In a remarkable, if unintentional, piece of self-revelation, a certain Paul McKeown, long one of the most unpleasant of all the termites, posted the following classic line on the Egregious Chess Forum yesterday afternoon:
Also, I would suggest that there are some people who abuse the principle of forensic journalism (sic), to the degree that anyone who becomes even tangentially associated with certain controversial persons becomes an instant target for that selfsame forensic journalism (sic).
As a description of the Keene-haters, it can scarcely be bettered - anyone who exhibits the slightest connection with Ray Keene is automatically targeted by the termites, as I know from my own experience. Of course, McKeown himself is one of the most vitriolic of their number, the real reason for his hostility to Keene being a story to which this blog must return at some future date. But for now, I could not help smiling, when I read, as part of the same thread, a claim by McKeown that the present crisis in the ECF is the result of
ineluctable negativity.
Such long words brought praise pouring down on his head from several of his fellow termites, stunned by the extent of his vocabulary. I wonder if they would have been so impressed, had they been aware of this article, published on the BBC website, just 48 hours earlier, in which writer Will Self defends his own use of obscure words. He also provides a handy list of Will's Words of the Week, number four of which is, er, "ineluctable"...
