Everyone has a contract until they get punched in the mouth

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Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth

—Mike Tyson

The simple observation that contracts are entered into in peacetime, before even amorous exchanges commence let alone mendacious ones, are crafted by legal eagles having no real grasp of your present business, let alone how it will develop given the vicissitudes of modern commerce and the mendacity of personnel, will accordingly contain terms drawn with a fantastical idealism utterly unrecognisable to anyone subsequently asked to read the contract, which will only happen if the relationship has come to blows violent enough to send for new lawyers to inspect those old contracts.

At that point the old contract, on which everything of moment ostensibly hinges, will read like some delusional pamphlet from a flat earther. And that is where it doesn’t contain howling typos, missing sections, blanks and transposed negatives.

See also

• But no-one reads this, do they?