The plan had been for back surgery tomorrow, but after much thought and discussion and to-ing and fro-ing I went with a directed steroid injection today. We'll see how that goes, and if it doesn't work as well as I hope the surgery option will still be on the table (along with the person having the surgery). This should offer some relief soon, but I'm nevertheless going to take a little time off and not try to keep up on here with the goings-on in Zug and Paris.
(An aside: I'm calling a moratorium on the "FIDE champions" topic. As I'm not arguing that the FIDE champions' lineage has the significance of the historic line from Kasparov to Kramnik, the significance of the debate brings the trivia level of an already suspiciously fluffy topic to impressively microscopic heights. If I'm going to spend time blogging, which I quite probably shouldn't at this point, I'd rather do it on something pleasant and mutually edifying.)