Hey folks. In total honesty my tour is NOT selling well. I’ve sold 30 tickets in a 400 seater in Birmingham, and not much more elsewhere. If you like musical comedy, if you like standup, then please come see my show! And spread the word! The Rachel Parris Songbook tour starts in Nov! Link in bio! 🎶

Need another digital break, I can't handle the tsunami of AI everything and I feel it spoiling all that was good

Every time I see a serial killer tv show advertised I think of this

en.chessbase.com/post/jon-spe...

Jon Speelman at 70: A leading figure of English chess

Jonathan Speelman turns 70 today, 2 October 2026. The English grandmaster was one of the world's leading players in the late 1980s, reaching the Candidates semifinals and climbing to the world top fiv...

en.chessbase.com

Wow. LOISH got accused of using Ai to make her art. I started following her on early deviantart. I remember first seeing her paintings in college. This is ridiculous, no one is safe. Artists Ive followed for actual decades are getting harassed because their work has been stolen and regurgitated.

*La la la driving until I am stopped by a construction queue* *look around* *double take at the giant hand rising out of the corn* Oh! It’s a tree covered in vines and not the emergence of an elder god! Whew

Time to celebrate my dear old friend and former boss:

Peter Svidler@polborta.bsky.social · 2w ago

in honour of Jon Speelman's 70th, here's a chess story from way back when. in the late 90s, i played one season in the unnamed east european league. it's the last round, my team is competing with the other strong team in the league for 1st, and they need to outscore us because our tbs are better

Seeing a lot of bots here...

In olden days, we would have spent weeks trying to master the endgame being played forcibly quickly in So-Hovhannisyan right now. To be honest, even with engines and tablebases I think it will take me a few days to answer all my questions. Curiosity or senility I wonder... #chess #olympiad

Some excellent reading for #equinox fans: fabulousfolklore.substack.com/p/the-folklo...

The Folklore of the Autumn Equinox: Marking the Sun’s Path

The autumn equinox falls on 23 September in the UK in 2026.

fabulousfolklore.substack.com

Excellent fight by Carlsenless #Norway at the #chess #olympiad against one of the top seeds. Thought 2-2 was on the cards. Presumably a particularly sweet result for Hans...

I meant to ask this yesterday: How did Erwin l'Ami play in the Dutch league and then #Samarkand #chessolympiad the day after?!

I'm looking at the game Schoppen-Nikolovski from the Netherlands-North Macedonia match at the #Samarkand #Chess #Olympiad today, and trying to figure out how much of it is some surrealistic transmission error

Puzzled by how the Global #Chess League team locations have almost no relation to the nationalities of the players on the teams

Happy birthday to one of the most difficult, tactically aggressive players in chess, and world #9, Arjun Erigaisi 🥳🙌

"Why am I so sad all the time?" I ask myself as I stare at my little handheld sadness machine and click on all the stupid sad things that will definitely make me sad

www.chess.com/blog/simagin...

Keres vs. Alekhine. Some Chess And Lots Of Wonderful Pictures

Good afternoon everyone. The chain of thought in my last blog sprung a couple of side branches when I came to the Alekhine - Keres game given there. I remembered that at one time I had intended to do ...

chess.com

Feeling better about this now that Sindarov has hinted that he thinks much the same...

GM JT@gmjtis.bsky.social · 3mo ago

At the risk of sounding slightly demented, I have been deeply fascinated by Gukesh's games recently, especially in #Chennai. It seems to me that there is so much going on in terms of dynamic injection and risk level investigation, but his form is disguising all the work he is doing... #chess

Good grief, this hits home.

Pool time at the doggy daycare 😃

In a throwback to old Twitter habits, just going to start promoting cool things that I have stumbled across

c0nc0rdance@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A 2024 study took actual Greek prehistoric armor designs from the Dendra site (as shown above), put it on modern Greek soldiers (marines), fed them historically accurate meals, engaged in 11 hrs of melee battle simulations per day. Paper is here as free, full-text:

OK, so Gukesh finally had enough... #Chennai #chess

Interesting feeling here at last on Bluesky. I have a tiny fraction of my (former) Twitter base, but people seem to hear me here now...

At the risk of sounding slightly demented, I have been deeply fascinated by Gukesh's games recently, especially in #Chennai. It seems to me that there is so much going on in terms of dynamic injection and risk level investigation, but his form is disguising all the work he is doing... #chess

"He was passionate, emotional, defiant, deeply gifted, cultured and sometimes crude and uncouth. He loved, he hated, he raged, he lived life like it was going out of style. And for him, it was." GM Aleks Wojtkiewicz passed away 20 years ago today. What a life: www.uschess.org/index.php?op...

Great job 👏

Then they came for the Customer Service team, And I did not speak out, Because I was on hold, owing to an exceptionally high volume of calls. But my call was important to them.

Happy July 4th I can't believe Jesus made the world only 250 years ago

George Thomas, of the Mason's Arms, Hay-on-Wye. 🪦 This stunning grave was tucked away amidst a sea of green. It took my breath away. 💚 #graveyards #churchcrawling #history #cemeteries #gravestones