[WE108] Who's up for games night? Let's play this game of GLOBAL DOMINATION.

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Weekend Games Night;

I’ve been counting down to this weekend for a number of weeks, and feel a bit of a sense of satisfaction now that it’s arrived. I can sum up the entirety of this feeling in two words: ‘School Holidays’ – the sweetest two words on the planet, even for an English teacher!

And, as the weekend rolled out, it didn’t start well. This morning when we got up, we were met with drizzle and it hasn’t let up since. We did a long walk earlier, umbrella in hand – we didn’t get too damp, but it wasn’t a particularly pleasant stroll. Otherwise, it was a pretty routine day – went to the grocery store, got the weekend papers, read them over lunch and continued to read them over a couple of coffees.

I also gave myself a haircut. It was the first time I’ve done this in years, and, I reckon the new ‘do looks pretty good, in fact, I’m ready for games night!

But, it’s not just any games night – it will be an indulgent night of nostalgia and history. You see, when I was younger I used to love the game ‘RISK’ – it was a boardgame where you were distributed land cards, you had a couple of armies, and off you went with the intention of claiming world domination! You would do this by bringing your armies up against your opponents, and in a battle decided by the dice and the amount of soldiers you brought to the square, you would slowly but surely take over the world.

The game was all about strategy – often it was good to take over Australia, as there was only one path in and out and you had the opportunity to create a blockade of armies to stop entry. If you tried to take Asia too soon, you could be attacked on multiple fronts – but you’d balance this against your opponents not wanting to begin their land grab here. Europe was always a popular place to wage war, and I used to love making Africa my colonial possession.

The game was brilliant, and you can see where I’m going with this post: No prizes for guessing then, that the dinner party will certainly be featuring a game or two of WORLD DOMINATION. It does raise the question though, as to who would make the cut, and I think I’ve finally narrowed it down:

Winston Churchill:
One of my favourite speeches belongs to this brazen chap, ‘We will fight them on the beaches… We will fight them in the air…”. I can see it quite clearly, as Winston begins his turn, he’ll move to his feet – and as he reaches for the dice, he’ll begin his monologues. Of course, I might need to ask him to put his cigar out – a small hurdle to overcome to hear him utter, ‘Blood, toil, tears and sweet’ and develop into ‘Their finest hour’, before shouting at the little plastic soldiers, ‘Never surrender!’.

Agatha Christie:
The maestro of mystery and strategic thinking – of course Agatha Christie would make the list. She was one clever woman, and one of the things our family would do at game night, is to develop a bit of a story as we’d plan out our invasions. It was usually completely implausible – much like an Agatha Christie novel, but somehow, she makes the improbable absolutely believable. While we work through the battles, her magic touch on the narrative will be essential to the joy of the night. And given her record of misdirection, I look forward to seeing how she manipulates her fellow players.

Jim Carey:
Perhaps indicating my early dorkiness, I’d put on ridiculous accents as I defended my territories and got aggressive with my moves. I’ll be honest, I’m really terrible with accents, so I can only imagine just how tolerant my family was to let me annoy them. Sometimes my dad used to join me in these bad impersonations – honestly though, I’m sure my Japanese sounded more like Irish, and you’d probably confuse my French voice with someone from New Zealand!
The solution: bring in the master of voices!

And there you have it, a perfect night planned: A night of brilliant speeches, clever strategy and outrageous voice impersonations. I hope I win, and, more importantly, that they like my new haircut!

This post was part of GALENKP's Weekend Engagement Concept, you can get on it by visiting this post: click here!