I like to take on the moniker ‘nostradamus‘, albeit mostly in my spare time . But on a more serious note, I will assume that at some time or the other in our lives we have all felt that sense of ‘premonition’, ‘foreboding’, or just simply, a ‘feeling‘ that something is going to happen. Of course, the easy way out will be to suggest a selective reasoning process whereby the ‘right predictions‘ are listed as proof of some kind of foresight whilst false outcomes are ignored, swept under the carpet and forgotten.
Recently, I feel I have been getting more than my fair share of these ‘premonitions’. Regarding the ongoing European Football Championships, I have actually called several results down to a tee, the Swedish win over Greece; Zlatan Ibrahimovich as first scorer and the scoreline, Kuyt to score first against France, Torres to score first against Sweden, Nistelrooy to score first against Italy, Pavyluchenko first against Sweden, the list goes on and on. Ok, all this can be classed as informed guesswork, a lucky streak etc. The trip I’m actually on here is the effect our actions (or inaction) have on the future. Logically this doesn’t make too much sense I agree; obviously the things we do now affect the future, or do they? As individuals, separated by time and space from various events around us, do our decisions (even, our thoughts…) affect future outcomes in those events?
As usual I quote lyrics to illustrate my ramblings , this is from Nas’s ‘Nostradamus album: “the future is nothing but a series of probabilities/made up of decisions that we make right now/these decisions lead to certain events into the future/but every human being has this capability/to determine their own future/some are just more in tune than others…/”
Again; basic logic it can be argued, nothing exciting here. The kicker here is this; if ‘no man is an island unto himself‘ and we are ‘all a part of the whole’, then do our individual decisions not change the future all?
This has always, and will always be a touchy issue. When is it ethical or moral to keep a ’spare’? In the words of Ray Parker Jnr from back in the day; “you should have kept a spare/a backup love affair…”.
Using a simple analogy, let me represent a standard relationship with a car, a motor-vehicle. I look at two main components here; the vehicle and the tyres on which it runs. Taking one side of the partnership as the vehicle and the other as the tyre(s) let us examine typical journeys as against a very important journey, possibly the trip of your life.
For day to day journeys, it would be logical to assume that any careful driver would make sure that apart from having all his mounted tyres in mint condition, there would also be a reliable spare in the boot (trunk?). Well… in the high speed world of Formula 1 the pace is too fast for spares to stay on board, rather tyres are used and discarded with impunity - a high rolling life … I digress as usual. Anyway coming back to the regular journey idea one would assume that the presence of the spare serves as a reassurance for the driver but is not something that would be in the foreground during any such journey. More like some fact that sticks somewhere in the periphery of your consciousness.
Now we come to the very important trip. Obviously for a critical journey the assumption is that all systems would be checked and rechecked, all spares and whatnot would be kept in pristine condition, after all; one can hardly afford surprises due to shoddy preparation on such critical journeys.
In plain english, this seems to suggest that for casual trips, a spare is useful but not essential whilst for critical trips the spare is an irreplacable part of the itenary. Hmmm…. Paradox?
Make what you will of this analogy. On the flipside I wonder, what kind of ‘tyre’ do you think you are? Personally I’ve always felt I’d be great in the trunk, best used sparingly and only in emergencies . Talk about ‘eating your cake and having it’. Heh heh.
You know, I just can’t hold back a large (but wry…) smile whenever I hear news like this. Call me vengeful, spiteful, childish or just plain vindictive but when I see all these massive examples (sorry, allegations ) of fraud (financial mismanagement) and corruption (poor accounting?) in the western world I sit back and think; are African nations really that bad compared to these ‘masters of the game’?
Of course, there are the other stories about continued scandals regarding to UK MP’s/MEP’s expenses misuse and the MoD contract for Chinook Helicopters which came with inappropriate software and have been in storage (at cost) for several years now - an aside, the person who signed the contract is allegedly very difficult to locate.
The second and fourth round produced a couple of interesting games. Yeah, inaccurate play in patches on both sides but overall, two very interesting games of Chess. Check out the fourth round.
Below, there are a few pix from the lovely little town of Oxford and the magnificient Exeter College.
Very nice Chess Congress over this past weekend. Exeter College in the quaint town of Oxford was the venue. Funny enough, the room in which the open section was played had the amusing label (for Chess purposes, a misnomer ); Quarell Room.
Okay, done with the mundane stuff. I somehow (unsurprisingly) ended up in what appears to be my regular Congress position; a shared second/first place. Ah well…
Congress report coming up: pics, games, a blitz tourney, chicken tikka and a surfeit of C2H5OH.
. But on a more serious note, I will assume that at some time or the other in our lives we have all felt that sense of ‘premonition’, ‘foreboding’, or just simply, a ‘feeling‘ that something is going to happen. Of course, the easy way out will be to suggest a selective reasoning process whereby the ‘right predictions‘ are listed as proof of some kind of foresight whilst false outcomes are ignored, swept under the carpet and forgotten.
