Something of a Day

 

It's surely been something of a day, exhilarated by Rosemary Tonks (below, I meant it to be above), taking delivery of a further disc of music from Proust's salons (which will have to be reviewed alongside other recent arrivals another day) and having my chess, at least on this occasion, being reviewed generously by my opponent.

They're not all like that. Some, in a hopelessly lost position, prefer to let their time run out rather than resign, which is sulky and bad mannered. I sometimes play on in the hope of a lucky stalemate draw or compensating catastrophic error but some whose vanity is not injured by defeat appreciate the game enough to applaud good work even if it's not their own.

The point was that white had inadvertently sidelined his forces and his Queen isn't pretty over there. I had eyed up the chances of mine invading down into the corner and the rest followed naturally. I don't think there was any defence against it. It looks beautiful, might not be quite as clever as it looks but white was gracious enough to say 'Excellent', to which I replied, 'thank you, sorry'. Like many of my games with black, the opening was the Kan Variation of the Sicilian Defence, which sounds good but all the openings sound good. It seems I've recently played the O'Kelly Variation, including both the Venice and Yerevan Systems,  the Alapin Variation and the Bowdler Attack, which presumably has all the rude bits removed.