The interviewer is one Andrew Baks. I know nothing about Mr Baks, who seems a very pleasant, unassuming, and doubtless well-meaning chap, but when it comes to a penetrating interview with such a slippery and PR-savvy customer as the Dear Leader, he is sadly inadequate. Jeremy Paxman he definitely is not. Rather than posing any direct questions, he just gives CJ a little, all-purpose cue about each subject, and then lets the latter spout a load of disingenuous twaddle. A typical example is de Mooi's alleged financial contribution to the 2011 British Championship. Rather than ask a genuine question, such as "How much did you personally put in to the event?", Bak just makes a general comment along the lines of "I understand you put your own money into the event? Tell us about that", whereupon de Mooi duly trots out the party line about how necessary it was, what a good cause it was, how passionate he is about chess, etc, etc. As to precisely how much he spent, or what he spent it on, we of course remain none the wiser. He admits to having contributed "A few pennies" of his own. Naturally, he intends listeners to take this as a euphemism for "loadsa money", although in fact, my researches lead me to think that de Mooi's words may actually be very much closer to the literal truth than most people assume. But we will never know, will we? And that is how de Mooi wants it.
"Some people give disingenuous, self-justificatory, pre-election interviews. Get over it!".
On T-shirtgate, he refuses to add to what he has already said, claiming this to be the ECF Board's policy. Yet he then contradicts this, by claiming that two people were reported to the police over the affair, which is news to me. Once again, Bak makes no attempt to follow up this potentially serious revelation.
Of course, the true reason why the Dear One has broken his self-imposed silence is that it is election time. The ECF AGM is less than two months away, and CJ is standing for re-election. And, like any scheming politician, he has an offer of jam tomorrow. If elected, he says, he has "big plans" for the 2013 British Championship, which will be held in Torquay (a point he goes out of his way to emphasise - I wonder why?). He hints at a major announcement to come, and also at once again putting "a few pennies" of his own money into the event. Some might suggest this amounts to little more than a crude attempt to buy votes - as Francis Urquart would say, "You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment".
All in all, it is a rather sick-making 45 minutes of platitudinous self-justification, so much so that I toyed with the idea of not bothering to give the link. But, in the interests of letting you hear just how creepingly nauseous the ECF President can be, here it is.
