Post Christmas Coffee
The Post Xmas Coffee Blues
I trust your Xmas was as great as mine. The run up to this year’s Xmas was pretty busy for me, but now that it is over I have more time for my blogging. Expect things to catch up pretty quickly. Let’s get started…
Coffee and Saudi Arabia
There may be lots of things that you can criticize about Saudi Arabia (human rights, treatment of women and Yemen genocide just to name a few) but coffee is not one of them. In Saudi Arabia coffee has a special place. UNESCO describes coffee in Saudi Arabia as ” a ceremonial act of generosity ”.
Coffee served with a Gun
Prince Charles and King Salman being served coffee back in February 2015 when Charles visited Saudi Arabia to try to help the plight of a Saudi blogger who was sentenced to a 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam. It seems to have done some good…so far the blogger has only received 50 lashes. But Raif Badawi’s case still has many obstacles to overcome.
Chess and Saudi Arabia
The controversial $2,000,000 King Salman rapid and blitz championships begins today in Riyadh. Without any players from Israel, Iran or Qatar. The first two countries were not welcome for obvious political reasons. Qatar players could have played, but they objected, naturally, to being prohibited from playing under their own flag(!)
Et tu, Brute?
‘Gens una sumus’, which is supposedly FIDE’s guiding principle, translates into ‘We are one family’. No truer today than back in 1924 when FIDE was founded in Paris, but with one significant difference: the family today has transformed into a reality-TV mafia family.
Where only one thing is important: money.
FIDE has given Saudi Arabia the right to organize the next 2 or 3 World Championships! Despite the many protests and boycotts from all over the chess community. Fittingly, FIDE has hailed this renouncement of principles as a new and exciting era in sports…
