Round and round the Chess board
Created | Updated Oct 13, 2006
Lincoln, small and unregarded. Stuck off the unfashionable backwater that is the A46. Below Scunthorpe, a place natively rude that you couldn't search for articles about it on early versions of AOL. A bloody great big Church on the only hill for miles around. A Castle housing the Magna Carte, a pub called wittingly and unimaginatively The Magna Carte, another pub called the Lion and Snake which is better. In truth loads of pubs, every other shop front is now a pub. We may reach total pub object horizon quite soon. A university teaching vital subjects such as media studies and golf course management. Students fuelling the pubs and pubs fuelling the students. One pub in particular, even more unregarded than Lincoln itself. The Tap and Spile, real beer or real ale as people with beards will have it. A dart board, no TV and no juke box. Live music, often blues in nature to make your expensive beer curdle. Thursday night, an unregarded night unfashionably refusing to be Friday. People, some with beards, meet to play chess. This being Lincoln however it wouldnt be normal chess though. Lincoln plays round, or more accurately circular chess. The pieces move in a reassuringly familar way, the board just makes it a bit different. Still with 64 squares or areas for they are no longer square, 4 deep and 16 pieces round, hollow in the middle. Hollow in the middle the area to rest your real ale, kick off your sandals, and put your opponents taken pieces in. Invented by a local historian, who incidently has a beard, Lincoln hosts the world circular chess champoinship annually, usually at the Castle but sometimes at the Cathedral. If you arent very good at chess then this is your chance to shine because no one else can get their heads round it either. Annoyingly despite the fact that the rest of the world continues to ignore circular chess the Dutch, often beardless, have a knack of winning the title, the future may indeed be orange.
