Serial incompetence

The inability of the Egregious Chess Federation to do anything properly really does beggar belief. Over on the Forum this week, there was a priceless moment, when someone questioned why there has been no attempt by the ECF to generate publicity for the ongoing British Championship. In response, the Egregious lot's Publicity Officer, one Ben Edgell, responded as follows:

I haven't done any publicity work for the British

He went on to admit this was not acceptable, but he works full time, is very busy, etc, etc.

I have no particular beef with Mr Edgell per se; at least he was honest. But just what is it about the ECF that renders all its officials completely incapable of even wiping their posteriors, once they assume office? Many of those elected are professional men, with good track records as chess organisers, yet the moment they assume office within the ECF, they seem to undergo some sort of surgical process, that removes every trace of competence and ability from them, and renders them entirely useless to man or beast. We have a Publicity Director, who hasn't done any publicity work. We have a Marketing Director, who appears (as far as anyone knows) to have done no marketing since he took the job. We have a Finance Director who can't even produce a set of accounts. We have a Director of Home Chess, who couldn't direct the traffic from one end of London Bridge to the other. And atop this ghastly Ministry of None of the Talents, we have the Dear Leader himself, whose sole contribution in the past year seems to have been limited to bad-mouthing British chess in the pages of national newspapers.

There has recently been a development in the saga of the non-existent Ward-Higgs county correspondence event (see here). There has still been no adequate explanation from the ludicrous John Philpott, for his failure ever to distribute pairing notices for the 2011-12 season; still less has there been a worthwhile apology. However, our Fliptop has taken action to ensure that the event runs next year - he has dumped the responsibility on the BFCC (British Federation for Correspondence Chess)! A few weeks ago, team captains received an e-mail from the BFCC's Neil Limbert, stating that "The ECF has now requested the BFCC to organise and run this event".

"The ECF have asked us to organise this piss-up in a brewery for them" (photo: xaxor.com)

So there you have it - the ECF officially admits it is incapable of running national chess events, and has dumped its responsibility on another organisation. All it needs now is for the Egregious lot to demand that all players in the event be members of the ECF! I would not put it past them...