"Magnus Carlsen's Mind-Blowing Memory!" | David Howell

 

Being Lazy. But at least on the matter of Chess.

And the phenomenal memory of Magnus Carlson. Tested by Grand Master David Howell. 

In the comments there's this story:

Magnus once played ten lawyers at Harvard simultaneously, blindfolded.

After the match he was talking to one of the attorneys, who said he regretted not taking notes of the moves, now being unable to show his game to his friends at the Bar and the library. Magnus then proceeded to tell the guy all the moves that were made in their game...

Pretty soon we'll get back to our own pretty Samurai Chess Set. After all, what I'm doing here is just me and the Preen's Gambit...  

And Happy Halloween. (does one say that??...).

The Story of a Samurai Chess Set. Part 5. La Casa Colonica

Our "Casa Colonica", in Falcone, Frascati, Rome

From yesterday: At some stage there will be more about the Chess Set. Promise. It's just that for me, wandering down this alleyway of memories is just unavoidable. I'm there. It's 70 years ago. They were the Sweet Times. Though the wine was Dry. 

There is it, above. I found it. Our place, we lived in from 1954 to 1958. 

ADDED: As soon as we'd arrived in Rome, we were put into the Hotel Imperiale, on Via Veneto, built in 1895 and still going strong today 130 years later. Not suitable for our family, says Mutti today, so we moved... to... 

A "Casa Colonica", a Farmer's House, just south of Rome, in the district of Frascati, in the village of Falcone, where we grew -- and where they still grow, as they have since Roman times -- the Cesare Red Wine grapes. 

I'm supposed to be talking about the Samurai Chess Set. Though I seem still to be sidetracked. And will be again. It's not a Zugzwang. Oh no. It's just a side-track. 

The place above is where we lived, our little family, Pa, Mutti, Anne and me, for five full  years, 1953 to 1958. 

This is a Casa Colonica, or Farmer's designs found in the Agro Romano south of Frascati. Built for small land-owning or tenant-farming families. 

We, the Australian government on behalf of our Diplomat Dad, rented it from the owners, that happened to include a "nice Australian lady" as Mutti calls her, married to a local Italian farmer. It was the only place our Third Secretary Father in the Embassy could afford, as digs in the Via Veneto were out of reach even then.

ADDED: Mutti says the "nice Australian lady" was "Frau Tosolini", though I suspect she means "Signora". I find no Tosolinis in the region, just in NE Italy and one now in Melbourne, Australia, who, you never know, might be a relative of those Tosolinis in Frascati. After all, she was an Aussie.... 

These Case Coloniche were pretty much standard in the Castelli Romani  countryside after the 1951–53 land-reform parcels were distributed. 

What I remember: above there's the Olive tree, smack bang in the middle and a lovely shade tree for us in the summer. It was old even then. 

To the left of it, round the side of the house, was the Pollaio or chicken coop. An early and for me unforgottable memory is of our Mutti, having chopped the head off a chicken, watching it as it ran around, on the remains of its nerves, headless, till it collapsed. And her then calmly and casually picking it up, walking inside to hand it to our daily help, La Domestica...

La domestica of course, was called Maria, as it turns out nearly all were in those days. 
In every Casa Colonica, every kitchen, every vineyard row in the Castelli Romani in the 1950s, there was a Maria. She was the one who stirred the polenta, plucked the chicken, knew exactly how much wood made the fire just right. She was part of the house, not just in it.
And now, seventy years later, I say her name, and she steps right back into the room.
And she would call me. "Pietro, vieni qua". 
Pietro, vieni qua. I hear it. Even if I can’t smell the warm cotton, the faint soap, the steam rising off the pasta water, or feel the soft folds of her dress against a small boy’s cheek, I feel the weight of the memory. That moment: her hands busy at the sink or stove, voice low and kind, pulling me in like I belonged right there, safe in the heart of the house. Maria wasn’t just the maid....

She was the quiet keeper of the kitchen, the one who made the world steady while everything else (new country, new language, new life) spun around us.\

 

And me, little Pietro, tucked into her side, breathing in the smell of bread, garlic, woodsmoke, and her, that was home. 

Seventy years later, and her voice still calls me back. 

I stand in the doorway of that memory, my Italian childhood memories.

Yet I still haven't got to the Samurai Chess Set.... It did happen, though: that Pa and I lay on the ground, in our little Soggiorno the family living room just inside the ground floor entrance of the Casa Colonica we see above, in winter warmed by the cast-iron Fornello, burning old olive wood. 

Making moves. Sideways still, for now. 

The Story of a Samurai Chess Set. Part 4: Wine Squeezing. Wine Smelling. Wine Tasting

Me, at school, in Falcone, Frascati, Rome. 1957.
(I know it's 1957 from the two stripes on my arm, second class, age 7)

From yesterday：I'll make a sideways move in the next post. Still not quite getting to the Samurai Chess Set, but getting to some of the surrounding vibes of what was going on in those days of La Dolce Vita. And then to the Chess Set.... 

Me, above, at the time that Pa taught me the rudiments of Chess. He taught me the moves of each piece, the importance of controlling the centre of the board, of keeping your pawns in tight formation, of Castling the King. As the Pope was Castled, down the road from us, at the Castel Gandolfo... 

But before that there's Italy of the fifties. Italy, Rome of the Dolce Vita. Rome and the surrounds of the grapes that we harvested each year and did, in reality, stomp into, in those far-away days, to squeeze out the juices for our Cesare Red Vinos.

I'm posting this photo above of the lady stomping grapes is that it happens to be the same year, in the same place, where we were, in 1957. We, as kids, did the same. We also stomped the grapes, though in much larger vats, and outside, right there in the middle of the vineyard. 

Of course I remember it to this day. The smell of the grape juice, freshly foot squeezed. The squish in the toes. The murmurs of approval, voices of encouragement from the adults. The smiles. "Brava, Anna! Bravo, Pietro! Avete fatto bene, ragazzi!"

We, smiling, stomping harder, even. Me, the elder, at seven, knowing I'd soon be tasting the results of our stomping. That I would be taken down to the cellar by Mimmo, handed a long, curved bamboo stick with a tiny bamboo cup tied to the end, told to thrust down into the bunghole of a cask, draw out, to taste the vino sciolto. The vino fresco. "Com'e, Pietro! Justo, non?"

Fresh, loose wine, bubbling still with its sugary yeasts, and me, nodding knowingly to Mimmo who looked on, at me, all of seven, trying my first wines, and me, "si, Mimmo, e buono, grazie!". 

Oh the heaven. Oh the pleasure. Oh the smells and tastes. Oh the memory. 

Oh Dear. I don't seem to have made any forward progress on the alleged aim of this series: to talk about the Samurai Chess Set. My only excuse must be that I've just castled my King and am waiting for my opponent to make a move. And I'm not pushing. And he's not either. 

At some stage there will be more about the Chess Set. Promise. It's just that for me, wandering down this alleyway of memories is just unavoidable. I'm there. It's 70 years ago. They were the Sweet Times. Though the wine was Dry. 

The Story of a Sumarai Chess Set. Part 3: Talking to Mutti about where we were in the 1950s

Via Appia.
The Via Appia Antica is 2,300 y.o. The Appia Nuova 250 years old.
We drove on Appia Nuova to get to our house in the 1950s

From yesterday: "That's me meeting the set, at age 7, lying on the floor of our peasant house, waiting for Pa to sit down with me and explain what's what about chess."

In chess the moves are forward and sometimes back. And sometimes sideways. And sometimes forward, or back and sideways at the same time. 

And so, I now move back a bit, before I go forward again to my first confrontation with the Samurai Chess Set, my first marvelling at it, my first grapplings with the rudiments of the ancient game that my father began to teach me three quarters of a century ago, in our house, just off the Appian Way. 

I spoke to Mutti yesterday, my mother, my sister's mother, our children's grandmother, my grandson's great-grandmother. 

She's now 104, still totally with it. Though she cheerily admits that she forgets what she had for dinner last night. But can remember where we lived 70 years ago in Rome. Or just outside Rome, to be precise. 

When she and our father arrived for a posting by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, to the Australian Embassy in Rome, they were told they had to find their own accommodation. 

The budget was so tight that they had to find a place outside the centre of Rome. The Roma Centrale was then as unaffordable as Manhattan today. So they went to the countryside. 

Where they ended up, with the help of Charles Amato, the local Embassy fixer, was in a town 25km or half an hour from Rome, and just five km west of this beautiful place below: The Castel Gandolfo, Summer Residence of the Pope, since the 17th Century. The Pope being at the time Pope Pius XII, who we met. 

Castel Gandolfo on Lake Albano

Pope Pius XII, the Vatican, 1956. Anne, my sister, 
in white dress, me on her left. Pa behind Anne, w. glasses

The map below shows where our house was in relation to Rome central (we 25km South) and to the Pope's Castel Gandolfo (we 5km West). This was the town of Falcone aka "Falcongnana": 

Where we were in the 1950s. Just 5km from the 
Pope's Summer Residence at Castel Gandolfo

And finally, I find that there's a picture online of the actual house we lived in for five years. I visited the house with friends back in 1973. It's no surprise that it's still there. Building new houses in the Italian countryside is notoriously difficult. 

In those 1950s we rented the house from a "very nice Australian lady", according to our Mutti. Our landlady was married to a local Italian. The house in the pic below marked as being "Mimmo and Lola's" is that of what Mutti referred to as the "contadini", or the peasants. They were peasant labourers on the farm. Harvesting the grapes, on a profit share deal. 

I learned, only yesterday, that "Mimmo" is a nickname of Domenico and that "Lola" is a nickname of Dolores. 

Our peasant house, just off the Via Appia Nuova.
Falcone, in the Lazio region, part of the Metropolitan
City of Rome, Municipality of Frascati

I'll make a sideways move in the next post. Still not quite getting to the Samurai Chess Set, but getting to some of the surrounding vibes of what was going on in those days of La Dolce Vita. And then to the Chess Set.... 

The Story of a Samurai Chess Set, Part 2: Introducing the Set

Camera pan: to the village of Falcognana, in Frascati county, just south of central Rome. 

The year is: 1957. The time in Rome is La Dolce Vita. The time of the Sweet Life. 

The place is a two-story house in the middle of a vineyard. In the distance, about a football field away is another house, similar. One, ours, is a peasants house, but a touch fancy, the other, theirs, Mimmo and Lola's is a peasant house too, just slightly cruder. The house of contadinas. 

Come inside. We see me, lying on the floor. Dad has just come home and is having his first of the evening. Chatting to our Mutti. 

He suggests to me, a 7 year old, that we have a game of chess. He'll teach me, he says. 

"What's that?" I hear myself ask. How could I have known what "chess" was, or what a chess set was, when I was struggling to keep up in my local class in Italian? We hadn't got to "chess", and would not, ever get to it. 

Me, a birth baby of two of the Great Generation, who fought against the actual, real, honest-to-God Nazis and defeated them. Who then ended up in Tokyo, as members of the Occupiers, mother from New Zealand, father Australian. Who did a "hardship post" in immediate post-war Tokyo.  Got married there, had me, went home to Oz, had my sister. 

And were duly rewarded by a posting to Italy at the beginning of the Dolce Vita, of the Sweet Life in the fifties of Italy. And bring along their son and new daughter. 

Those early post-war days, the budget was tight. The Australian Embassy in Roma had only so much budget from the Aussie taxpayer. My parents found they could afford only a peasant house in a peasant vineyard, in the southern outskirts of the Eternal City. 

That's where we were. Those are the first years of my  conscious life.  And that's where I was introduced to The Set. 

"Would you like to try a game of chess, Pete?" says Pa. 

To which, I guess, I'm, like, "si, papa, grazie". In Italian. I was already more comfortable in Italian than English and Dad spoke it just fine (as he did several other languages). 

What he lays in front of me is this: 

A box. Made of Sugi a fragrant Japanese cedar. It's corner joints dovetailed, with contrasting woods. 

Inside: a purple velour cloth over wood with 32 notches made to fit the size of each individual piece of the set, and a white elastic over those to keep the pieces in place. 

And inside the notches the pieces: which were of people and animals, all with a Japanese imperial theme. All made of ivory, in those days a perfectly acceptable luxury item. 

The King, at 3 inches the tallest, but also the most useless of pieces, yet still the aim of the game... an elegant Japanese emperor, in imperial robes, clutching a scepter. 

The Queen an Empress, wears a long, elegant kimono with subtle patterns, her hair styled in an elaborate Geisha, with a single large hairpin. She holds an open fan on her belly. Maybe she's pregnant? And hasn't told her emperor yet? 

The Bishops are monk-like men, bald, with long, flowing traditional robes to their feet, fulsome men, well fed, they stand with calm expressions. Calm they may appear, but they're the secret samurai's able to kill at a diagonal distance. 

The Knights are horses standing to attention, with warriors -- the Samurai? -- at the ready, mounted. With their forwards, backwards, sideways, up and over movements they're the surprise merchants of the chess board. 

The Castles, the Rooks, are stone towers, pagodas, with the stones etched in, the tops like Longhorns. The protectors of the long lanes. 

The Pawns are almost the best of these. Warriors, with conical hats, Chinese style, kneeling and holding rifles aimed at the opponents. One of these, in each of Black and White side has a flower carved in the bottom, a chrysanthemum, the mark of the artist. 

That's me meeting the set, at age 7, lying on the floor of our peasant house, waiting for Pa to sit down with me and explain what's what about chess. 

The Story of a Samurai Chess Set, Part 1

For the next xx number of posts -- I don't know how many -- I'm going to tell the story of a 75 year-old hand-made Japanese chess set that we owned. 

That's past tense. "Owned". Because we no longer do. And therein the story. 

This is a story that's been on my mind, in my heart, for going on seventy years now. 

It's been a painful story in our family. 

We've not been able to talk about it within the family for decades. 

But there's a happy ending. Maybe... 

That's what I want to tell the story about. 

And as I do that, I'm going to give up talking of anything political, no matter how crazy, fascinating, shocking, wonderful or terrible. 

It'll just be "The Story of a Samurai Chess Set, Part xx". 

“Nobody got laid to protest at the No Kings Rallies” | Whoopi Goldberg

	DonaldTrump1_ ⁦‪@tyranny_stop‬⁩ 🚨 WHOOPI CAUGHT IN LIES! 🚨 She smirks on TV: "Nobody got paid to protest at the No Kings Rallies." Then BAM—financial disclosures drop: Arabella: $79M Warren Buffett: $16M Ford Foundation: $51M Rockefeller: $26M Soros: $72M Tides: $45M $294 MILLION poured in! Where'd it all pic.x.com/O2AhoUKmup   26/10/2025, 3:09 am

“Nobody got laid to protest at the No Kings Rallies”, says Whoopi. 

Oh, yes they did, Whoopi!  Payments galore. Admitted to by participants in "No Kings" rallies last weekend. 

I've seen a lot of Whoopi Goldberg. She's reliably, always, the least-informed on a low-information The View panel. (The silliest example: she thought "Dr" Jill Biden was a doctor of medicine. Ie, an actual doctor…). 

Data from the Government Accountability Institute. Not double-checked by me, but match the generality of what's known of left-wing financing of demonstrations. 

Disappointed to see Warren Buffet in the list. Surety he's too smart to believe that Trump is a King? 

Others not at all surprising. Widely known or quoted as donors to anti-government (ie, anti Trump) movements.

Delusions on the Left | Michael Shellenberger and Zuby

Michael Shellenberger and Zuby have a consequential and interesting discussion about issues of current political and cultural concern. 

Random Fact quoted by Michael:

Ocean level rise: it's likely to be between 6” and 1 ft (18 to 35 cm) over the next century. Not the 10 to 20 metres in so much of climate alarmist literature. The facts come from actual observations. The predictions are from models.

I have seen evidence of the modest sea level rises via readings of global tide gauges that all major ports have. 

I remember reading decades ago, in the Sydney Morning Herald of all places (not at all a right-wing climate denying outfit), that the sea levels at that time had hardly shifted. That was before the days when an outfit like the Herald was not allowed to say such narrative-denying stuff. Still: with what we know from tide gauges, the sea level is rising, but not at an alarming rate. We can certainly handle one foot rise, or more or less, over a century. 

Liberal White Women being Racist

This is stomach turning. 

From Affluent White Female Urban Liberals. AWFULs.

When Jen Psaki, and Tiffany Cross, the "Dotox Joe" (the Left are pushing her as their version of Joe Rogan), talks about the wife of the current Veep, Usha Vance, it's just so cringe. 

As Megyn Kelly says, a 46-year old woman should not be using the term "Rizz". Even her daughter says it's gross. 

What is quite amazing, though not so much to me, as I've been following this sort of stuff for ages, is how much these three women are in agreement that all the people they disagree with are horrid, that they're all racist, that they're all bigoted... but somehow, despite all that, how these women themselves, Jen and Tiffany and... are all wonderful, all so tolerant, all such kind and warm people. Amazing that! 

From the video of Greg Foreman, the Black Conservative Perspective. So many Black conservatives these days, on YouTube and here and there, and all of them proud and not at all shy of fighting back against the Left view that if they're "People of Colour" then of course they should vote Dem. Oh, no, say these new crop of conservative people of colour. We know where we get the best treatment. We know where our views actually matter. And it ain't the Left. 

DB Sunset

L to R: DB College. N.Plaza shops. White Chapel infinity pool

Early evening looking West to Tiger Head Mountain, Lantau Is. Discovery Bay, Hong Kong.

Dem Operative ADMITS On CNN They Falsely Prosecuted Trump!

Admission it was all Lawfare…

Dem Operative ADMITS On CNN They Falsely Prosecuted Trump! youtu.be

El Patron, El Jefe

 

Lovin' on memes. Sombrero memes esp. Gotta record this meme moment in meme history!

Feat: Jeffries, Pelosi, Schumer, Waters, Klobuchar, Biden, Obama, Harris...

“These earnings calls always make me so optimistic”| Ale𝕏andra Merz on TSLA

	Ale𝕏andra Merz 🇺🇲 ⁦‪@TeslaBoomerMama‬⁩ These earnings calls always make me so optimistic. First I listen. Then read the transcript. Take notes and suddenly I am overwhelmed with all the future will bring. Thank you, ⁦‪@Tesla‬⁩, ⁦‪@elonmusk‬⁩, ⁦‪@travisraxelrod‬⁩ , ⁦‪@aelluswamy‬⁩, Vaibhav Taneja, ⁦‪@mike_megapack‬⁩ and ⁦‪@danWpriestley‬⁩   23/10/2025, 11:04 am

We are long $TSLA and will always be. As long as I'm alive we won't sell a single $TSLA share. 

Its future is bright. 

Alexandra Metz is a long-time Tesla bull, extremely knowledgeable in its company structure and financials. 

You can follow her and other Tesla Bulls on Brighter With Herbert blog, of Herbert Ong.

I've also written about the Tesla Bears, here. They’re the Short sellers. But do note: 

Tesla Shorts are losing Shirts.

===========================

ADDED: but the Shorts do add to the vibe against Tesla, because "Elon Bad". And "Elon Bad" because he likes Trump. And Trump, of course is "Orange Man Bad". Hence despite a huge earnings call, with record *everything* -- cash flow, free cash, vehicle sales, energy sales, car deployments, Robotaxi -- despite all this, the stock dropped. Prob cause of FUD on Tesla. Driven by desperate Shorts. See this post by Steven Mark Ryan.

Added (ii): Tesla R&D alone, this one company, is nearly TWICE the R&D of the Australian government. It is half of the total Australian R&D. On a per capita basis Tesla spends nearly 100 times per capita of Australia's R&D expenditure. No wonder then that people like me, an Aussie, spend more time looking at the US than at Australia. America is where it's at. End of. 

Of course there's China. But it's opaque whereas the US is transparent. That's the difference there. You can't really do analysis of China because its Marxist Leninist government is so pathetically paranoid it won't tell you anything of what's going on. End of... 

Q: What’s the difference between a Chick Pea and a Garbanzo bean?

 A: Hunter Biden has never had a Garbanzo bean on him.

Heh!

H/t: Chicks on the Right

Also Chicks:

Q: What do you call a basement full of progressive Democrats? 

A: A Whine Cellar…

California Freedom | D. J. Trump

 

A Chinese academic I *can* listen to. HUANG Yasheng speaks sense

🚨🇨🇳 PROF. YASHENG HUANG: "CHINA OVERPLAYED ITS HAND" He was born in China, raised inside the Communist Party system, and now teaches at MIT after graduating from Harvard. Few understand Beijing's power structure like Professor Yasheng Huang. In this exclusive, @YashengHuang

90 likes and 14 replies x.com

Having said just the other day that I won't listen to a Chinese academic talk to me about the world situation, without a bucketload of salt at my side, I come across this video. Where the good prof speaks sense to the world.

On China-Taiwan: what he says is what I've said for aeons: keep to the Status Quo. It's what's worked for everyone: for China, for Taiwan, for Japan, for the US. If China invades Taiwan, no matter if it takes over or if it doesn't: the result is failure. Because it will be bad, very bad, shocking… for China. Not to mention for the others. And it will take generations to get over it. If it ever is got over. Think WW2 and how we're still dealing with outcomes from that fully four generations later.

The interview is on X. I can't work out if I can get it on YouTube, so you have to have X.

00:48 – Meet Yasheng Huang: Born into a CCP family, Harvard-trained, and now at MIT 02:00 – A Clash of Systems: the struggle between 2 political economies: state-led capitalism vs. open-market democracy 03:10 – Rare Earths as a Weapon: China's dominance in rare earth refining (≈90%) becomes a tool of strategic leverage 04:40 – U.S. Dependence & Global Shockwaves: Rare earths in phones, cars, and missiles 06:05 – Tech Becomes the Battlefield: From chip bans to tariffs, both sides weaponize technology 08:44 – The Xi–Trump Trade Gambit: China wields rare earths ahead of the summit as a bargaining chip. 10:00 – Did Beijing Overplay Its Hand? Huang argues yes - coercive strength often breeds global distrust 12:00 – The New Resource Race: Japan, Australia, and the U.S. rush to secure alternative rare earth supplies 14:00 – Short-Term Dominance, Strategic Weakness: China can shock the system now, but decoupling will hurt it more later 17:00 – Hard vs. Soft Assets: Why China's dominance in infrastructure doesn't equal innovation power 18:10 – Innovation Wars: China's imitation-driven model versus America's innovation advantage 21:00 – 3 Critical Years Ahead: innovation, resilience, and diplomacy will determine the decade 23:15 – China's Economy Under the Microscope: beneath it lies debt, inefficiency, and shrinking productivity 25:30 – The Illusion of Prosperity: Ghost cities, unproductive infrastructure, and overinvestment 28:00 – Misread by the West: Investors still treat China like a high-growth miracle 35:00 – Militarization of the Economy: Civilian industries repurposed for defense 38:45 – Taiwan and the logic of deterrence - "They want to win without fighting" 41:00 – The Invasion Dilemma: Any move on Taiwan risks economic collapse and regime legitimacy 44:00 – Nationalism & Public Opinion: Propaganda builds unity, but enthusiasm for real war low 46:30 – Inside the CCP: The shrinking circle of advisers. "No one tells the emperor he's wrong" 49:00 – The End of Debate: Technocrats are replaced by loyalists 55:00 – America's Advantage: Democratic systems self-correct - "a feature autocracies can't replicate" 58:00 – The Next Decade: Multipolarity emerges; both superpowers constrained by internal limits 59:30 – Closing Thoughts: Peace requires strength - and restraint