Chess and Kerry Packer

The passing of Australia's richest man, Kerry Packer, is naturally big news. At times like these, friend and foe alike always have plenty to say. And it is often when we reminisce that we discover some odd bits of detail.

And so it is that professor Rodney Tiffen recounts a chessic moment in the Packer life:

IT'S almost 25 years since Kerry Packer came to speak to a media politics class that I taught with Professor Henry Mayer. Finding myself alone with him, I tried to make light conversation by saying that I had read in the paper that he had just bought a chess computer.

Instead of a pleasant conversation about chess and computers, my remark provoked an outburst of anger that such an item had been published. He said he could not see why such a trivial fact should be in the paper, and was outraged by this invasion of his privacy.

From The Age.