As National Master Jim Schroeder so succinctly put it: “Nigel Short is a walking dung-heap. He exceeded his reputation as being vulgar and crude by “dropping his trousers,” and writing a long article about sexual activity among chess players, including the “f” word, which appeared in NEW IN CHESS #7, 2012. But Short didn’t publish that putrid crap; the editor, Jan Timman did. Long known to be “sleazy,” Timman degenerates into being depraved.” Amen, Mr. Schroeder. See an article at Streathambrixtonchess.
Reminds of an article of a couple of years ago published by Chess Life where Tim Taylor was attempting to earn his IM title in Hungary and detailed his attempts to have sex with just about every woman he met. It appeared Taylor thought every woman he met was a slut.
Concerning that article Jeremy Silman wrote, “Let’s get real. Tim wrote an accurate depiction of life in international chess – emotional ups and downs, poverty (how the desperate need for money affects one’s over the board performance), sexuality, and (of course) chess games/analysis/battle, etc. If a magazine wishes to pretend that these things don’t exist in the chess world (especially if it’s a children’s magazine), then that’s fine – don’t publish the article. Say it’s inappropriate for the magazine in question, pay the writer for his efforts, and that’s that. Just don’t shoot the messenger when he writes of real experiences, real adventures, and real emotions.”
Taylor defended his article saying, “I wrote a light hearted, romantic, human interest and chess interest article.” Romantic? Since when is thinking just about every woman you meet is a whore and hitting on her romantic? Light-hearted? It might be funny to Taylor, but not to the woman, her husband, boy friend, brother, father, or whomever. What an idiot!
I never played professional chess so don’t know about all that stuff but I can’t imagine editors publishing such explicit and degrading material. I don’t care about professional players’ sex lives and don’t believe, given the number of kids who read these chess magazines, that they need to be reading about such matters. I know kids are exposed to far worse material in their everyday life, but really, does sex also have to appear in chess magazines, too?
Nigel Short has demonstrated repeatedly over the years that his emotional maturity has remained frozen at the level of a sniggering and sexually backward British schoolboy. In reality, I'm sure that the chess Olympiad, like the "real" Olympiad, is the venue for a lot of brief romances, but Short manages to inject an "ick" factor into the discussion that we could all do without
ReplyDeleteIf you don't like something you come across, don't read it, that's all. Not everyone is a prude, however.
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