Ever the optimist, from my desire to improve my chess game I look at chess videos and books. I lately came upon a bit of advice from a somewhat eccentric writer of yesteryear named Franklin K. Young who tried to apply battlefield principles to chess. I am compelled to share it with you, so that you can benefit from the fruit of my labors. That’s how much I care for you. Here we go!
“Always deploy so that the right oblique may be readily established in case the objective plane remains open or becomes permanently located on the centre or on the king’s wing, or that the crochet aligned may readily be established if the objective plane becomes permanently located otherwise than at the extremity of the strategic front.”
This makes me choke up a little each time I read it.
Essentially it means:
1.e4
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Thank you for the wisdom, Father.
You remind me of a fun scene in the classic British comedy Yes Minister:
Sir Humphrey Appleby: The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume, but, not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.
Hon. James Hacker: I beg your pardon?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: It was… I.
Yes, Minister! One of the mostly brilliantly written shows ever.
It also reminds me of a line in The Scarlet And The Black, the 1983 movie about a heroic priest in the Vatican during WWII. I think it is the Pope who says to him, with a mischievous smile, shortly after he starts working there: “If you ever get the impression someone has told you what they really think, you can be sure they have just made a monumental mistake”!
Now that’s a mouthful!
Yes, Minister! Then it became Yes, Prime Minister. I maintained to my kids that it had one of the best 3 minutes of TV writing ever, the occasion is a former prime minister death, and planning for the state funeral with heads of state from many countries, and the seating order. Someone suggests alphabetical order (of country), and personal secretary Bernard goes off on a huge rant, including noting that it puts Iran, Iraq, and Israel in the same pew! I also maintain that it should be required training for managers and executives of civil servants.
Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister rank high in the best television shows ever made, imho. Both the writing and the acting are superb. Highly recommended for anyone who is interested in politics in any capacity. Not much has changed in four decades. It is also sometimes said of ambiguously (or worse) worded Vatican documents that the “Vatican version of Sir Humphrey Appleby” must have been at it.