For years, I have been the self-professed biggest Terminator fan on the planet. There’s only one problem...

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I bonded with my best university buddy over many things: student radio, bland pasta, failing to talk to girls at parties, and the paradoxes of time travel, notably in the Back to the Futures, the Bill & Teds, Quantum Leap and the Terminators. In classic best friend one-upmanship, neither of us claimed to be any cop at talking to girls at parties, but both claimed to be the bigger Terminator fan. With every new Terminator movie since, I’ve dragged said mate to the cinema and sat with childlike, open-mouthed delight through an average-at-best film. I’m not sure why I like Terminator so much. I don’t know much about politics, literature or art. But when it comes to time-travelling robots, I’m a complete sucker.

In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, John Connor and Claire Danes defeat the red leather lady Terminatrix and head off hoping to disable a non-existent Skynet HQ, only to seal their fate in a nuclear bunker. Terminator: Salvation is the one where Christian Bale went ballistic at the director and hasn’t even got Arnie in it, but it does take Terminator 2 down an alternative timeline. And talk of timelines gets me going.