“I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.”
Michel Foucault
On Friday the twenty-third of December, the last eighty-five kilometers of the three hundred and more I cycled through and through this week took me to Bangkok Chess Club and back. There I played in a blitz tournament, and although a little tipsy at times, I put many people much higher rated in serious trouble, with everyone saying I am stronger now -don’t ask me how! The tournament winner I played in the last round, after the game my Lithuanian opponent rated around 2300 ELO said he was very worried about my kingside attack and was somewhat relived to win through! It was a great evening. So nice to see friends after all that has happened of late, check the video below to see what Bangkok Chess Club is all about. And before you ask, yes I do wear a bandanna, and Endgame clothing also http://www.endgameclothing.com/ , and yes the shorts I wear are army shorts, Calvin Klein of course; the colour coordination is (from top to bottom) dark green, dark blue, dark green, and then dark blue bike below -excluding the heavy orange belt. And why? I’m Irish/Scots by ancestry, that’s why. Why is the hue dark in both cases, well just look into their respective histories to find that answer. But just before you peek at the vid, Peter’s good website can be found here. http://bangkokchess.com/
I appear @ 0.15 and 1.18, BKK itself appears @ 4.00.
Chess is about struggles is it not?
“I’m no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls.”
I was there, I played Black, it was a Ruy Lopez, Chigorin variation. I still remember his look at me after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 occurred, he thought ‘Should I play 3. Bc4 or Bb5’ he played the latter. His book on the Lopez back then was the best book still to this day written on it and btw yes he does have a 100% record against a certain GM names Gary Kasparov…no wonder I lost!!!!
Sweby adds details about Mardle’s award of a C.B.E. Assigning a home to William Ward is dubious. Himself aside, Mardle is the best chess player Luton has ever produced, and professionally, the most accomplished.
Tell me why I don’t NOT like Mondays? Ha ha, no need to since the question is rhetorical.
It’s because on Monday next week I thought I’d saunter off down to some place called London and mill about in The British Museum. There, I shall meet former Luton player Nick McBride, and together we’ll have a look at the Lewis Chessmen.
“In everyone there sleeps A sense of life lived according to love. To some it means the difference they could make By loving others, but across most it sweeps, As all they might have done had they been loved. That nothing cures.”
Faith Healing -Philip Larkin
Depart here: arrive there. I amabout to ‘win the exchange’, to put it metaphorically for ahead is an ascent into the sky by A380, leaving behind a bid farewell to the fragments of a life long since passed, still echoing, resonating into that to come: the resumption of the life I chose, the airline chosen to carry me there, and my child waiting for her father to carry her, therefore, an exchange of locations awaits. I will ‘win the exchange’ but it is not without an evinced sense of sorrow. To cherish that disparate fragment left behind so deeply, I will miss it…I know how I will feel and think during take-off next week: ‘Into my heart an air that kills’…one day next year the Bedfordshire chess scene will feel like ‘the land of lost content’, that I can tell … .
Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
A Shropshire Lad v.40 A. E. Housman
Behold the spectacle of Bedford Chess Club! Before departing I went there to see both it and its members new and old. It was great to thank Mr. Paul Habershon for the help he has given and to be escorted to the bar by Mr. Nigel Staddon, now 87 years old, able to answer the questions I posed. It was also a pleasure to meet Mr. Steve Pike, and have a chat at the bar… in fact I wonder and ask myself did I spend more time chatting in the bar than in the club watching games? All in all, truly amazing it was and whether or not I had drunk cider just before never mattered…not that I would ever do such a thing you understand being on the medication that I am!
Oops! Now where’s that delete button gone?
At the centre of the county scene flourishes Bedford Chess Club. I was so welcomed, it was so very touching but within my heart a sadness spoke too, it said ‘When you close the door as you leave, you must say goodbye to not just the members but the club as a whole’. Many I met were kind and so polite, happy to see me again. There was much to talk about and part of me wanted not to go but to stay… .
I left the building and there something left me…when the exit door was opened it jarred then splintered through my heart…but I remembered as one door closes another opens, and close it I did…so upon the street I stood alone… .
“Loneliness clarifies. Here silence stands Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken, Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken, Luminously-peopled air ascends; And past the poppies bluish neutral distance Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence: Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.”
Here -Philip Larkin
There, stood staring into an avenue empty, my brain stopped processing for a split second or two: then I heard the trees arching over rustle in the wind that gusted suddenly, saw the street lights become brighter, felt the pain of ‘farewell’ sharpening, and for a moment I was disorientated.Towards the train station I walked happy but sad, sad but happy as I had an evening so inspired by the courtesy and company of others, and it cannot be repeated… .
To the action… .
In Bedford 3, I offer assistance to Steve Pike’s son at @6.10 then appear!
Farewell beloved Bedford Chess Club…it was such a pleasure, I do hope one day I will see you again…once I have won the exchange (of locations) and played on with a better position…perhaps I will return with my daughter to play also…if I can free us up… .
“Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.”
Henri J. M. Nouwen
Life moves us on. And on. And whilst at the station awaiting an extortionately priced train to where I grew up, that afternoon of horrendous delays extended long into the evening… . It was then, and only then, that my love of the chess club in Bedford became perceptible as a dissonant fragment of a life long passed by, thus a cynical epiphany occurred. I told myself, ‘what I tolerate, so must my child, as she will endure what I endure’. Crap train service as always, for example. I told myself, ‘If you tolerate this (extortionate and crap train service) then your child will be (the) next (to tolerate this extortionate and crap train service)’… .
…here, the chess-related musings of an adrift academic are bound playfully and electronically, in this online journal of sorts. It has grown and grown in the decade I have kept it going and above all you must understand I write through a love of writing AND NOT to be read. Content is often personal and that alone should tell you I am writing for myself. Most importantly of all, I am proud of my own originality (as you won’t find content like this anywhere else) and believe in what I do, and that is of much greater value than the acceptance that most would find some of what I have to say very distasteful indeed, and some would find it disgusting, but since everything is open to interpretation, that’s something you have to come to terms with yourself. I have changed what I strive towards, and for the right reasons. They are self-centred yes but rightly so. Take from it whatever you will, frankly, I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks, although admittedly, if someone comments to say they also found it amusing, then I would be quite happy.
…for navigation, the categories and/or search bar should suffice…
…questions I shall do my utmost to answer promptly, particularly if they pertain to that past & present in my home town or county, those being Luton & Bedfordshire… .
An website defining update
In recent months I have written content which I find tremendously entertaining. Originality is the overriding factor, with humour tied to it, and content that is often highly inappropriate for a chess website. I have undergone something of a revolution and redefined what this site is. This site is entitled McCreadyandChess. It’s not just chess -it’s me too. And in terms of originality, however unreadable it may be, posts have gone through the roof, with much content I personally find hilarious. I accept most won’t but once again, I write for myself and not to be read by others. This shift in emphasis I think is truly fantastic, so there’s more of me coming and less chess on this site entitled mccreadyandchess -a greater sense of balance has been struck.
1.48pm November 14th, 2022, Chachoengsao
Mark. J. McCready
Where I can be found elsewhere
Were it the case that you fancied a game online, you can find me at following two:
McCreadyandChess 