Friday 2 November 2018

Or not

The new CHESS is out


and there's eleven pages available for anyone to read, including Malcolm's editorial (of which more, possibly, at a later date) and a bunch of book reviews, among which can be found a short review of yet another book by Cyrus Lakdawala, the worst chess writer publishing in English. A very short review.


Still, it probably took longer to write than the book did.

Anyway, for some reason an Amazon ad for the book turned up on my screen earlier so I took a little glance via the Look Inside function and -

- Good Lord, he's quoting Shakespeare again.


Or to get it right (as Lakdawala does not) he's misquoting Shakespeare again.


Yes, he's got is where Shakespeare had be (it's a subjunctive, Cyrus) and it's no worse, no more significant than that. Still, if you're going to quote somebody, especially somebody as worth quoting as Shakespeare is, maybe be professional enough to try and get it right, eh?

It's not my favourite speech in Shakespeare, to be honest, although it is one of the best-known. Here's the bloke out of The Avengers giving it let-him-depart and remember-with-advantages on the BBC a few years ago (both Ken and Larry omit the "sin to covet honour" passage).


Meanwhile, to misquote Shakepeare once may be regarded as a misfortune: twice looks like a lazy bastard. (But don't quote that, Cyrus. Not without looking it up properly first.)

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