"The Turk" was a turbanned, lifesize doll attached to a chessboard; an 
automaton that beat Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin. Sold several times, 
it was destroyed by fire in Philadelphia but not before Edgar Allan Poe 
had written about how it was worked by a hidden man who'd lost his legs 
in some European war. Later still, a replica Berlin suburb was built in 
the Utah desert with wood from as far as Murmansk, furnished by RKO 
Radio Pictures Authenticity Division who also worked on Citizen Kane. 
Capital cities aren’t usually twinned but when it rained in Berlin they 
sprayed the replica. They bombed and rebuilt it until they found out 
which bombs were best. Old German tourists still visit the remains.

London worships its river, giving offerings of bodies and shopping 
trolleys in return for a direction, a narrative. Only when it flooded or 
froze was it ever mistrusted. Bridges are another matter. In 1212, when 
both ends of London Bridge caught light, over 3000 died. Only a dozen or 
so people died in the Great Fire which couldn't spread south because the 
1633 fire had left a gap in the bridge. Pepys watched from the safety of 
a rowing boat. Past St Pauls, down Hart Street there's St Olave's where 
Pepys is buried and his chess set's on show. The Great Fire got within a 
hundred yards of it before the wind changed, though the church had to be 
rebuilt after the Blitz. Mary Ramsay's buried there too. It's said she 
brought the Great Plague to London. Perhaps she was the first to die. 
Somebody had to be blamed.

Those too lazy to seek explanations will burn their boats and bridges, 
create rather than discover. In a 1926 spoof the BBC covered riots 
breaking out all over London. In October 1938 New Yorkers thought 
Martians had landed thanks to Orson Welles' radio broadcast having no 
adverts.  Later, they didn't believe reports from Pearl Harbour. In 
1946, the Polish magazine "RSK" printed this "mate in 2" problem - 
8/2Q5/4k3/8/2NB3K/8/8/8 - submitted by Karol Wojtyla. In February 2004 
the Russian Orthodox Church stated that chess is not the work of the 
devil. That year in the Moscow thaw they found 3028 bodies.