I'm getting impatient waiting for the great chess event of the year. No, not the Mexican world championship; I mean the hearing of the FIDE Ethics Commission, when Nigel Short is called on to answer for comments he is alleged to have made in relation to Messrs Azmaiparashvili and Makropoulos. If you need to refresh your memories of what I'm talking about, check out my entry on dunderheads and also this one where I introduced the subject.
Earlier today I became quite excited when I saw something about FIDE Ethics Committee hearings in Athens on 28 July on FIDE's website. Sadly, it only turned out to be a case about some Moroccan arbiters which scarcely interests me, scheduled for 10am that morning, and the (admittedly rather more interesting) charges to be answered by Topalov and Danailov (relating to alleged comments made against Kramnik during and after the Elista match) at 4.30pm in the afternoon. This makes one wonder precisely how long the committee expects the hearings to take. Are they intending to resolve the Moroccan issue by lunchtime and the Bulgarian case by dinner-time?
But no sign as yet of the Dunderheads v Nosher case. When the time comes, I do hope we are going to be able to enjoy live video transmission across the web. Hopefully those enterprising people at ChessBase can ensure someone is present with a camcorder. The Moroccan and Bulgarian cases are listed as "public hearings" - so why shouldn't we all get the chance to watch via the web? If Short is subsequently convicted and required to drink hemlock (the punishment meted out to another great Athenian philosopher, Socrates, some 2,500 years ago when he was found guilty on trumped-up charges of "corrupting the youth of Athens" - the two cases are remarkably similar), then presumably execution of sentence will also turn up on YouTube...
Actually the only thing Socrates has in common with Short is that neither of them have left behind any written work of any value.
ReplyDeleteThey both went in for a bit of a 'dialogue' now and again, didn't they? Well, there was that bit of 'Socratic dialogue' on the ICC a while back between Kamsky and Short anyway. Mind you, I don't recall any of Socrates' interlocutors suggesting that they should "settle this like real men, outside." I would have enjoyed O-Level Greek so much more if they had.
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