I was in Cambridge today talking about the benefits of long-term planning. It went well apart from the fact that I was speaking at 9.30 am and most of the audience had been in the bar until 4.00 am the previous night.

Anyway, what I totally forgot to mention, which would have been such a perfect example of forward thinking, was the story (allegedly true, but easily an urban myth) of New College Oxford. After the giant oak beams in the College’s great hall rotted away, the Dons of the college were at a total loss to source some replacement oak timbers of a large enough size. Apparently the dons asked if the College owned any land that could be sold to buy some timber. Well it turned out they did. Not only that, when New College was built, 500 years ago, the Dons had arranged for some oaks to be planted on the land and they were now of sufficient size to be used for the new beams. Now that’s what I call strategic foresight!

Of course the question is did the college then plant some acorns so that the beams could be repaired again in another 500 years.