PINS - Rule Six: No Clues to Objectives

(Here’s a picture of her, with some flowers, she died young, my older sister. TB got her.)

If you remember in the post for Rule 4, the photocopy that shows the rules said we had to write out orders, for each move for each unit - “without a clue to the objective.” Which means, that’s what we have to do.

This injunction could allow your imagination to run wild, especially as another note says “Initial orders to each unit written down for two moves at start.”

Just think; two full moves, with no objectives.

To prepare for such a task, we ask you to find absolutely no objectives in the following reminiscences, and if you do unavoidably trip over an objective along the way, at least find them in circumstances that are pleasing to you.

If you see going to the doctors as an unavoidable objective, at least find one that nestles in Stygian gloom in a basement - accessible by an uneven flight of stone steps - heading down past the United Reform Chapel. The surgery’s entrance will be guarded by two chipped stone lions of vacant expression. Inside, the woodchip, and the cream painted walls, will look fusty and the lightbulb will be uncovered, the linoleum slippery and cracked. A buzzer will cough out a short intemperate growl, meaning it’s your turn. And, oh, yeah, it’s 1973.  

You can ignore all objectives found in Old Mother Shipton and her prophecies, past, present and future (Arthur Wigley & Sons Ltd., Leeds LS6 2RT), though Knaresborough cave’s ability to turn old fashioned schoolboy trousers to stone at the dropping well is impressive. These prophesies, and those found in Old Moore’s Almanac, are maybe signs of the affectations from the slightly fevered socio-cultural climate of the 1970s and pick up on similar crazes in the 1920s and earlier, ad nauseum. So no objectives there. Still, peruse the illustration below for the objectives you have just about missed.

Similarly, all objectives from the 1980s floor game Clash of Empires, one that refights the Austro-Prussian war of 1866* (using attractive card counters denoting the units, and an intelligent set of rules), can be discounted. Though idly playing with the cards, arranging the units in order on the floor, and occasionally sniffing them (the smell of manufactured high quality card products, especially those with pickelhaubes and shakos printed on them, is very pleasing), is a very good way of avoiding any objectives. Put them neatly back in the box, please.

You can avoid all objectives as shown by the lede in the Accrington Observer and Times (Est. 1866*) of Tuesday, September the 5th, 1939 (No. 5993). But take heed from the actions of these doughty East Lancastrians, as they embody this sentence from the front page : “Accrington and district is adapting its civil life calmly and practically to the demands of war.” But those adaptations should not become an objective.

Do not look for objectives in Nature and take warning from the following illustration.

*No relation.

More non-objectives are found in the Museum.