The 2084 Precept by Anthony D. Thompson

intend doing. And he
will be more polite to me the next time he sees me, I would happily
bet on that. Also he will say good morning sir, or good day sir, or
good evening sir. But he really shouldn't be here at all, this is a
hotel where good rooms cost £450 per night. By no means unduly
expensive for the area, but a modicum of customer-friendly service
is nevertheless to be expected. And if I don't receive it, I often
opt for the application of remedial action.
    My intentions in these cases are good ones.
It is a form of training. I intend no harm. I am merely attempting
to assist. And the fact that I often fail is unimportant; it is
those few occasions when I succeed that count. Thanks to me,
someone, somewhere, is improving him or herself right now.
    I went up to my room, packed my suitcases
and called for a bellboy to take them down to my car in the garage.
More often than not, I drive over to England. The cost is the same
as flying if you take into account the taxi costs at both ends. The
trip itself is made up of four and a half hours driving time to
Calais, an hour and a half on the ferry to Dover—grab some sea air,
have something to eat, do some onboard shopping—and up to two hours
to reach London. It also means that I can travel at a time
convenient to myself and return whenever I decide to, sometimes in
the middle of the night. I can take more luggage, my suits stay
nicely pressed hanging in the car, and I have a vehicle with me
during my stay with no rental costs for my employer. The latter
goes down well, thanks to my lies about trying to save them money
on my expenses.
    * * * * *
    I left London on the M4 motorway, past
Heathrow and Windsor and took the Slough Central exit, Slough being
pronounced 'Sluff' by its detractors of which there are many and
with good reason. This exit leads directly to a hotel I use which
is located before you reach the town proper. It was early afternoon
when I checked in. The hotel belongs to one of those good American
chains, pleasant service, rooms always of the expected quality and
everything as it should be, you can count on it. Just the way I
like it. You can keep those English hotels with their crooked
stairs, innumerable fire doors obstructing the passage of both
yourself and your luggage along innumerable narrow corridors,
creaking floorboards, tiny rooms and ridiculous shower
contraptions.
    I left the serious luggage in the car, went
up to my room, unpacked my overnight case and lay down on the bed,
time for some brief relaxation. Except that Mr. Jeremy Parker had
made an abrupt and unwelcome intrusion into the gourd of my skull
again.
    O.K., I told myself, that's it, you are
going to get him out of your brain once and for all, you are going
to check out a couple of items on your laptop and if any of his
facts are significantly wrong, you will have reconfirmed what you
have already decided, namely that he belongs on the pile of flotsam
(or jetsam if you prefer) which constantly floats past us on the
tides of our lives.
    Well, I checked. His facts were accurate,
only minor differences. Which indicated nothing, so what? I checked
my emails, nothing requiring any action on my part, and I decided
to do a bit of computer training with me playing White against the
King's Indian Defence. I stuck to the classical system in which
White plays an early knight to f3.
    There is no point in trying to play at a
certain level unless you continuously add to your knowledge of the
various systems, their possible variations, their possible
sub-variations and the concepts hiding behind them all. The
concepts are important, you need to know why you are making the
moves you are making, you need to know what your positional
objectives are and which are the pressure points. Among other
things, it saves thinking time if your opponent makes an
unusual—and therefore possibly weak—move; after all, you only have
2 hours on your clock for the first forty moves. It also helps to
keep you concentrated