Imperial College A 6 Ealing A 2
: Created:31 Jan 2008 , byEaling were well beaten on 30th January when we visited Imperial College. No excuses but ...
| Bd | Ealing 1 | Gd. | Imperial College 1 | Gd. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Smith, Martin | 208 | - | Cox, John J | 218 |
| 2 | Randall, Simon | 176 | - | Martyn, Rafe | 207 |
| 3 | Stanisic, Veljko | 168 | - | Levermore, Peter A | 180 |
| 4 | Tserendorj, Sainbayar | 169 | = | McCall, Martin | 160 |
| 5 | Ebbett, David | 170 | - | Anandajeyarajah, Similan J | 152 |
| 6 | Lamb, H Michael | 146 | - | Bhatia, Kanwal K | 154 |
| 7 | Smith, Gary P | 125 | = | Nandi, Robin | 126 |
| 8 | Shalabayev, Syrym | 142 | + | Osa-Afiana, Azu | 124 |
...before I trot out the sad litany of insurmountable difficulties allow me to praise our three heroes who scored points on the night. Syrym Shalabayev was our only winner forcing through a checkmating attack on board eight. Gary Smith made a solid debut for the club with a good draw and Sainbayar Tserendorj was his usual resilient self in collecting our other half-point.
So what happened to the rest? Are the old excuses the best? "The dog ate our team plans", has a slightly jejune air to it. Sickness within the side had some validity as one of members was under the weather but that still leaves four of us scrambling for a reason for defeat.
History provides us with some witty excuses. While Edward V11 was Prince of Wales, he invited his close friend Lord Charles Beresford to dinner. Bereseford cabled back: "Very sorry can't come, lie follows by post." Felix Dahn, a German jurist refused an offer to be guest of honour at a function in Hamburg. He gave as his reason that he once spent six weeks in Hamburg doing nothing but sleeping and drinking and he did not want to repeat this time-wasting expereience. When pressed for details of when this happened, he replied, "During the first six months of my life."
Enough of this whimsy because I must get back to writing my book, "How to put your children through university FREE". The heading for chapter one is "First become a Tory MP".