Today, I and Alessandra were remembering when, about two years ago, we organized a certain not so important chess event at the Associazione Culturale “Il Delta della Luna” in Florence, Italy. All financial and organizational details were, quite understandably, on our shoulders, but inevitably a little plethora of Federazione Scacchistica Italiana’s representatives (especially, Tuscany ones) — or at least they claimed to be second-hand chess officials — as well as a bunch of non-Italian representatives, gathered around us in order to exploit any possible lucrative opportunities. Oh, they did it wonderfully well! And they did not hesitate, for pursuing their noble “political” aims, to mix themselves with all the worst you could imagine coming from Prato — that’s not so far from Florence, Genoa and Milan as we might have hoped.
What do I remember of them? Well, nothing but bad things — just to put it euphemistically.
Did they act in that way under the aegis of a national or international federation or by their own initiative? I don’t know, do you?
We are not so rich to afford losing money in courts that protect only plutocrats and ochlocrats, so we had to content ourselves with living (still alive) in our small but precious nowhere land. It seems a little thing, hardly worth a breath, yet it wasn’t easy at all.
It was a very sad experience, from all possible point of views, and sincerely speaking, when our old publisher asked me to write down the “story”, I felt so ashamed of my countrymen that I preferred to keep it with mine.
Even I would have been a bit too embarrassed to hand him the bill.
He could not have paid it. And, honestly, I could not have accepted it.
So, to make it short, in all our life we’ve written only “Serafino Dubois il Professionista”. It isn’t a horror novel, it wasn’t a best-selling book.
What do I remember of them? Well, nothing but bad things — just to put it euphemistically.
Did they act in that way under the aegis of a national or international federation or by their own initiative? I don’t know, do you?
We are not so rich to afford losing money in courts that protect only plutocrats and ochlocrats, so we had to content ourselves with living (still alive) in our small but precious nowhere land. It seems a little thing, hardly worth a breath, yet it wasn’t easy at all.
It was a very sad experience, from all possible point of views, and sincerely speaking, when our old publisher asked me to write down the “story”, I felt so ashamed of my countrymen that I preferred to keep it with mine.
Even I would have been a bit too embarrassed to hand him the bill.
He could not have paid it. And, honestly, I could not have accepted it.
So, to make it short, in all our life we’ve written only “Serafino Dubois il Professionista”. It isn’t a horror novel, it wasn’t a best-selling book.
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