TudoRama

40 Episodes
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By: Tudor Rickards

TudoRama explores the nature and practice of creativity in the arts, sciences, politics and above all in everyday life. Tudor Rickards is Emeritus Professor of Creativity and Organizational Change at the University of Manchester. Tudor studied chemistry and radiation chemistry at The University of Wales at Cardiff.  Following post-doctoral research at New York Medical College, he returned to the UK to work in technical management before joining Manchester Business School.  He has published numerous books and articles on creativity, sporting management and leadership, as well as fictional works involving the mythical University of Urmston. He has been influential in the de...

The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tay. Who really killed the Princes in the Tower?
Last Thursday at 3:00 PM

The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tay. Who really killed the Princes in the Tower?

Richard the third, according to our history books, backed up by William Shakespeare. But not according to the Richard 111 Society founded in 1924. Nor according to crime writer Josephine Tey, in her crime novel originally published in 1951.

Tay never received the fame of Christie or Sayers, but her writing is of the highest quality of readability and storyline.

The Daughter of time in the title refers to Truth, according to a proverb I had never come across.  The story i...


Message to Mark Brown. ‘How are the dolphins?’
Last Tuesday at 5:00 PM

Message to Mark Brown. ‘How are the dolphins?’

Dear Mark,

It was great to get your recent email after so long since our last meeting.  How long? I retrieve a date from my unreliable memory Filofax as it being sometime in the eighties. Let’s say forty years, give or take a decade.

Yes, we planned to meet, from time to time.  But perhaps inevitably, our good intentions were not enough to make that conversation happen. 

So, here’s my plan B.

I send you my half of the discussion l...


Wit and Wisdom of 'X' was Twitter
Last Monday at 10:00 AM

September 2023

@amrakunj
My 11 year old just said to me, Mum, your shirt is very diaphanous.
I don’t know whether to be impressed that he know what diaphanous means or change my shirt. 😳

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Ignoble Prize winners of the year. A TudoRama report on unusual research findings
09/16/2023

Ignoble Prize winners of the year. A TudoRama report on unusual research findings.

Every year, The Nobel Prize ceremonies are preceded by awards for unusual or even crazy research projects in the IgNobel prize awards.

These awards were created in 1991 by Mark Abrahams, editor of the annals of improbable research. He has been the master of ceremonies at all award ceremonies since the awards are presented for discoveries that cannot or should not be reproduced. 

However, the event has created its own mock-serious Ceremony. The prizes are presented by real Nobel laureate at H...


How to dispose of household trash safely when caught in a thunderstorm. An educational podcast.
09/14/2023

How to dispose of household trash safely when caught in a thunderstorm.  An educational podcast.

This is an educational podcast explaining step by step how to dispose of household waste if you are caught unexpectedly in a torrential storm as took place in Woodford Garden Village around 3pm one afternoon this week,

I was engaged in disposing of the week’s back numbers of the Guardian from their temporary place in a raffia basket into the blue bin positioned close to the front gate of the premises. Blue is the of colour wheelie bin for pap...


Caïssa, the Goddess of Chess
09/09/2023

Caissa, the Goddess of Chess

My attention was caught this week by a reference in 'X, formally known as Twitter'.
The post showed a facsimile of a page from the work of Howard Staunton, one of the greatest of English chess players of all time. The post, purporting to come from someone appearing as a reincarnation of Staunton, reads as follows:

If you find the key to this position in five minutes, we shall think you a promising aspirant for Caïssa’s honours

Caïssa? Many chess players will...


The first tweets of Autumn
09/09/2023

@deelomas
My daughter: Will you do my maths homework for me? 
Me: No love, it wouldn’t be right. 
My daughter: Well, just do your best!

@MaldenSaboteur
Places where I get a data signal:
• Gate of the Sun, Machu Picchu
• Volcanic Caldera in Dodecanese
• Out of sight of land in the middle of the Med.
• A little spot on a dirt track next to an anthill in Porthcurno.
And where not:
Wimbledon -> Clapham Junction (for 17 years) 🤬

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Blairism without Tony Blair. Can Labour pull it off?
09/06/2023

Blairism without Tony Blair. Can Labour pull it off?

September 6 2023

A few mischievous thoughts following Keir Starmer’s reshuffle of his shadow cabinet this week.

Summer time ends with assorted floods, and raging fires wreaking untold carnage around the world.

In England, our politicians return to Parliament. Conservative leader Rishi Sunak has been beset with a battalion of bruising setbacks but has pluckily soldiered on with daily photo shoots. When these have hit the headlines they seem to have been inconveniently connected with political mishaps. A stop the boats initiative coincided wi...


Is this the end of the Didsbury Literary and Philosophical Society?
09/01/2023

Is this the end of the Didsbury Literary and Philosophical Society?

The chairs grouped around the front of the Didsbury Deli stand empty and forlorn. The meeting place of the Didsbury Literary and Philosophical Society is deserted. Silence falls where once the voices of the Didsbury Lit & Phil members could be heard in deep discussion from early morning onward, most days of the week. 

What has happened? Have we witnessed some natural catastrophe, like the one marking the end of the age of the dinosaurs.

It is true that the group recognised its v...


Say goodbye to Twitter, welcome to XWTF
09/01/2023

Say goodbye to Twitter, welcome to XWTF

@Tudortweet
Cracked it. The new acronym. XWTF.
'X', Was Twitter, Formerly
Let’s hear it for #XWTF 

And here’s the first wit and wisdom from #XWTF

@lordbonkers
We won't return the Elgin Marbles to Greece, but they are free to bid for them on eBay

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The Creative Process In Chess and Everyday Life.
08/26/2023

The Creative Process In Chess and Everyday Life.  A training podcast by Tudor Rickards

This podcast is offered as an overview for aspiring chess players. I hope it is of particular interest to students of chess of all ages, and perhaps to a wider group of people interested in creativity in everyday life. 

I’ll summarise the key points in time- honoured style at the start and in the conclusions. Its main messages are based on those of a leading trainer, Mark Dvoretsky. His system encourages development of skills of finding candidate moves and selecting a pr...


The Fat One. The Football World Cup Final, 2023
08/23/2023


England v Spain

The Christmas Lottery in Spain, known as El Gordo, the fat one, believed to be the biggest in the world, with payouts approaching two and a half billion euros, but with ways of sharing prizes to community levels. If Spain wins today their Christmas lottery win will have come early.

Sunday 20 August

I have to search hard in the print media for detailed background analysis of the Spanish team. I remember the team’s  4-0 loss against Japan. Like England, they scraped through qualifiers, and improved as the tournament prog...


England Lionesses v Australia’s Matildas. A Sofa Drama
08/19/2023

England Lionesses v Australia’s Matildas.  A Sofa Drama

Wednesday 17 August, 2023

A sofa saga as England’s Lionesses face up against Australia’s Matildas in the quarterfinal of Football’s World Cup. Matildas after the famous Ozzie folk song Waltzing Matilda.

It seems that in Australia, Matilda Mania has its grip on that sport-loving country.

All is ready in my solitary fanzone. My phone is on silent ring. Lunch has been pre- preprepared. Beverage to hand. A water bottle. It is, after all, 11am in England.

It is 8pm in Sidney...


Donald Trump and the Georgia “Witch Hunt”
08/16/2023

Donald Trump and the Georgia “Witch Hunt”  

Tuesday 15 August, 2023

With the reluctance of a strip tease show, a list of a criminal charges against Donald Trump appear on a Fulton County, Georgia website this afternoon local time, and is then whipped away. The court is still reaching its conclusions. 

This is the criminal case being prepared by State Prosecutor Fani Willis, centred around Trump’s recorded phone call in January 2021 which urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" 11,780 votes, the number he would have required to win the presidential election there. 

...


Bibby Barge Bingo
08/14/2023

Trending. Bibby Barge Bingo, a game played with up to five hundred players.

Congratulations! You have been selected from over a hundred thousand applications we have received,  all seeking admission on our unique new floating accommodation, ton His Majesty’s luxury superbarge, the Bibby Stockholm.  You have won one of the first five hundred pioneering places.

Another win. You lucky channel crosser. You have been identified as being among the fortunate first fifty on board, with incredible access to the nearly empty craft.

Yes, you have already successfully avoided the clutches of the desp...


Shakespeare banned in Florida’s schools for its ‘rauchiness’
08/11/2023



I had to check that the story is not a deep hoax. But apparently not, if we can accept The Tampa Bay Times as a reliable source, as reported by the political website Occupy Democrats. I quote their entire post published Wednesday 9 August, 2023: 

Florida Republicans go completely off the deep end with their deranged MAGA book bannings as William Shakespeare gets banned by certain schools in the Ron DeSantis-controlled state.

The reason for the ban? Just about the stupidest thing you can imagine.

According to The Tampa Bay Times, the works o...


On lapses of concentration. A message for chess and tennis players
08/08/2023

My message is for inexperienced chess and tennis players. Maybe it will be of interest to those of riper age and greater experience as well. It is an introduction to further podcasts on the subject.

The advice comes partly from my own painful attempts at improving my performance in each of the two games. It’s backed up by serious research into the nature of performance and development by coaches and highflying professionals, and discussions with a few of the same.

There is plenty of evidence that progress can be made by anchoring learning of so...


Untitled Episode
08/03/2023

Twitter wit and humour. Obituary edition, July 2023

@NicholasTyrone
@tomhillier
@EvLenz
@orridge_anna
@dontbrexitfixit
@deelomas
@Hepworthclare
@ChillaxBcn
@RCdeWinter

Comments on Brexit, Barbie, and a 1980s Business Guru during the last weeks before Twitter became X and the old brand name declared X tinct. 

@NicholasTyrone
My daughter is 11 and for kids her age, “Brexit” has become a pejorative adjective. So, a kid who comes to football practice with beaten-up looking trainers gets them called “Brexit boots”. I don’t think Brexiters consider the degree to which they’ve los...


Trump is indicted, but what is really on trial is far more important
08/02/2023

Trump’s latest and potentially most serious indictment on August 1st 2023, places far more than the former President of the United States on trial. Arguably, the whole political process is under severe scrutiny. 
I examine the indictment as analysed by journalistic investigative reporter James Ball. He considers the persistence of belief in what the President calls the great steal, illustrates a form of mental pandemic, spreading globally through the internet ...

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<...


My Barbie film treat
07/27/2023



Where to begin? Where better than at a thinly-disguised hairdressing salon deep in the heart of leafy Cheshire.

For reasons mostly due to demands on her time, my appointment with Mandy, my beauty consultant and coiffeuse, had been delayed beyond acceptable limits. I entered her establishment accompanied by my shaggy locks, rather like the famous etching by William Blake of the ancient of days.

In hindsight,  I trace some of my disorientation to my arrival. A distinct and unusual absence of staff. With due caution I allowed myself to be guided by Mandy t...


Greek geek beats Pluto to win Goat of the year award
07/26/2023



Don Drake, an advertising executive in a remote office off Soho,  is struggling to reach a deadline for the Daily Truth a syndicated social media newspaper reaching around the world mostly on the dark web. His boss Harry is increasingly frustrated with his habit of last-minute rescue through his creative genius

Come on Jon we need something to get the Greek inferno headlines off the front page. And soonest, goddammit.

I’ve got it Harry, a breaking news story about some Greek geek.

Shoot.
Aristotle Onassis.  He’s won some award...


A grammar book walks into a bar. A play about words.
07/23/2023

Submitted to Twitter by @RCdeWinter, 
 attributed to Jill Thomas Doyle

I’m afraid you may need to play some of the examples more than once to enjoy the delightful humour and grammatical subtleties.

A grammar book walks into a bar

 * A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly. 

 * A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

  * An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

* A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all...


Nigel Farage, Coutts, and a tale of biometric mishaps
07/21/2023

Nigel Farage, Coutts, and a tale of biometric mishaps.

Friday 21 July

I am not alone in having a problem with my biometrics. Or, more precisely, the fancy system installed on my National Westminster banking app to protect me from a world crammed with scammers intent on electronic theft.

By one of those coincidences, my irritation with Nat West this week coincided with that of the politician Nigel Farage whose ire was directed at its subsidiary 
Coutts. 

A year or so ago, I finally gave in to the  bank’s  urging for me...


Wimbledon 2023 wit and wisdom as captured by Twitter
07/18/2023

Sunday 16 July

My review as the tournament reaches a breathtaking finale.

Wimbledon began with a tweet from Green MP Caroline Lucas objecting to the Tournament’s sponsorship by Barclays Bank, as an exercise in greenwashing. 
As you will hear, it ended with a tweet from Louis Vuitton, for reasons which will eventually become clear.

The first week is fast becoming a faded memory. After traditional gallant performances, British favourites drop out towards the end of the week. After his loss, Andy Murray was dismissed as boring by a non tennis-playing journalist.


BBC melt down as the Huw Edwards drama unfolds
07/14/2023

BBC news over the last 24 hours seems to be in a state of shock, in which rational decision-making has disappeared. It reminds me of the communication confusion I personally experienced at the time of the soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia, in August 1968.

The current confusion was triggered a week ago by  an article in the Sun newspaper. The article had been in typical Sun hyperbolic style, announcing  that an unnamed BBC personality had payed tens  of thousands of pounds for explicit images, starting when the recipient was aged 17. The article was justified as being in support of the fam...


My favourite trousers, part 2. In search of lost pants
07/10/2023


I have mithered too long. Yesterday, I passed the very shop from which I bought my once and only favourite pair, so many years ago. Something stopped me entering. Cowardice? Maybe. A feeling of apprehension, certainly. No time in a busy schedule? Not really.
I hurried past to the nearby car park and home.

An email awaited me from Geraint ap Wrecsam, commenting on my earlier lament for trousers past. He shared my pain.

Thanks for inviting me to assist with your undoubtedly tricky issue. I know exactly how you feel.  Parting with f...


Zuckerberg launches Threads. Is twitter sunk?
07/07/2023

Thursday 6 July 2023.

Possibly a momentous day for social media. Elon Musk’s new plaything Twitter lurches from sick into to intensive care.  Mark Zuckerberg launches a rival platform Threads as part of his futuristic and gigantic global operation Meta Platforms Inc, (Meta for short). Meta sprang into life in 2021. It did do, according to its PR as a reaction to

‘the company's shifting long-term focus of building the Metaverse, a digital extension of the physical world by social media, virtual reality and augmented reality features’. 

The rebranding was to integrate the sprawling and expandin...


My favourite trousers and how I have sorely abused them
07/05/2023

I have a pair of favoured trousers. They are brown corduroy, accidentally matching my favourite slip-on brown shoes.

 I vaguely remember buying the trousers some years ago, and then having the length of their legs reduced to meet my personal requirements. 
I noted recently that the cords they have become increasingly faded around the knees and seams. 

They have received brutal treatment,  partly because of frequent washing, necessitated after excessive stains (yoghurt, and Magnum ice cream mishaps most common).
Sadly, a time is approaching when they will be have relegated to lower status, as r...


Wimbledonitis.
07/03/2023

Wimbldonitis is a temporary  condition afflicting people as we approach the British Grand Slam of tennis, held at its fabled home of Wimbledon.

Curiously, the illness does not affect ordinary club players throughout the county. The majority of these are completely immune, continuing with their regular social games, perhaps watching the highlight programmes on the BBC  in the evenings. And, yes, I am among that majority, although I have thoroughly enjoyed my infrequent visits to Wimbledon over the years.

Those most seriously afficted seem to be celebrities who have been granted admission to the Royal Bo...


Whatever happened to the Manchester Business School?
06/29/2023

Part 1. A nostalgic train journey

I leave my retirement home in Woodford Garden village and take a rumbling suburban train into the metropolis of Manchester. I am in search of times gone by. In particular, I want to find out what happened to a place where I spent a large proportion of my working life ...

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Twenty Tweets of the Month
06/26/2023



June 2023

A trend I’ve noticed in twitter, this month. The has been a dramatic rise on the use of threads, multiple tweets creatively escaping the word limit. This seems to be changing the spirit of Twitter, but possibly for the better.

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Love Is. A poem read by Steve Jaffa Brown
06/24/2023

Steve Jaffa Brown gives a reading of his Poem 
Love Is...


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Top Five Tweets June 2023
06/23/2023


Top five June tweets.

I selected five top tweets published in the first weeks of June, 
Hope you enjoy them as much as I did. 

In no particular order

@TollytB

@deelomas

@MirandaKeeling

@JoJoFromJerz

@JonathanLevitt7 

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How to improve your chess by benchmarking
06/21/2023

Improving your chess by benchmarking.

These training instructions were provided for members of East Cheshire Chess Club. I hope they will also be of use to anyone interested in leaning about chess.

This year we have been offering training sessions to beginners and club members interested in improving their skills.

We have settled for a mix of short lecture sessions on club nights, and informal meetings with smaller groups of players. 

I want to suggest the benefits of taking practice very seriously. OK, that’s what just about every teacher says abo...


Thought for the day. Conspiracy theories
06/18/2023



Thursday 15 June 2023

The political news of the day is the report of the enquiry finding the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson guilty of misleading Parliament, misleading the enquiry, and compounding his errors by vigorous denial of the legitimacy of the enquiry.

In earlier podcasts, I noted the difficulties that politicians have in changing their minds. 
Maybe they persist irrationality in a belief when the evidence builds up against it. Politicians hate admitting they have changed their mind for fear of being accused of flip-flopping.
To deal with such an accusation may l...


A day is a long time in politics. The resignation of Boris Johnson
06/12/2023

A day is a long time in politics. The resignation of Boris Johnson

Friday 9 June 2023

There is an often repeated saying that a week is a long time in politics. Today, it seems as if the saying has to be speeded up to meet the pace of everyday life. 

I have just posted my weekly newsletter which began:

As I write, news is emerging of charges against former President Trump and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. There seems to be a mysterious symmetry at work. Both suffered a serious career setback p...


Prayer for tourists
06/10/2023

As I removed the washing from the tumbler drier, the a faded dishcloth was retrieved. I read what was written with increasing admiration.
The dishcloth had been made in Ireland. 
It seems to have been acquired long ago. It captured a tourist prayer attributed to the American humourist Art Buchwald. 
I have spared you the Irish accept ...


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How (not) to publicise your chess club. Confessions of a publicity officer.
06/07/2023



Gentlemen. I note there are no ladies present. One immediate example of how my efforts as your publicity officer have failed miserably in at least in that one aspect.

This is the seventh year in which I have held the honorary post of publicity officer of our Chess club. It is the first year I have been asked to provide a report of progress at our AGM. That is possibly because I would have had little progress to report in previous years. Perhaps I should start by making a brief summary of how the post...


Twitter wit and wisdom June 2023
06/07/2023

Some familiar tweeters in these recent gems from Twitter.

@deelomas
Thought for the day:
What if that spider you just killed in your house had spent his entire life thinking that you were his roommate? 
Ever think about that? 
No. You only think about yourself…

@gerriisalsoGigi
There’s a really good yoga trick for headaches, it’s all about breathing in through one nostril then the other. Too difficult to explain here but I’m sure you could google it, really relaxing too.
@Tudortweet
Can you cheat by blocking o...


How to play backgammon. Lesson 2
06/04/2023

Setting up the board with the chequers in their correct position.

Backgammon is played in competition between two people (other versions are possible, but let’s keep it simple. Also keeping it simple, I’m calling one ‘white’ and another ‘black’).

I’m going to use the terms ‘bits’ as an alternative to chequers and meaning the same thing. I’m using the principle of symmetry to simply where the bits go on the board.

All the bits move the same way. First you have to set up the bits in their starting position.

T...