BCH

CIPC #52: From Russia with love

January 23, 2018

You know what? No. I’m fed up with it. Week after week I look at the infantile doodlings of some guy who has never seen a Sicilian dragon in his life, like a trained pianist who has to listen to an eight-year old grope his way through Petzold’s1 minuet in G. This will not stand. I want a break. I want to look at a proper chess game for once. Luckily, there is one movie which is famous for featuring a real chess game. One movie which every chess blog ends up talking about. That movie is From Russia with love.

In the, admittedly quite small, circle of CIPC connoisseurs, it is common knowledge that the game between Kronsteen and McAdams is really a game between Spassky and Bronstein. Here is the position as shown in the movie:

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CIPC #51: Lucky Luke Vol.35, Jesse James

January 16, 2018

Who’s the greatest cowboy in popular culture? John Wayne, maybe? Clint Eastwood? Jonah Hex? If you ask me, the correct answer is Lucky Luke. Introduced by Morris in 1946, he has become one of the most popular and recognisable figures in Franco-Belgian comics. He’s semi-officially known as “the man who shoots faster than his own shadow”1 and he is indeed an amazing gunslinger, but there’s much more to him than that: he’s smart, strong, and resourceful. Plus, he’s got the coolest horse ever.

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CIPC #50: Rocky III publicity shot

January 10, 2018

From all the sports in the world, boxing is the most mystifying to me. I just cannot picture any decent person answering the question ‘what do you do for fun?’ with ‘I punch people in the face.’1 On top of that, boxing is the complete antithesis of chess, which makes its appeal even more mystifying. Still, for some reason people like to watch boxing and to give it a bit more class, they like to combine it with our royal game. Chess-boxing was a thing for a few years and for the third movie in the Rocky series, the following publicity shot was apparently released,2 possibly inspired by the Karpov-Korchnoi matches. It was pointed out to me ages ago, but for some reason I forgot about it. Sorry!

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CIPC extra: The best and worst of 2017

January 2, 2018

A bit less than one year ago, January 11 2017 to be precise, the first post appeared on this blog. Since then, there have been 49 instalments,1 one every Tuesday, except for twice when a lagging internet connection delayed the publishing until Wednesday. When you stick to a regime this strict, there will obviously be some posts that are not very good. The others were worse. To absolve myself of my sins, and since it’s the time of year for lists, I will list for your delectation my four best and worst efforts2 of 2017. Why four? Well, it’s the smallest composite number! Plus, it’s probably easier than five.

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CIPC #49: L’Islam – c’est aussi notre histoire

December 26, 2017

At the time of writing there is an ongoing exhibition in Brussels about the history of Islam in Europe. For the official poster, the organisers have opted for a nice picture of two kids, probably brothers, playing chess.1 This is probably because an early version of chess was brought to Europe after the Moorish invasion of the Iberian peninsula. Since the exhibition is in Brussels, it’s likely at least officially bilingual, but I have only been able to find a good image of the French poster, so that one will have to do. We’re anyway mostly interested in the chess aspect, so it’s not a big problem.

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CIPC #48: Geri’s game

December 19, 2017

After last week’s post, I was kind of struggling with writer’s block. I mean, how do you follow up on accidentally composing a chess problem? The only way out I saw, is doing something easy. Something many people know, which can readily be found online and for which a diagram, or possibly more, can easily be made. Something like Geri’s game, the Pixar classic which won the 1997 Oscar for best animated short film.

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CIPC #47: Bennett, Cat and window

December 12, 2017

It’s a strange but undeniable fact that most people do not read websites about Belgian chess history, nor are they interested in blog posts complaining about the representation of chess in popular culture. As a corollary to this theorema egregium, it follows that my website languishes in the barely visited backwaters of cyberspace. But I still have an ace up my sleeve,1 and I’m going to play it now: here is the Internet’s favourite thing!

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CIPC #46: Independence day

December 5, 2017

Last week we talked about Red Bull, this week we’re tackling its cinematic counterpart: Roland Emmerich’s 1996 movie Independence day – which revived the disaster movie genre as a viable option for summer blockbusters – is  hugely popular, full of action, and probably not very good for you. At least, that’s what I gather from the buzz around it, for I have never seen it. Apparently, it’s a rather standard action movie, without much depth but with some non-zero entertainment value. I suspect that the most entertainment can be derived from the chess scene, which pits David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) against his father (Judd Hirsch).1 Let’s have a look:

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CIPC #45: Red Bull advertisement

November 28, 2017

While we’re on the topic of advertisement for drinks featuring chess, let’s talk about Red Bull. It is a relatively new drink, launched in Austria in 1987, but has conquered the world of energy drinks in record time.1 The brand is now worth billions, and the company sponsors sports teams from everything between Formula 1 and soccer. The slogan “Red Bull gives you wings” is one of the most recognisable in the world and is based on the idea that partaking of this beverage will increase your vitality and speed.2 This is also the idea behind their chess-themes ad, which claims it will help you beat a robot. At least, that’s what it looks like at first glance.

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CIPC #44: Smirnoff advertisement

November 21, 2017

Sometimes I have serious difficulty starting one of these posts. For example, what could I possibly tell about Smirnoff that not everybody knows already? The name alone brings back fond college memories for whole generations. An originally Russian invention, it has been appreciated all over the world and, quite possibly, far beyond that. For decades already. Yes, it is one of the most popular compactifications in all of topology. But apparently, it’s also a drink. A vodka, I believe. As such, it has been the subject of the interesting advertisement below.1
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