When I was a small child, my grandmother had all sorts of sayings. "If there's enough blue in the sky to make a pair of sailor's trousers, it will be a sunny day". "If the wind changes, your face will get stuck like that". And - my favourite of her endless aphorisms - "if ifs and ands were pots and pans, we'd all have a lot of washing up to do".
In the English language, 'if' is a dual purpose word which can be used as both a conjunctive and a noun. As a noun, if means conditions or a condition. As a conjunctive, it is used to introduce a conditional clause into a sentence - if this, then that.
McLaren's Fernando Alonso today received a not inconsiderable amount of press coverage (including this piece, so I've been as 'got' as anyone else) for telling Spanish radio station Cadena Ser that he could have been driving for Mercedes last year in the event that Ferrari and Merc agreed to swap him and Lewis Hamilton in a straight seat switch.
It could have been (spot the conditional there?) an interesting move, but the beauty of could have beens is that they can apply wherever and whenever you want them to.
I could have been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar (but I didn't act in any films last year). I could have seen my first novel nominated for the Man Booker (but I haven't written it yet). I could have broken the world land speed record (but I haven't got my programme off the ground, and I don't have any plans to start one).
In the magical land of ifs and could haves, anything is possible.
Fernando Alonso could have composed an opera, but he didn't. Fernando Alonso could have climbed Everest, but he didn't. Fernando Alonso could have driven the 2015 Mercedes, but he didn't.
Whatever the truth of the story of the potential driver swap, it is a tale with only one salient fact: it didn't happen.
If it had happened, it could have led to Alonso's long-awaited third world championship. Or it might not have done. Because the reality of the conditional is that it presents multiverse statements: in this reality, under these conditions, this outcome has been realised. As has every other potential outcome that could have resulted from the starting point.
In the world of physics, there is no consensus as to whether or not the multiverse exists. But in the world of our imaginations, the multiverse is all there is. Versions of ourselves act out familiar scenarios with new endings, as we imagine coming up with the perfect cutting remark in an argument, or getting that job where we blew the interview.
What is most telling about Alonso's Ferrari swap revelations is not that a swap was considered or proposed, but the fact that the Spanish driver is clearly still thinking about what could have been around 18 months after the fact. Perhaps it's time for another of granny's sayings: you've made your bed, now lie in it.