Manuel Álvarez Escudero, from Spain, describes how the board game has provided him with a lifetime of fun and friendship

The year Manuel Álvarez Escudero learned to play chess, fascist bombs rained down on Guernica, echoing across Pablo Picasso’s enormous, monochrome canvas, the Hindenburg exploded in the sky over Lakehurst, and John Steinbeck published a short book called Of Mice and Men.

Nine decades later, Álvarez’s love of the game has only increased. A little after 10am on Saturday, the 104-year-old madrileño – believed to be the oldest active registered chess player in the world – stepped off a bus in the south of the city and pushed his homemade walker towards the door of the cultural centre where he comes for his weekly matches.

Spanish media report Jonathan Andic’s status has changed from witness of father’s fatal ravine fall

The family of Isak Andic, the founder of the fashion chain Mango, have insisted on his son’s innocence after media reports suggested he was a potential suspect in the billionaire’s death.

Andic died last December, aged 71, after apparently falling 100 metres down a ravine while hiking at Montserrat, near Barcelona, with his son, Jonathan. His death prompted tributes from politicians, journalists and the fashion world.

Still Life with Guitar, worth €600,000, noticed missing after van arrives in Granada from Madrid

Police in Spain are investigating the disappearance of a tiny Picasso painting, worth €600,000 (£520,000), which vanished en route from Madrid to an exhibition in the southern city of Granada.

The gouache and pencil work, Naturaleza muerta con guitarra (Still Life with Guitar), was due to go on show at a new exhibition at the CajaGranada foundation, which opened last week.