in the New Year tournament, which I suspect will be against stronger opposition.

Chess and the Brain

I've been playing in the Hastings Christmas Morning and Christmas Afternoon chess tournaments over the last four days, and managed to score 1.5 in each (i.e. one win, one draw and two losses). No prizes for that, but I'm in it just for the practice, since I haven't played orthodox chess for many years.

I'm also entered in the Weekend Congress, and the New Year tournament next week. This is probably too much really. I'm already quite tired. The draws which both went to over 60 moves were particularly wearing. At the end of my last game this afternoon, which I was fortunate to win, I think we were both punch drunk; I'm sure a lot of the moves will make little sense when seen in the light of day.

There was an interesting item on the Today programme yesterday (I think) where it was claimed that Liberals have a developed "Anterior Cingulate(?) Cortex" in the brain, while Conservatives have a stronger "Amigdala(?)" (a primitive, reptilian, part of the brain). It was questioned whether this was from birth or whether the brain differences developed due to experience. I'm hoping my chess exercise will help stop my brain from subsiding into Alzheimers, as it seems to me to show signs of doing.

A Chequerboard of Afternoons and Evenings

On Tuesday afternoon I went the unveiling of some new sculptures at the "Chess Square" at the end George Street in Hastings Old Town. They depict a sea-horse, an octopus wrestling with a chess rook, and a sea serpent, I think. I didn't notice anyone from the chess club there, but there were several Councillors, including Dom Sebatian who sometimes comes to our Humanist meetings. The chess pieces for use on the board painted on the ground are kept in a cupboard against the wall of Butler's Emporium, and the key can apparently be obtained from the West Hill Lift Office, further along George Street, for a returnable deposit. It might be an idea for the chess club to put on a demonstration now and again.

In the evening I went to the AGM of the Hastings Arts Forum. It's a surprisingly large organisation, since the quorum required was nearly 50. They met in one of the sections of the Azur restaurant on the lower promenade. I was there just to see the venue and to get a better idea of the people behind the venture, and its recent history of recovery from financial problems.

On Wednesday afternoon I managed to arrange for a man from Sussex Bin Cleaning to come and clean our bins which were in a disgusting state. I found the company on the web, at the suggestion of my landlord, Mr Griffiths, since the Hastings Council do not provide a bin-cleaning service and indeed could not suggest anyone to do the work. He will be coming monthly to keep the bins clean from now on.

On Thursday afternoon Mr Griffiths arrived and took away most of the rubbish that had accumulated on the old sofa that had been dumped in front of the flats. I'm wondering what to do to stop more stuff being dumped there. Some plants in pots perhaps? The Council will remove fly-tipping but only of it is on public land, so perhaps that means redumping it on the pavement, although if you are seen doing that presumably there is a fine, so you can't win either way.

More Chess Practice

On Saturday (27th) I joined in a rapid-play chess tournament (Swiss style 7 rounds) at the Hastings chess club, but only managed to score 1.5 (a win and a draw). I've not really got the idea of how to play so fast.

On Monday evening I got soaked on my way to the club to join the club secretary and another player to be taken by car to Cranbrook for a return match with the Kent team we met previously. A fourth team member travelled separately. I had the same opponent, but this time lost, though the game was very similar and just as long by time. This was not rapid play but 75 minutes plus another 15 minutes at the end, much more to my taste. Again I found myself a knight down but with a passed pawn. The team score was 2 points each.

When I arrived back I was concerned not to be able to find the pair of glasses that I use for looking at computer screens, and for chess play, but fortunately it turned out the spectacle case had just slid out of my jacket pocket onto the car seat, and hadn't been left behind in Cranbrook.

I'm looking on all these games as practice at getting back into the routine of orthodox chess, but I don't seem to be making very fast progress.

Chess and Mathematics

Last Monday I took part in a chess match, playing on behalf of the Hastings club against a team of four from Kent. I was on the third board. The time allowance was quite generous, which suits my slow play, and I managed a draw. Most of the time I was a knight down, but with the advantage of a passed pawn, so it was a matter of trying to get the pawn promoted. There were a lot of interesting tactical situations that arose the game. The opposing team won overall by 2.5 to 1.5.

On Wednesday I received a letter from Professor Donald E. Knuth of Stanford University. We have previously corresponded on knight's tours, but I hadn't had a letter from him for several years. He is putting together a book of his Selected Papers on Fun and Games which will include several chapters on tours, among much else. I had to look up what "potrzebie" was all about. It seems it's a Polish word adopted by MAD Magazine as a running joke back in the 1960s.

The topic Prof Knuth was asking about concerned the results obtained by Robin H. Merson on non-intersecting knight's paths. As a result I have now placed PDF versions of Robin Merson's two main letters to me, dealing with open and closed paths, on the knight's tours page of my mayhematics website. They haven't scanned very clearly; for instance the background graph lines have not come out, but that's the best I can do at present.

Prof Knuth also likes to collect the middle names of everyone whose work he cites, but I was unable to locate what Robin Merson's "H" stood for. He worked for the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough on the use of satellites for mapping the Earth, among other activities.

Random Thoughts

I played another couple of chess games on Friday evening, at a slow rate without clocks, and won both of them against a player who seemed quite strong, so perhaps I'm getting back into the right frame of mind. One ended in a knight checkmate, the other in a queen against rook superiority. The more rapid play games which we played on previous weeks require one to react much more instinctively, rather than contemplate each move carefully.

Why are there no longer any malt-flavoured cereals being produced? I used to like malted shreddies when they were produced by Rowntrees, but as soon as Nescafe took them over they changed the recipe so that the malt taste was far less. I complained at the time, but got no helpful response. Now they have removed the malt altogether! This seems to be part of their policy of claiming that everything is "whole grain".

My article on "Howard Jacobson and the Temple of Darwin" appeared on the new HumanistLife website on my 70th birthday, 8th February, but has not attracted any comments. Perhaps this means that it is perfect as it is and doesn't need any further comments? Probably not! I'm glad to see that more articles are appearing with a greater frequency now. There are strong disagreements between Humanists on a number of issues, for instance the assisted dying question, and whether the burka should be banned. These have attracted the most comments.

More Chess

More chess this Friday evening, a six-player all-play-all with twenty minutes on the clock. I was given a low grading of 80 and had 13 minutes to 7, or 15 minutes to 5, depending on opponents' gradings. This time I won two, though my opponents in those games were either distracted by the time handicap, or thought I needed a win. Both ended in a straightforward queen checkmate. I did deliberately try to play in a more attacking style compared with last time.

I've been feeling rather tired in the afternoons lately, and unable to rouse myself to get much done. Perhaps I need to keep more regular hours, or perhaps I will come out of hibernation when the weather warms up a bit.

Chess, Music and Euthanasia

This is a photo I took on Monday of the Hastings Chess Club premises in Cornwallis Terrace. As you can see, like many places in Hastings, they hardly conform to the requirements of disabled access. The steps up to the front door could hardly be more precipitous!

Besides chess I've started to take an interest once more in music, with a view to playing or composing, probably with an electronic keyboard. Besides loking at various keyboards in a local music shop, and searching for details online, I borrowed a book "Play it Again" from the public library. This gave some useful website links and they are now listed on a page of my website devoted to Music.

Last week I also received a bowel cancer test kit through the post from the NHS. Taking smears for the test was not a very pleasant occupation, it must be very embarrassing for people who are unable to do them without assistance. According to the news this morning everyone who attends hospital is now to be tested for liability to thrombosis. Is this determination to keep more people living longer really a good thing? I see Martin Amis is advocating the provision of euthanasia booths on street corners where the decrepit are to be encouraged to end it all!

More Chess

I've continued with trying to get back into playing chess, with visits to the Hastings Chess Club on Tuesday afternoon and again on Friday evening. My results have not been great, especially one game against a really strong player who just walked all over me, metaphorically speaking. I'm still walking into pins and forks and batteries and leaving pieces en prise, but given time I am managing to defend reasonably soundly against players of club strength, and finding a few combinations. There's an interesting article by Gary Kasparov on "The Chess Master and The Computer", which was linked to on the new HumanistLife forum.

Earlier in the day I had an appointment with the bank to discuss putting some money into an ISA, and also took out some Contents Insurance. There was also the possibility of adding my pedal cycle to this, but I judged it too expensive to do this. If it were stolen it would be just as cheap to buy a new one.

Joining the Chess Club

On Friday Evening I at last got round to joining the Hastings Chess Club. I went along at 6:30 and left at about 8:30 after playing three games. Not having played orthodox chess, and very little variant chess, for ten years or more I lacked confidence that I could do any good without getting in some practice. The first two games however I drew, and the other I resigned. I did practice with a couple of games on the computer against the Zillions of Games version of chess. However it's going to take me quite a while to get up the confidence to play in tournaments again, as I did many years ago.

Variant Chess Tournament

I got an email from Mike Gunn about 6pm on New Years Eve that let me know there was a Variant chess tournament on at the White Rock Hotel. So I went along and took part. There were 14 players, and we played 7 rounds, a different variant in each round, the clocks were set at 7 miniutes per player. The variants were 1) Three-check chess, 2) Progressive chess, 3) Avalanche chess, 4) Triplet chess, 5) Pocket knights chess, 6) Static chess, 7) Losing chess. I scored 3 and 1/2. The winner with 6 points was a junior, who received the Encyclopedia of Chess Variants as his prize. This was an enjoyable way to end the year. I shall have to join the chess club and get in more practice. I've not played orthodox chess for at least ten years, and haven't felt confident enough to enter tournaments.

This morning I woke to find a layer of snow over everything, and a little still coming down. A pleasant start to the new year.