Hello from the future.
It’s a long-awaited holiday in my world, one that began with a long day’s journey to tomorrow night. Cross the International Date Line and the phrase ‘at the time of writing’ is no longer a shared understanding but a cue to do quick maths in base-12.
Games are kicking off in the middle of the night here, only tomorrow, and anyway, at the time of writing, I’m roughly a working day ahead of FPL Towers.
Antipodean problems, you say, and I can hear the laughter from my Dead Zone compatriots already. Funny though, how thinking backwards around the clock lumbers my brain while the temporal challenge I’m used to, relative to FPL Towers, is a simple clockwise sum.
Let’s hope that’s a metaphor for the year to come: looking forward to the future, regardless of how difficult it might be to look back.
Plenty of us on here week on week, lamenting a hit that missed or a Bench Boost that wasn’t. It fits, then, that today’s kick-off unlocks our second set of chips. New inflection points to ponder as we cross that line on the calendar into a fresh new year, whenever that is, wherever you are in the world. A handful of second chances to rise or fall relative to the rest. Hours later, we’re into January and the winter transfer window opens, a fresh new crop of players decanted into the transfers screen.
And with all that comes the beginning of the end, Gameweek 19 commencing the back half of the season, warp speed towards Survival Sunday and an endless summer before it’s time to do it all again.
It’s getting late here, and before I hare off on some fresh new year Fantasy waffle, Zophar’s already reminded us not to take this Fantasy business too seriously. So, I’ll take a serious tack towards the personal and wish you and yours, from my shared desk space here at my far-flung family’s kitchen table, a very happy new year.

