Today is a rather special day for us on the S&BC blog. For the first time ever we've got an interview with a genuine, honest to goodness, got a certificate from FIDE and everything, Grandmaster. GM Keith Arkell photograph from chessgames.com If...

Last weekend I nearly went to the cinema. I ended up having a quiet night in instead which was just dandy but if I had gone I'd have seen Harry Brown which had just started playing at our local picture house. Part of the aforementioned QNI was spent...

Rejoice, for issue number of Kingpin 40 is out only two years (and a handful of months) after issue 39. Rejoice and spend money, for there is much to read. But among the contributors is one Justin Horton, whoever he may be, with some book reviews and...

Last time on When we were Kings we left Spassky in game fourteen of the 1977/78 Candidates Final with Korchnoi about to up the weirdness ante in a match that had already seen a voodoo blunder and Boris himself refusing to come to the board. What...

I once heard an established poet instruct his young protégé to put away the poem he'd newly written, and not look at it again for at least six months. Only after finding the crumpled pages musty at the bottom of a half-forgotten draw, the poet...