Chess Matters

Some might say that there are bigger issues in the world that need attention but I'm drawn to Ray Keene's campaign in his Times column today,
to return the traditiomnal English usage name to the Ruy Lopez, less evocatively known as The Spanish opening on the continent.
The opening is the first one usually finds out about- 1.e4, e5, 2. Nf3, Nc6 although I might launch my own campaign to return to the more descriptive notation of P-K4, P-K4, 2. Kt-KB3, Kt-QB3.
I remember once reading how the Bloomsbury Group abhorred the war but didn't see it as their business and left it to the soldiers while they carried on in their usual way.
And that is how Ray's campaign seems to me. Yes, the world is in crisis on innumerable fronts but, be that as it may, life must go on and it is so that we can worry about the 'Campaign for Restored Chess Appellation' that 'freedom' should be defended.

Meanwhile, some way below the standard of the forthcoming Carlsen-Karjakan championship match, I'm glasd to have found that Spark Chess have developed a multiplayer facility whereby one can play other people and not just their machines. It's taking up more of my life than it should with the intention to have 'just one more game' taking me beyond a sensible bedtime. Under my pseudonym of DianaRoss I have a win ratio of just under 70% with perhaps 10% draws and seem to have found a plateau at a rating of 1820 or so, above which it's going to be hard to maintain a rating much better because one only gains a few points for beating inferior players and then get set back 16 or 18 if you lose to them.
In two popular music clashes, I've lost to BobMarley and drawn with ABBA. I'll add the link into the Recommended list.