The Queen's Gambit

 Lockdown again, but there are some consolations, thankfully. The new instalment of The Crown is beginning on Sunday- hurray! and of course everyone is going crazy for the excellent Netflix series 'The Queens Gambit'. All those people who never wanted to play chess with me are now taking lessons online...that is of course great news. I have played all my life. It is the game of the Gods!

When  my friend Neville came to visit me at  Hotel Djenne Djenno in 2008 he brought me the novel 'The Queen's Gambit' by Walter Tevis. as  a present because he knew I loved the game. I loved the book too, and read it twice. So I was very pleased that it was turned into a Netflix series.

This new collective chess fever reminded me of a time towards the end of my life in Mali, and I thought it may be worth re-posting what I wrote in  August 2016. I called the Blog post

                                      'Chess Psychosis:'

 

"I am a very mediocre chess player but that doesn’t stop me from spending hours every day recently playing chess on my computer (Microsoft  Chess Titans: the reason why I refuse to update my Windows from Windows 7) There is something here in Mali that is not conducive to reading: I read in England and in Sweden but here I find myself watching old favourite movies and TV series  on DVDs that I bring out from Europe instead. To counteract this passivity and to give myself some mental stimulation – and frankly mainly because I find it exciting- I play a lot of chess. 

My love affair with this game started when I was around twelve, thirteen: my next door neighbour and class mate Britta and I lived a brief moment in search of ‘cultural refinement’  and in our youthful view of things we  saw this state as something that could be achieved through playing chess and listening to classical music. I remember many happy afternoons at her place playing chess and listening to the Brandenburg concertos. Then soon after we discovered boys and other distractions that led us astray from this pure and virtuous road towards refinement and enlightenment.

I did not forget chess entirely  though, and when I lived in Islington in London in the eighties and  early nineties I ran a  chess club every Thursday for three years. Anybody could come and I never knew who would turn up. We did have one or two grand masters  who graced our club once or twice  but it was a light-hearted sort of chess club because alcohol was served and of course alcohol + chess do not mix. But never mind- there was plenty of laughter and there was drawing going on too and poetry- making  by anyone who had not found a partner yet: I still have three glorious ‘chess diaries’ from those happy Thursdays.  I also have my friend Biggles’ (who drew the chess problem above) wonderful chess biscuit cutters that he made for me which he presented me with when he arrived on the chess club’s first anniversary: he had made a chocolate and shortbread chess board with all the chess pieces which were to be eaten as they were taken! It goes perhaps without saying that most of my friends at this time were artists...One of them , dear Stirling, sent me a parcel as Christmas greeting one year. When I opened it I found three kings from three different Chess sets.

That was Islington. Then in the nineties I moved to Notting Hill and lo and behold: noone wanted to play chess!  (An opportunity for a study by an anthroplologist or sociologist perhaps?) So I opened my Tuesday ‘salon’ where people played all sorts of things but not normally chess.

I am just recovering from a rather nasty attack of malaria. It sounds more alarming than it is because there are remedies that are tried and trusted so no one that can afford to pay should need to be suffering for more than three of four days at the most. But there is no doubt that the first couple of days are quite rough. Keita’s old collegue Barry came and gave me injections and they lowered my fever and stopped my vomiting . But I was clearly not in a state to do anything strenuous and I needed to rest. So I started to play chess. This turned out to be a big mistake. Chess should only be played in good health, and even then it should not be overdone. I  remember when I started my chess club in Islington that I became ‘overheated’- that is I played too much . That means one gets into a neurotic state when one sees everything around one as chess pieces and one becomes a chess piece oneself. I mean that if I am walking down a corridor and someone is walking straight towards me I feel that I have to decide whether I am a bishop or a rook and therefore whether I should move out of the way diagonally or crash straight into the oncoming person, taking it. It never actually got to that point but the temptation was there and that was annoying enough.

So I played too much chess and I watched  (once more!)  too much Downton Abbey yesterday. These two past times turned out to be an unholy marriage and the  result was quite frightening in my malarial state. When I had finally had enough and decided to go to bed I could not sleep because I was suffering from chess overheating. The very annoying thing was that everything had turned into chess pieces again, just like that time in Islington. I mean that the chairs in Cousin Isabel’s drawing room had started to move like chess pieces in my mind when I closed my eyes.  When I opened them to escape this  I found that the few light sources I leave on when I sleep here alone now had also become chess pieces. There was no escaping it. I was tired so I decided to pray for peace to go to sleep but this didn’t work either; I found myself transported onto a big chess board in the sky where  I was kneeling in front of the King with all sorts of nasty looking enemy bishops and knights looking down on me ready to pounce! I suppose this King eventually did answer my prayers because I did fall asleep from utter exhaustion in the end..."

 

My frequent commentator David then sent a comment drawing my attention to a great little silent film which is available on Youtube: Shakhmati Goryachki (Chess Fever)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RXplN1CJnc&t=13s

It is charming and well worth checking out!

The Last Again!

It was a lovely sunny day yesterday. It was also the last day before England closed down once again in a Covid lockdown. This day needed to be celebrated and have all its possibilities squeezed out from it!

 I was excited by yet  another invitation by David for a music event- this time it was a concert by the City of London Symphonietta at Southwark Cathedral- they were to play Haydn's London Symphony at 2pm. So I thought I would walk. 

The route from Ladbroke Grove to Southwark Cathedral is almost a perfect diagonal trajectory from north west to south east central London across some of the city's  loveliest territory: I crossed Hyde Park where I saw my destination in the far, far distance: the Shard, that beautiful spike of a sky scraper where I was treated to a great dinner  by my Minnesota bosses almost exactly a year ago, is just next to Southwark cathedral and seen faintly here in the centre of the picture above the Serpentine.

            I crossed Hyde Park Corner  and continued through Green Park, up the Mall to Trafalgar Square                                                                 

and then crossed the river, ending up at the south bank, which was full of people that had had the same idea as I, wanting to enjoy London for the last time, milling about by  the river side cafes, bars and restaurants.

I was worried about time and walked fast. I had never walked this way before but wanted to find out whether it was possible to walk all the way by the river- and of course it was: it has been possible since 1977, when the Silver Jubilee walkway was put in place to celebrate the Queen's 25th year on the Throne.   http://jubileewalkway.org.uk 

When I passed the 'Wobbly Bridge'- that's what people have been calling the  Millenium Bridge since it  had to be fixed and stabilized when it first opened and 'wobbled' in 2000- I had about half an hour to go ...

 

I passed the Globe and there, suddenly it was! Southwark Cathedral with the Shard keeping it company  in safe social distance...It had taken me almost exactly 2 hours. I thoroughly recommend this walk for an experience of London!

The concert was beautifully played with Haydn's last triumphant symphony joining the sunshine to make the day a joyous last fanfare before it all closed down today again...and David took me for Tapas and wine in the lovely, trendy Borough market after the concert where  hundreds of people had the same idea but we were lucky to find a table. A lovely day!

                                                Da

And more divine song again!

I have been blessed with being invited to yet  another heavenly performance: Yesterday it was the first time  that The Royal Opera House opened its doors again since March, allowing first and second year students of  their Jette Parker Young Artists Programme to perform French, Italian and Russian songs - Liszt Poulenc, Strauss, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky ...

Dear David took me and we had the best seats in the Linbury Theatre downstairs at the ROH- but then David is of course a Music Critic Extraordinaire and here is his revue: 

https://www.theartsdesk.com/opera/meet-young-artists-week-recital-linbury-theatre-%E2%80%93-four-big-personalities

I was childishly thrilled and proud to see that he took one of my suggestions on board-I am not an opera aficionado and normally don't have anything interesting to contribute-I am just happy to tag along... but this time  I thought the  Russian mezzo/contralto Kseniia Nikolaieva (above) was full of drama and had the look and sound of Azucena  in Il Trovatore and said so to David. And  he wrote in his revue:  "Hers is a big voice unleashed with enough power to tell us that with careful handling she will undoubtedly go where her compatriots Olga Borodina and Ekaterina Semenchuk have already trod, in roles with very specific voice-type requirements like Verdi’s Azucena in Il trovatore." (!!!)

                                

And meanwhile, back in Mali, another sort of song takes place as Maouloud has once more been celebrated. The festival commemorating the birth of the Prophet Mohammed  is the most important of all in  Djenne and I was often invited to the Fatias, or the Koran recitations held by the great Djenne families which I knew through the Manuscript Library. Sometimes the melodious chanting would carry on all night and  would hear it drifting across from the many Koran schools in town as I lay under the mosquito net in the warm night...

The Last and the First...

...visit to the English National Opera at London's Coliseum- that is to say: on the 14th of March I went to see the 'Mariage of Figaro' there with a happy little group of friends. We did not know that that was the very last evening such things were possible. It was the very last normal day in London before everything locked down.

And on this Saturday, the 24th of October the Coliseum opened its doors once more, and I was there again with my old Swedish friend Pia  for this first performance - 'socially distanced'  of course with only about one third of the seats available and filled. And once more it was Mozart- a performance  from  Opera students singing a selection of famous arias - the love duets at a safe distance...Nevermind that. The grateful audience was  loving being there again. The enthusiasm was infectious and the bravo's, clapping and whistling made it all sound like La Scala Milan.  

God knows we all want some reason to clap and cheer now as the light is fading and the temperature is sinking while the Covid count is rising and Pandemic fatigue is settling down on London.

But life carries on regardless in it inexorable way and the habits that have taken hold in during these strange months continue- such as my Chess Sundays with my friend Ralf from the German embassy- he kindly lets me practice my German on him, but he is less kind when it comes to the chess and does not let me win very often. Here is last Sunday's game, black to move. I am white and I have got him on the ropes for once- to be continued next Sunday.

And the walks continue- now the winter clothes have once more made their appearance as the year is turning towards its close. We started walking in March and we still continue to walk. I wonder how many hundreds of miles up and down and around the streets and Parks of London...?

Dreams and plans of moving to warmer climes or to the country still figure but nothing is decided yet- I have put my flat on the market but I am beset by feelings of uncertainty and a the future is just a huge question mark. Nevermind. I guess it will be OK. Or will it?
 

Good News, Duncan, and Little Venice.

First of all, we have probably all heard the very good news from Mali, where finally Soumi (Soumaila Cisse, three time Presidential Candidate) has been released from captivity where he has languished since last March, when he was kidnapped by Jihadists in the region of Nianfounke. At the same time Sophie Petronin, a French aid worker kidnapped in Gao in 2016 was also released. This was accomplished by the new interim government, showing some muscle. It did cost them in the region of 100 Jihadi prisoners in the exchange however... these have now been let lose in the North once more, and can be expected to cause further mayhem...

Other good Mali news includes the lifting of sanctions against Mali by the neighbouring ECOWAS countries who have recognized the fact that the Junta leaders have conformed to demands:  there is now a civilian interim  president, Bah Ndaw, while the coup leader Assimi Goita has contented himself with a second position as the vice-president. In addition, the transition will take 18 months rather than the 3 years first proposed.

And moving on to Europe and other matters altogether, I was most intrigued to read in the Guardian yesterday morning that a large treasure of homo-erotic drawings by Duncan Grant have been handed over  to the  Charleston Trust. These drawings were supposedly kept under a bed for decades, out of view because of their 'private nature'. The picture below illustrates one of the drawings shown in the Guardian. There was also another, which involved four men- it was more explicit in that it showed erections.  It was quite a beautiful drawing in its composition, but it was very  difficult and intriguing to try and understand what was going on...

And this morning I read the same story in Svenska Dagbladet, which is my Swedish daily. I giggled a little, and was surprised that they had decided, coyly, to represent the drawings only by  a picture of three pillows! Presumably illustrating the fact that they were supposed to have been hidden under a bed... I mean, when I looked into it I found that even the Daily Mail had been able to show something of the drawings- albeit the top part of the men only...

 Now I decided to check back to what had been in the Guardian yesterday, and found, to my chagrin, that the athletic and intriguing orgy had been removed. So even the Guardian had been the victim of some censorship it appears...

I have always loved Duncan Grant's work  and I am the lucky owner of this  small drawing below. 

And meanwhile autumn is painting its warmth in the brilliance of the trees while the temperature is sinking elsewhere and  blue skies are infrequent...

I keep walking, and walking....

 

A Scam

 This self isolation is having an effect. I am beginning to have feelings quite rare to me. For instance, I am wondering whether life would be worth living if one is totally on one's own? The answer I come up with is a resounding NO. 

The interesting thing is that  when one feels really alone one often doesn't have the wish to contact anyone either- it is as if the batteries of life have run too low and there is not enough 'juice' left to ring anyone. 

And I don't really sleep very well- therefore I finally fell asleep about four o'clock this morning. At nine o'clock I was awoken by a phone call. A man with a strong Asian accent which made it quite difficult to understand him told me that he was calling on behalf of the HMRC Tax Office. He was seemingly calling from a call centre because there was a lot of noise in the back ground. He said that I had been under a random investigation by the HMRC during the last few months and that my tax contributions had been found to be fraudulent. He continued by saying that the phone call was directly connected to the police who were listening in. 

Maybe I should have  realized immediately that it was a scam and  just put the phone down, but it was somehow convincing for a little while- maybe because I had just woken up and not yet gathered my wits about me.  He proceeded to list the 4 charges levelled against me: 

1. Count 1: "Violation of HMRC code"

2. Count 2: "Violation of Her Majesty's Gov. Regulations"

3. "Tapped by Decaption"-( It was virtually impossible to hear what he was saying so I might have got this wrong.)

4. " Wilful Misrepresentation to Government Organization".

The government was giving me a chance to get out of this if I cooperated.  I owed  them  £1280. I objected and said I did not believe that the HMRC would use these kind of  tactics and that normally they would send me a letter notifying me that there was a problem and explaining how I could resolve it. He said that procedures had been sharpened and changed because of the Corona Virus crisis and these were extreme measure that were now necessary. ( He made this sound convincing somehow.) If I did not comply the government would freeze my bank account, I would have my passport confiscated and I would "have a black flag against my name". 

All of this was by now beginning to sound increasingly fishy, as I was regaining full consciousness. 

" So you mean that I have to pay you £1280 right now, without even understanding the charges levelled against me?" He replied that it was not about the money, but he was offering me a chance to escape being black listed and even arrested. I said " I don't believe you". He replied" the police is listening in and an officer will be arriving at your address within 45 minutes to arrest you". I said "Fine, let him do that" and put the phone down. Then I phoned the police. They told me it was a very common scam, and that it had been going for years. It had been particularly successful recently, as people believed that the Covid 19 had really somehow altered the normal procedures.

That is probably the most exciting thing that will happen today. At least I sincerely hope so.

Tomorrow I can start living a normal life again, maybe for a few days? Until they close us all down again. 

I will just have sustain myself by thinking  of happier days- here just two weeks ago in the hills of Bamako with Swedish Eira and Jakarta, Karen's dog.

God Bless P.J. Harvey

Sitting here in my self isolation. Being a good girl. Well, not QUITE. I do go for walks but don’t talk to anyone. Not even on park benches.

But there is no doubt that now, on the 6^th day of quarantine it is getting to me.

So, thank God for PJ Harvey! I had forgotten about real music- the sort of music that makes one feel alive, capable of jumping over little houses and Wild at Heart. As if there is still Life to be lived. And that it up to me to go and Get It.

So All Hail Polly Jane!

"Meet Ze Monsta! "

“This is Love This is Love This is Love that I’m Feelin..!”