LOST

I've just lost a game of chess to a vacuum cleaner.

Let me explain.

I like playing chess, especially when my opponent is good and I have to plan a few moves ahead. Shall I move the knight? Or the bishop to trap my opponent?

Anyway, I brought out my white and pink chess board given to me as a present years ago and set out all the pieces.

I then got my chess book recording games from the old masters and set out to role play an old game. Me against an old master.

First I played the master's move by placing his chess piece as recorded in the book. Then I hid the rest of the text in the book, and decided where I would move my piece next had I been playing this game in real life. Then I checked the book to see if I made the right decision.

Slow and labourious perhaps, but it's a great way to learn how old champions played each other.

After about half-an-hour, to my dismay, two pages in the book where stuck together with old age. Married for life and not to be pulled apart until death doth separate them.

Rather than risk tearing the book, I left it aside and went searching for an older book I had in a box in the living room, hidden behind a piece of furniture.

In my eagerness to find the game I was playing, for I was sure it was in that book also, I forgot to wipe the book clean first. Some dust from the book fell on the chess board and the pieces.

I got the vacuum cleaner and with the tube I tried to clean off the dust on the chess board.

The vacuum cleaner sucked off all the pieces from the board and won the game !!!