My Chequered Career

I've been considerably expanding the pages of My Chequered Career in the Chess Problem section of my website. This is intended to provide a record of my chess problem compositions and the ideas they illustrate. Besides well known pieces like Grasshopper, Nightrider, Leo and Mao, the additional pages also include the other bifurcating hoppers Eagle and Sparrow, and the Clockwork Mouse, as well as variants like Antipodean Chess and Arrow Chess. There are still a lot of compositions to be added. I was hoping this exercise might stimulate me to do some more composing eventually.

Website Improvement and Expansion

This week I've been making some major additions and revisions to my mayhematics website. In the first place I have reverted to an older style for the home page, using the rainbow colours to classify the subjects into six sections, and doing away with the three intermediate index pages. I'd really like the six sections, and the centre one, to be circular but square is the best I can do at present.

The next big change is to the Variant Chess section, due to the closure of the BCVS. All 64 back issues of Variant Chess magazine are now available for download from the Variant Chess page. Most of the labour of scanning the magazines, apart from the first eight issues, was done by Peter Fayers to whom thanks are due. At the bottom there is also a link to the list of books and journals which I collected over the years and were part of the BCVS Library, but which I'm now calling the Variant Chess Library. It occupies a bookcase and some boxes in the entrance passage to my flat.

The other change is the addition of a series of pages of short biographies, mainly of radical reformers in the humanist movement, but also including notable scientists and others (there will be many more to add). Some of these were written for the Leicester Secular Society website, and others I had prepared as notes for a series of talks on the History of Humanism. Many have now appeared in shorter form on the Humanist Heritage site maintained by Hamish Macpherson for the BHA.

All in all a very productive week.

Variant Chess: End of an Era

This Saturday we held the last AMG of the British Chess Variants Society. John Beasley and Peter Fayers came to my flat to settle the final details. So Variant Chess magazine, which I started in 1990, has now also come to an end. The final issue, appropriately number 64, came out in August. Thanks to everyone who has been involved over the 20 years.

Afterwards a small variants tourney was held at Hastings and St Leonards Chess Club. There were five players, so there were five rounds, with the non-playing person in each round choosing the variant for the others to play. The variants chosen were: 1. A game using the back-row sequence BRNKQNRB, 2. Progressive chess, 3. Avalanche chess, 4. Balanced Marseilles chess, 5. Cylinder chess.

The players and their scores were: George Jelliss 0, Bill Penfold 1, Rasa Norinkeviciute 2, John Beasley 3, Patrick Donovan 4. So Patrick won the prize which was a bound set of Chessics magazine. My best game was in the Progressive chess where Rasa had to find a difficult eight-move series to give checkmate. Thanks are particularly due to Mr Penfold for making the effort to master the unfamiliar rules, particularly of the cylinder variant, and to the Club for permitting our use of the venue.

Chess Talk and other Odd Events

I've spent most of this week preparing a booklet on "Simple Chess Variants" for a talk at Hastings and St Leonards Chess Club. Although I only received one email from a member who said he would come, in the end the meeting went off reasonably well, since five others turned up at least for part of the time. I was only able to complete two bound copies of the booklet since my printer ran out of ink. I'll do some more later. It came to 14 A4 pages.

After the talk we tried out some variants. Progressive chess seems to be the most familiar and popular. I had some success with Cylinder chess. One player was familiar with Rifle chess, but considered that normal captures should also be allowed. A try-out with Double King chess was unexciting; the rules for checkmate of the two kings need to be clarified.

The previous week, having watched the first of the new Sherlock series on a flat-screen TV at the hotel in Lincoln, I decided to spend some money on a new television set, since the one I have is just a 14" portable. The local shop, Adams and Jarrett, supplied me with a 22" screen for under £200, made in India. I watched the first two parts of the "Matrix" series on successive nights, but missed the final part since the Richard Dawkins programme about Faith Schools was on at the same time. No doubt I'll get another opportunity to see the Matrix in future. The crazy scene where Neo fights ever-increasing clones of Agent Smith made me laugh. It reminded me of the old elaborate Busby Berkeley dance sequences.

As part of the rearrangements to put in the TV screen I put an old floor-standing pot plant, which came with the flat, outside the front of the building, where I thought it might do better. Within a couple of days it had vanished! Why would anyone steal an old browning pot plant, did they just want the pot? How did they take it? It was about four feet tall, awkward to carry any distance. It hasn't been dumped nearby. Are there gangs of professional plant stealers about? I didn't report the theft to the Police since I don't particularly want the plant back, and don't want to waste police time.

Spring: Time for New Developments

Now that, it seems, Spring is at last here, I've started waking up earlier, or at least not going back to sleep. So there is something to the idea that one tends to go into hibernation in the winter. I was up at six this morning and went for a swim at the baths between seven and eight. Whether I will be able to keep this up regularly remains to be seen.

One of the sounds that now greets me on waking is that of the blackbird, who seems to start singing before the noisy gulls get going. I've always liked the song of the blackbirds. They seem to be speaking to me personally, they often sound as if they are saying "What'ya doin' Georgie". Not that I like any one else being that familiar. My father was also named George, so I got the diminutive version.

It looks as though the British Chess Variants Society will close down this year, since John Beasley is retiring and no replacement has come forward to act as secretary and editor. Also Peter Fayers will not be able to carry on as treasurer and publishing manager. I will probably try to keep the magazine Variant Chess going in some form on the web, but not produce a printed version.

I've been looking into the costs of registering suitable internet addresses, to reorganise my web content, including the magazine. Because my "ntlworld" site was closed I've had to cram all my stuff onto the "mayhematics" site, which was not my original plan. There are also moves afoot to form some sort of International Variant Chess Society. This would be a welcome development, but needs a new generation of internet-savvy enthusdiasts to develop it.