Long ago, when the mighty Brontosaurus still roamed the earth, I
went to an infants school in a small satellite town in south
west London. There, at lunchtimes, we used to play a game of
war. This thrilling game began with two kids linking arms and
skipping through the playground, chanting, ‘Who wants a game of
war? War! Who wants a game of war? War! Who wants a game’- and
so on, and so on. Kids would link arms with a boy (more rarely a
girl) on either end, until finally a long, tenticular line waved
its way across the playground. And that was it. Nobody actually
ever played war. The tenticular arm would swing around until
everyone got bored and went off to play football. We weren’t a
very bellicose bunch, to be honest. So much for the imaginations
of children. Why am I mentioning this? Well, a better planned
Game of War is in the news this week. It’s not the same game, of
course. This war game dates back to 1890, when British school
playgrounds really were school playgrounds, and a game of war
probably meant