ADDICTS’ CORNER

Mike Fox and Richard James get lost on the way to Tamworth

The long and winding road

Regulars will recall some of our more spectacular failures to arrive at unfamiliar chess venues through our inability to comprehend the instructions (eg MF and IM Geoff Lawton end up munching the cucumber sandwiches at Halesowen Bridge Club rather than Stourbridge Chess Club - or was it the other way round? - after your columnist's addled brain interpreted 'Stourbridge Conservative Club' (their premises) as 'Halesowen Labour Club' (or vice versa)). We mention this because we have just seen (in the Brum League Handbook) the amazing instructions for those of you selected to play against Tamworth & District C.C. this year. For completeness, they can't be beat. We have read stories by Ernest Hemingway that were shorter: 'Leave Birmingham on A38M, M6 South and then onto M42 North exiting at Junc. 9. Take second exit, A446 to Lichfield. Approx 1 mile on, turn right
onto A 4091 to Tamworth. Turn left onto River Drive dual carriageway, go all the way round next island and back onto Riverside Drive travelling eastwards. Follow signs for Burton and Nottingham A513 via Anker Drive and Bolebridge Street through series of islands. Turn onto Saxon Drive, which runs parallel with high level railway line to station. Then second possible exit onto Offa Drive (A513) which runs parallel to low level railway line to a set of traffic lights...' (Still with us, are you? Nearly there!) '...Turn right across railway bridge using left hand lane and immediately across bridge turn left into Salters Lane which runs into Masefield Drive. Past shops on right, turn into Shelley Road, the first left into Solway Close signposted Wigginton Park... (eh?) 'Club is at end of a long winding drive' (It would be, wouldn't it?). Phew!

And if you're coming by public transport, God help you, it continues: 'By bus to Corporation Street; turn into Aldersgate at traffic lights and continue into Upper Gunsgate. Turn left over railway bridge onto Salter's Lane and ... continue as above'.

Thanks to George Hill West Brom CC for all this. George said the Wigggington Park essay acted as a strong disincentive to his team when away fixtures against Tamworth were on the cards. Must be worth about ten points a season to them.

LASTGUR (sic)

Mabel points out that in October's Chess, p45 (19th century political cartoon), the board was the right way round, but the globe (the world on John Bull's shoulders) was upside down.

Odd Man Out

In our last column we asked you to identify the (very) odd man out from Noel Coward, Julian Clary, Mike Fox and Richard James.
The answer, of course, is Mike Fox. The other three all were born or spent their earliest years in Teddington. Mike only lived there in later life.

Happy New Millennium

As this is our last article of the year we'd like to take the opportunity to wish all of you, especially those who have contributed to this column, a Happy Christmas.
The pedants amongst you can stop reading here. The rest of you will all have your own highlights of the past thousand years of chess. Here are some of ours.
It was the millennium in which a punter on Cilla Black's very wonderful Moment of Truth won a host of goodies for his family by successfully completing the Knight's Tour, with some help from our favourite GM Daniel King. It was the millennium in which Alasdair Alexander Surbiton CC revealed to us a couple of postal players whose names we couldn't possibly divulge in a family magazine. It was the millennium in which the BCF grading system and finances finally... but in the season of peace and goodwill we shouldn't really express our feelings on that subject. It was the millennium in which W Clinton, taking time off from his dalliances with Monica, Gennifer et al, won the Perth Minor. It was the millennium in which Jac Thomas and Jack Thompson, with a pleasing symmetry of names, shared first place in the Under 8 section of the Richmond Junior Congress. And perhaps looking forward to the next century with the two Jac(k)s and their friends is the most fitting way to round up the past thousand years.

Anyway, that's it for another millennium. Keep sending in those contributions (you can e-mail them to rjcc@globalnet.co.uk). May all your pawns be protected and passed. May all your rooks find open files and all your knights find outposts. Unless, of course, you're playing MF or RJ.