Saturday, March 16, 2024

(297) Ann or Anne and three Annas

 On the evening of March 13th 2024, Raymond Keene sent to me (and also sent it, independently, to my wife) this (quite unsolicited) poem in an e mail 

The Relic

BY JOHN DONNE

When my grave is broke up again
       Some second guest to entertain,
       (For graves have learn'd that woman head,
       To be to more than one a bed)
                And he that digs it, spies
A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
                Will he not let'us alone,
And think that there a loving couple lies,
Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their souls, at the last busy day,
Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

         If this fall in a time, or land,
         Where mis-devotion doth command,
         Then he, that digs us up, will bring
         Us to the bishop, and the king,
                To make us relics; then
Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I
                A something else thereby;
All women shall adore us, and some men;
And since at such time miracles are sought,
I would have that age by this paper taught
What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

         First, we lov'd well and faithfully,
         Yet knew not what we lov'd, nor why;
         Difference of sex no more we knew
         Than our guardian angels do;
                Coming and going, we
Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;
                Our hands ne'er touch'd the seals
Which nature, injur'd by late law, sets free;
These miracles we did, but now alas,
All measure, and all language, I should pass,

Should I tell what a miracle she was. 

And then I replied by explaining how it contributed to a coincidence.

For, about five days I, (at long last!) had gotten around to amending Blog entry (108). Firstly by altering the title from

The Parousia Novel

to its new heading. Living the Dream: A Coincidence Diary: (108) The novel about The Second Coming (james-plasketts-coincidence-diary.blogspot.com)

And then addding the codicil of seven separate strands apropos Anna Durrant and Anne Cooper, because I thought they entwined themselves into a valid coincidence. And one not wholly distinct from the context/heading of Entry (108).

Then came Keene´s surprise e mail to each of us of a poem which I had never even heard of (although my wife had read it) with it´s reference to Mary Magdalen and exhumation.

and the follow on coincidences of Anne and Anna.
EXACTLY the two names in my "update" of, cerca, March 8th.

And also to the same resuurection.

Thursday, February 22, 2024

(296) Lightning strikes connect husband and wife. Piano mastery to begin the next day. And Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

 


  • On October 19th 2023 at 19:38 I was proof reading and, to some extent, expanding my book Bread and the CircusBread and the Circus eBook : Plaskett, James: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store  
    • It is about my own involvements with the TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? 
    I also had this playing in the background on Youtube - Surgeon Struck by Lightning : Discovers the God Energy (Near-Death Experience) - YouTube


    • Although I had a Yamaha keyboard, I rarely used it. But I had been experiencing the most compelling desire to make music, and found myself thinking very seriously about mastering piano to a high level. And, even perhaps the very next day, buying and installing a proper piano. Pedals and all!
    • My wife had, thirty years before, taught me how to trace out a few Beatles tunes. But only with the right hand.
    • Well, I had the thing on Youtube playing because it was about a near death experience. I had no idea at all that such an experience would lead to Tony Cicoria - Wikipedia developing any interest in the piano.
    • But, listen to Tony say at 18:50 how, after he was struck by lightning, he was ineluctably drawn to learn and play piano, but did not even possess one. And then the next day his baby sitter asked if she could store a classical piano at his house for a year.
    • As I was going through the proofs I reached the point in the first chapter where I quote from the email Av Rosen sent me about the TV News commenting that one was more likely to be struck by lightning than to have two people from the same family appear on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? -

    ´The American news mentioned that one is more likely to be struck by lightning than have two people from the same family make it to the finalist stage of the show. But, as Av commented to me, there had been more than one instance of the same person making it on to the show twice, and that could hardly be more improbable.´

    I am not entirely certain how far into the Youtube clip I was when the coincidence struck me. Certainly not before the surgeon got hit by lightning. But then I saw the parallels with his story. 
    It was his own mother he had been phoning. 
    His wife ran out to cope with him after the lightning struck.
    From the Hot Seat I had rung my wife as Phone a Friend. 

    And Av Rosen too related a happier ending, as a few months later he e mailed to say he and his daughter, had, whilst competing in an online Quiz, won $500,000!
    ...   ...   ...                                              Fast forward to February 13th 2024 when my piece arguing for a miscarriage of justice in the 2003 trial of Major Charles Ingram, Reasonable Doubt, was published in The Article. https://www.thearticle.com/reasonable-doubt-was-the-coughing-major-innocent?utm_source=most_rated
     Four days later, Raymond Keene had this piece appear there too           Shakespeare, Borges and ‘Plaskett’s Immortal’


    "While seeking a game of epic Shakespearean dimension, to mirror the  seeming  quarkiness of Quantum Theory,I came across this death-defying feat by Grandmaster James Plaskett — “Plaskett’s Immortal”, no less. 

    "... Plaskett´s immortal, no less."
    Hmmm!?
    Could the surgeon´s story point to each and every one of us being "immortal           
  • And no less!?"



  • .

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

(295) Michael Basman grabbing Vassily Smyslov at the 1968 Olympiad

I had known International Master, Michael Basman since the mid 1970s, played him quite a few times and even stayed at his home. Yet it was only on June 10th 2023 I was to encounter the remarkable story of what happened at the 1968 Chess Olympiad during his game with ex-World Champion, Vassily Smyslov. 

That was some eight months after Basman' s death and I, for no specific reason, elected to consult his obituary piece at the English Chess Forum. It mentions how Michael had grabbed Smyslov by the lapels and bawled at him to ask whether he wanted a draw!

Re: IM Michael Basman

Post by NickFaulks » Mon Oct 31, 2022 3:13 pm

Matt Mackenzie wrote: 
Mon Oct 31, 2022 2:17 pm
Any chance of getting a paywall free version?
Thus is the Smyslov excerpt.

"In 1967 he was the star of the England team that won bronze in the World Student Championship and the following year played for the English team at the Chess Olympiad in Lugano. During one match he offered Vasily Smyslov from the Soviet Union a draw. When there was no reply he grabbed Smyslov fiercely by the coat and repeated the offer. “No,” came the reply meekly."

Smyslov went on to win that game.

er... well, not QUITE the decorum anticipated from a man representing his country...:D


Only some 30 mins later an e mail from The Article arrived with a piece by Ray Keene headed -

From Cambridge to Lugano: playing Spassky in 1969


- and which included the very same story!

At Point (41) here -

Living the Dream: A Coincidence Diary: The Narrative, plus Epilogues and Appendices (james-plasketts-coincidence-diary.blogspot.com)

- I have supplied a link to this Entry, where again we are to see, in a manner of speaking, the manifestation of the grinning ghost of another man with an interest in spirituality and coincidence. 

And I note at the ECF thread in homage to Mike -

I´m sure my friend Michael Basman would appreciate a little bit of whimsy on his Obituary thread! :D


Sunday, April 16, 2023

(294) Crime and Punishment. "When in Tibet, do as the Tibetans do"

On Monday April 10th 2023 my wife commented to me re the Dalai Lama getting himself into trouble by having asked a kid to suck his tongue. It struck me as fantastically improbable he would do anything immoral with a child and it was probably just something considered not all that improper in Tibet. 


Apparently sticking your tongue out in Tibet is just a polite form of greeting. Here is Brad Pitt encountering it in the film Seven Years in Tibet.



Note his (curiously apposite in THIS context !) remark at 0:25.
But a couple of days later I would read that even there asking a kid to Suck your tongue is not the same thing at all as sticking your tongue out.

The Dalai Lama´s act also made me think of similar gestures which are not the done thing in a particular region, and I recalled an incident from years before when Richard Gere got flak in India for having publicly kissed a woman with whom he had co-starred in an Indian film. 
For kissing like that is considered most improper there.
To my great surprise that issue resurfaced the very next day when on Tuesday April 11th 2023 I was to spot this -

I had no idea Gere´s faux pas had led to any kind of legal repercussions whatsoever, let alone those which were to become resolved a full sixteen years later.
Gere, a Buddhist, had also campaigned for the rights of the Tibetans and their culture.


re kissing in certain cultures being disapproved, I then found myself thinking of the 1983 film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, which was based on Sir Laurens van der Post´s novel The Seed and the Sower. Jack Celliers, played by David Bowie, stymies the intent of the commander of a Japanese Prisoner of War camp, played by Ryuichi Sakamoto, to behead an RAF officer. He thwarts that by kissing him.
This appals the Japanese who have Celliers killed by burying him in the earth until only his head is left exposed.
Ryuichi Sakamoto also composed the music for Merry Christmas, Mr LawrenceHe died of cancer on March 28th 2023 aged 71, some two weeks before the gesture made by the Dalai Lama. I mentioned his death to my wife who said she had seen him perform twice in Cartagena, in 2009 and 2011. Sakamoto was better known, as indeed was Bowie, as a musician. On one occasion here he played two pianos which were somehow mysteriously linked.  


Friday, May 08, 2020

(293) Learning from Krabbé 's Chess Curiosities site about Salvioli´s pawn ending break of g4! in response to ...g5? and, very shortly afterwards, encountering the idea

On April 29th 2020 I was giving a chess lesson via Skype to a Mancunian girl, Bryony Eccleston. Her mother had requested I teach something about endings so, over the previous couple of lessons, I had been working with her on pawn endings. On April 29th 2020 I tried to teach her about a rarely encountered tricky breakthrough in a pawn ending of the answering of...g5? with g4! by showing an example of it in a game from a tournament in Kiev 1978 between GM Hans Ree and IM Lyubomir Ftacnik.
(Although, since I did not have my signed copy of Ree´s The Human Comedy of Chess in front of me, I had not arranged the pawns on the queenside precisely as they were in the actual game.)         Ftacnik thought he was winning and had played 56...g6-g5?? But he was stunned by the response of 57 g4!.  All other moves lost for white. But 57 g4! won. 
After an hour´s thought, Ftacnik continued 57...hxg4 58 h5 Ke6 59 Kf2 Kf7 60 Kg3 Kg7 61 Kxg4 Kh6 62 Kf5 Kxh5 63 Kxf6 g4 64 e5 g3 65 e6 g2 66 e7 g1=Q 67 e8=Q+ Kh4 68 Qh8+ Kg3 69 Qg8+ Kg2 70 Qxg1+ Kxg1 71 Ke5 Kf2 72 Kd5 Ke3 73 Kc6 Kd2 74 Kxb6 Kc2 75 Ka5 Kxb2 76 Kxa4 Kc3 77 Kb5 and black resigned.
Afterwards I would send Bryony a follow up e mail directing her to Entry 322 with its listing of all such surprises in pawn endings (via Entry 392) at one of my favourite websites: Tim Krabbé´s Chess Curiosities - https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary.htm
In Entry 321 https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_17.htm Tim saw what he perhaps took to be the only example of it.
But in Entry 322, appended in August 2006, he lists seventeen other instances of the breakthrough. And then found that further researches turned up another ten. And then that still others had been occuring! In the great majority the opportunity to execute the decisive response had been overlooked. (Krabbé includes the one occasion when what he had thought to be the "winning chance" was missed but a subsequent analysis showed the chap on the receiving end would, even then, have been able to hold) - https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/12287/does-white-really-have-a-win-in-this-pawn-ending-as-claimed-by-tim-krabb%c3%a9
One was in a game by a Dutchman called Welling where he thus defeated Soviet GM Eingorn. Welling later told Krabbé that he had only became aware of the idea through having read about it a few weeks earlier at Tim´s site (either by Entry 321 or 322) (!)
(btw, there is a correction by Welling of the false claim that it was also after an hour´s thought (don´t forget Ftacnik´s pondering for one hour after having been hit by Ree´s 57 g3-g4! that Eingorn resigned. Welling says this was not what happened, for Eingorn had resigned after much less time. But a misconception that he had thought for a full hour had occurred.
Or perhaps that´s just me looking for coincidences!)
When looking up his Entries on the Salvioli pawn break at Krabbé ´s site I had actually spotted a misspelling of the word "simple" as "simpe" at Entry 392 and only a few days later, on May 3rd 2020, I e mailed him about it.
At 10:31 A.M. two days later he responded -
Dear Mr Famous Chess Grandmaster,
Sorry about that, always happy with a good corrector.
Cheers,
Tim
On the evening of Monday May 5th 2020, the day when Krabbé had written back, I played this 3 minute game as Black Vs an opponent styling himself Terminator 1976 at the www.li.chess site -
1 e4 e5 2 c3 Nc6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 d4 d5 5 exd5 Nxd5 6 Qa4 exd4 7 Nxd4 Bd7 8 Bb5 Nxd4 9 Bxd7+ Qxd7 10 Qxd4 Qe6+ 11 Be3 Nxe3 12 Qxe3 Qxe3+ 13 fxe3 Bc5 14 e4 0-0-0 15 Nd2 Rd3 16 0-0-0 Re8 17 Rhe1 Be3 18 Kc2 Rxd2+ 19 Rxd2 Bxd2 20 Kxd2 Re6 21 Re3 f6 22 Kd3 Kd7 23 Kd4 Ke7 24 Rd3 Rd6+ 25 Ke3 Rxd3+ 26 Kxd3 Kd6 27 g3 Ke5 28 Ke3 c5 29 c4 b6 30 b3 a5 31 a3 h5 ...and my opponent played 32 h3 ...
Had he played 32 h4 instead then my intent was to follow up with what I, at first, thought to be the "winning" reply of 32...g5
But almost immediately I spotted that this would have made me, according to Krabbé , only the fortieth (or so) mug in all history to qualify for his list (in recorded instances since Salvioli´s study of 1888, at any rate) to fall for the now "simple" and winning response of 33 g4!!
And the very first such mug since 2012.

(btw, and apropos my opponent´s chosen handle, the film Terminator Six: Dark Fate had been released in 2019 and a scene from it was actually shot less than 200 metres from my front door!)
I gave my lesson to a girl. (Medina´s opponent in Entry 392 was also female.) And when my wife noticed that the ratio of males to females in the chess world is twenty-five to one she had said she regretted not having played chess when she was younger.)
Also on May 2nd 2020, Bryony´s mother, Ruth, had already sent me some games Bryony had played since her last lesson with me of April 29th 2020, one of which was in a simul given by Tim Wall. I had responded to say little more than that Tim featured in two examples of coincidence at my Blog: Entries (75) and (154).
I had been apt to tell Bryony that I always learned from any pupil I taught.