Strange activities abound about the city of Manchester. We hear that the hordes descended upon the Manchester Printworks on Wednesday night, summoned by a mysterious e-mail from an unknown source. Those who attended had artistic anarchists inspire them to flap umbrellas up and down indoors, before the crowd dispersed as swiftly as it had arrived.

We also hear of a guerrilla movie-making challenge in Manchester and three other towns which will see masses required to make a five-minute short movie from start to finish between 10am today and 10am on Monday. Sleep is very optional.

However, all Manchester's true fun-lovers know that the best place to be this week is the Manchester Conference Centre at UMIST, site for the seventh Mind Sports Olympiad, where there are set to be well over a hundred tournaments in more than forty different mind sports. Definitely the best way to get to meet the most brilliant brains in the city.

MSO founder and Chief Organiser David Levy said,

"This is an important year for the Mind Sports Olympiad because it marks a move to our new permanent home in Manchester. We are deeply indebted to UMIST for inviting us to relocate our event and for providing support in many ways to make the move not only possible but also very appealing. In addition we have received very significant support from Manchester City Council.

This year we return to the popular 10-day format that offers so many different tournaments for games enthusiasts. We have more than 120 tournaments and teaching sessions on offer, encompassing more than 40 different Mind Sports. We are introducing two "academies" this year - the Games Academy in which we will be teaching three games on each of the weekdays from August 18th-22nd, and the Brain Power academy, on the same days, where participants will be taught Memory Skills, Speed Reading and Mind Mapping.

We very much hope that everyone at MSO7 will enjoy the event. May all of you have good fortune in your games."

Cash prizes to be won at the seventh Mind Sports Olympiad exceed £20,000, not including valuable prizes in kind. The breakdown of prizes by sport is as follows:

ABALONE	£100
ACQUIRE	£125
AGE OF STEAM	£100
BOKU	£100
BRIDGE	£2,000
CHESS	£4,000
CHINESE CHESS	£750
CONTINUO	£100
CREATIVE THINKING	£100
CRIBBAGE	£500
DECAMENTATHLON	£100
DIPLOMACY	£100
DOMINOES	£100
DRAUGHTS	£100
ENTROPY	£100
GO	£100
INTELLIGENCE	£100
SCHOOLS' INTELLIGENCE	£100
LINES OF ACTION	£100
LOST CITIES	£100
MASTERMIND	£100
MEMORY SKILLS	£500
MENTAL CALCULATION	£100
MIND MAPPING	£100
OTHELLO	£1,125
OWARE	£100
PACRU	£200
PENTAMIND	£1,000
PUERTO RICO	£100
QUIZ	£1,000
SCHOOLS' QUIZ	£1,000
RUMMIKUB	£300 + trip
SCRABBLE	£750
SETTLERS OF CATAN	£100
SHOGI	£100
SKAT	£100
SNATCH	£200
SPEED READING	£100
TRAX	£100
TWIXT	£100

Other prizes in kind include special trophies for winners of the Amateur Backgammon, Chess and Draughts championships, for those taking part in more than one tournament in each of those mind sports.

The most valuable chess competition at the year's Mind Sports Olympiad, the Open Olympiad Championship, is already underway. There will be five rounds over three days, each round permitting two hours per player per game. Hot favourite is Grandmaster Nick Pert, but Scottish International Master Stephen Mannion is another of the strongest contenders. Csaba Bognar, a strong Hungarian player who earned a haul of medals at MSO 6 in Loughborough last year, is also tipped for success.

The British Go Championship is decided annually by a five-game match. This year the titleholder Matthew Macfadyen is defending his title against challenger Matthew Cocke. The second and third games of this match are being played as part of the seventh Mind Sports Olympiad and are being relayed live on the Kiseido Go Server - see http://kgs.kiseido.com/ and look for a game hosted by BGAadmin. The first game of the match was played on August 9th at the Epsom Go Tournament and won by Macfadyen.

Daytime forecast for Saturday 16th:
sunny, max temperature 23ºC

Daytime forecast for Sunday 17th:
sunny intervals, max temperature 20ºC

Daytime forecast for Monday 18th:
risk of light showers, max temperature 19ºC

We hope to bring you the latest news of winners of Grandmaster, International Master and Candidate Master titles awarded due to continued excellence at the Mind Sports Olympiad soon. As a reminder, you need to win two MSO gold medals (or a gold and two silvers) in the same event to earn the Grandmaster title, two silver medals (or a silver and two bronzes, or a gold and a bronze) or better to earn the International Master title and two bronze medals or better to earn the Candidate Master title.

There is a particular MSO achievement which is shared by Dario de Toffoli, John Clark, Robert Fountain and - perhaps surprisingly - to the best of our knowledge, nobody else. (Anne Jones has been denied this achievement through no fault of her own.) Your question is: what is this achievement? Answer tomorrow, space permitting. (No prizes - just for fun!)