Category Archives: life

Bobby was one of the cleverest, and yet yampiest, Chess players ever, “mad, bad and dangerous to know”, and it’d be a real surprise if you hadn’t heard of him. Even if you weren’t keen on Chess, Bobby was a ‘larger than life’ figure, often getting in the Press, and had even had the Musical Chess based upon him.

He achieved a FIDE estimated ELO rating of 2785 after winning the 1972 World Chess Championship against the outgoing Grand Master, Boris Spassky.

Unfortunately there’s a danger that it’s likely to be some of his behavior and some of the comments he made that he will be remembered for, rather than his Chess playing, or the innovations he brought to Chess (both theory, practice and the game itself).

In an effort to promote Talent and Creativity, rather than an encyclopedic Analysis of Chess openings, and generate more interesting and vibrant Chess games, he developed Fischer Random Chess (‘FRC’ or Chess960 as it’s now, more frequently, called).

Other Chess innovations he provided us with included the Fischer Chess Clock.

Personally I hope that it’s these and his Chess play that he will be remembered for as time passes, because essentially he was an outstanding player.

It was extremely unlikely that I was ever going to join this list and now I’ll definitely never get the chance.

Bobby’s Chess Hero was Paul Morphy (another hero of mine too), of whose unprecedented Chess playing talent he said:

“he was the greatest of them all”

Howard Staunton, the man credited with giving us the Staunton Chess set was so afraid of playing, and losing to, Paul Morphy, that he hid away saying he was too busy ‘annotating the works of Shakespeare’ to play the young Morphy.

This article points out the many similarities between Bobby and Paul Morphy: they were both prodigies, they both dominated the other players of their time, they were both were American (unusually in times led by European and Russian play), they both quit in their primes, and they both suffered in Psychological terms. It’s well worth a quick read.

Goodbye Bobby Fischer – you’ll be sorely missed.

Links for this article:

Recovered link: https://horkan.com/2008/01/18/bobby-fischer-rest-in-peace
Archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20100715132403/http://blogs.sun.com/eclectic/entry/bobby_fischer_rest_in_peace
Original link: ~~http://blogs.sun.com/eclectic/entry/bobby_fischer_rest_in_peace~~

Remembrance Day, 2007

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So Remembrance Day, 2007, it always seems to roll around so quickly – and how quickly we all seem to forget the debt we owe those who have fought and died for us to live comfortable and peaceful lives at home in the UK. …..

Links for this article:

Recovered link: https://horkan.com/2007/11/11/remembrance-day-2007
Archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20100713051526/http://blogs.sun.com/eclectic/entry/remembrance_day_2007
Original link: ~~http://blogs.sun.com/eclectic/entry/remembrance_day_2007~~

The Fair Finance Consortium – fighting Financial Exclusion one step at a time…

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I’d like to introduce you to just one of the organisations fighting financial exclusion in the West Midlands – the Fair Finance Consortium.

The Fair Finance Consortium is a collaboration of 10 independent Not for Profit financial services providers who operate throughout the West Midlands, members include:

ART
Black Business In Birmingham (3b)
Black Country Enterprise Loan Fund
Black Country Reinvestment Society
Coventry and Warwickshire Reinvestment Trust
Impetus
North Staffordshire Risk Capital Fund plc
Sandwell Advice and Money Link
Street UK
The Arrow Fund
The Halal Fund

All of the members are either Independent Not for Profit businesses, Charitable Foundations (Ltd by guarantee), or Industrial and Provident Societies (IPS). Unlike ‘For Profit’ organisations loan capital (money earned from loan repayments) is recycled, and loaned out again and again.

In my mind the most important work that the FFC does is in fighting financial exclusion – helping small businesses, entrepreneurs, and sole traders as well as individuals who would otherwise be excluded from credit – this in turn helps to reduce the number of ‘door step lenders’. They also help to build financial literacy – especially Street UK which is soon implementing the UK’s first “Not for Profit” Bill Payments service and will be offering it’s customers banking facilities – this is a big step forward in providing a holistic and ‘one stop shop’ approach to the financially excluded in the West Midlands (more about this in a later post soon).

I asked George Keenan of the Fair Finance Consortium if he could give me a short introduction to the Fair Finance Consortium. Over to George:

“During the summer of 2004 eleven independent Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) establish the Fair Finance Consortium (FFC) part funded by the RDA, and the CDFI sectors National Association, the CDFA. Their collaborative objective is to improve the access to and the ability for people to locate and select CDFIs as the realistic alternative provider of business finance (Offering loans from £1,000 up to £50,000). Their products are designed to help startups and SMEs including social enterprises, situated within the conurbations of the West Midlands, who are unable to secure investment via traditional sources such as banks.

By 2005 (FFC) had shaped the interim brand strategy, Implementing a diverse mix of awareness techniques, that commenced with the launch of www.fair-finance.net in March 2006. This regionally customer focused online web portal set out to simplify the online search experience.

April 2007 marked the first anniversary of their web portal, which received over £2.5 million in loan applications, the membership continue to build a growing reputation for tackling market failure by investing in innovation and funding growth, building a stronger economic region via an accessible client focused sector.”

George has a blog, where he talks mainly about all things CDFI related – he’s recently relaunched it with better functionality around comments and inclusivity of opinion – George Keenan’s Fair Finance Blog – it would be great if you could have a look.

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