This is a photograph, albeit not a very good one, that I took of a bookshop in Pamplona. The shop, as you can see, is called Alekhine. It's in the north of the city, at Avenida Marcelo Celayeta, 126.
I was expecting it to be a chess shop the moment I saw the name. More so when I saw the rook on the wall outside. Then there's the design of its website. With chess pieces all over it.
But it's not a chess shop: it doesn't have any chess books in it. Its webpage advertising magazines and newspapers makes no mention of any chess periodicals. In fact there doesn't seem to be a trace of chess about the place. You can even buy bread. You can buy cakes and rolls and all sots of nice things. But you can't buy any chess things.
Odd. What's the point? Why put the rook on the wall? Why put the chess pieces on the website? Why call it Alekhine? Not exactly a typical name in Pamplona, and besides, a name only immediately recognisable to somebody interested in chess.
Though as far as I'm aware he never played in Pamplona
Maybe it used to be a chess shop? Maybe it was set up by somebody who play chess? Who knows? I should really have asked in the shop what it was all about. But I was worried it might turn out like this...
[Thanks to Angus]
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