Sunday, November 04, 2007

When the pawn meets the king

Okay, totally ripped off title from Fiona Apple

I've not met up with Stan in forever to philosophise or read the riot act to all the big five crosswords (Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent and Evening Standard). There were days where we hammered them all over a couple of brewskis at lunch.

However sometimes you meet people in your life that you just click with and know that you'll keep in touch. I have a friend called, say, the Waart -- he got his nickname from 6th form when a computer teacher asked one of the larger lads to "forcibly ejaculate this Wart". It stuck. He's now got a PhD in formal methods and is close to being the next professor at his university. I've always stuck by him and him by me. With the exception of my grandmother, he is the only person who ever visited me in my eight years in the States. That's how closely knit we are. I mentioned on my blog that we're kind kind of telepathically connected and have been since being teenagers. Long may it continue.

Stan is another one where we just clicked. He's a bit more cerebral than I am, but I blame that on the fact that I'm sickly ill a ce moment. Okay, I could be just plain dumb, but I'm not about to accept that. When the day comes that I don't finish the Telegraph crossword, then I'll be dumb.

In the meantime, being all airy-fairy, it's nice to know you have good friends knocking around.

And no, before you ask, I'm the pawn.

Ask Stan about opening chess moves ( pawn to K4) -- he approves of conventional openings. I certainly do not.

2 comments:

Stan said...

That takes me back - it just became so natural to do three or four crosswords at lunchtime with a similar number of pints of scrumpy cider and Dolly Parton on the jukbox to provide inspiration.

Yes, I admit to favouring P-K4(or "e4" as it is in metric). For some reason my colleague Kenny interprets it as being limp-wristed, but to me, if the centre is up for grabs, I'm having it and you-can-come-and-have-a-go-if-you-think-you're-hard-enough. This incidentally seems to sum up the strategy favoured by Gordon Brown and David Cameron at the moment.

Colleague Kenny also nibbles on the beefburger that is the Telegraph crossword, when he should be chewing the red meat of the Guardian.

Thanks for the post m'friend.

Kenny said...

Brilliant! Loved that respote.