Tim Wall makes the best of a bad situation during the round one meltdown
1) Phone round leading Azerbaijani hotels trying to find a good connection, only to find everyone is celebrating the end of Muslim festival Ramadan (with vodka, of course).
2) Drink tea with slice of lemon, suck on sugar cube, eat delicious blinis (pancakes) made by Layla (Teimour Radjabov's mum).
3) Download Internet Explorer version 5.0 from the Microsoft website, only to discover it cuts out (usually around the one hour, 88% mark) and crashes the computer.
4) Watch Jackie Chan martial arts movie with Teimour, dubbed into Russian.
5) Get local computer technician to install Internet Explorer 5.0 CD-ROM on to the hard-drive, only to discover next day that it's really a Russian pirate copy of version 4.0, and thus doesn't let you access the Java applet properly.
6) Listen to Teimour's dad, Boris, on the phone tell all his friends how well Teimour's doing. Then the Sports Minister calls, wanting a chess article translated for the President, Heydar Aliyev, presumably so he can surprise Vladimir Putin with his Velimirovic Attack at the next OSCE summit.
7) Drink more tea, listen to Boris's favourite chess joke: A man is playing chess with his dog when his neighbour calls round. "Why are you playing chess with your dog? It must be really intelligent." "Not really. I'm winning 3-2!"
8) Speak to beleaguered Kasparov Chess staff on mobile phone, while my boss at the newspaper calls on the land-line to say, "Tim, can we expect you in sometime today?"
9) Meanwhile, Teymur's off to bed, leaving the dog to play in his place if we suddenly get successfully logged in at 3am.
10) Day Three, 11pm: No word from Tel Aviv, as the slow net-boat to China is keeping everyone busy. Boris and I decline the tea, and opt for vodka instead. Three flamboyant Caucasian toasts later, a puzzled Boris asks: "Why do they drink cold beer in Groningen? It's cold enough there already - with vodka at least you feel warm inside!"
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