Time Machine
Forward planning and long-term strategising are the key to success in a well-played game of chess. Well, that’s what we’re told, anyway. We have no idea how to play chess, that’s probably a bad example. Risk, then. If you want to win at Risk, you need to throw a cursory showing of armies into Kamchatka and Irkutsk and build up an unassuming power base. Or Australasia – control that, it’s pretty much impenetrable.
That said, life loves to throw curveballs at us, and the luxury of long-term planning isn’t always available. Sometimes unexpected things happen and we’re forced to rush. “In this world nothing can be said to be certain,” said Benjamin Franklin, “except death and taxes”. That’s what’s known as an immutable constant. But his scope perhaps isn’t really broad enough; the universe is packed with such
