Category: Uncategorized

Environmental groups’ failure over HS2

Letter in Telegraph, 17 April2016 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/04/17/letters-for-all-its-faults-the-eu-is-a-bold-project-that-still-d/ Environmental groups failure over HS2 SIR It is now very clear indeed that the hugely expensive HS2 project is fundamentally flawed; yet it continues to make progress towards delivery in spite of compelling evidence justifying its cancellation. Its passage has been assisted by two important factors that are as …

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Risk: mathematical and otherwise

Draft of essay commissioned for a special issue (June 2015) of the Mathematics Enthusiast entitled Risk: mathematical or otherwise. Still time to make changes so critical advice welcomed, especially from mathematicians.  Abstract What role might mathematicians have to play in the management of risk? The idea of turning a risk, a possibility of loss or injury, into a calculated …

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A bargain

From time to time I check on Amazon to see if anyone is buying my 1985 thriller Risk and Freedom – not many. But views about its value vary widely. The act of reading it, and transforming it into a “used” book, apparently increases its value enormously – I would like to think so..   1 Comment Risk …

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Fun-loving singles

I recently discovered (thanks Jim) that my website had acquired a sideline in the form of a service for fun-loving singles wearing not very much, and keen to get in touch with others similarly attired. Although many of the postings might be said to have had a risk theme I have decided to focus, for …

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Risk and Freedom: the record of road safety regulation

Moving house I have discovered 30 copies of this book that I have put on Amazon for £5 – the inducement I need to go to the post office. Below an Amazon review that I quite like. Amazon Review (*****): Risk and Freedom is a book of historic significance. Published in 1985 and out of …

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Swine flu

Letter NOT published in the Guardian. Submitted 30 April. My two favorite commentators on the subject of risk have fallen out. Simon Jenkins (29 April) predicts that swine flu will end up with bird flu and Sars in the category of over-hyped scare that never happened. Ben Goldacre (30 April) says that if Simon turns …

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Risco

Risk Now available as Risco in Portuguese. See Deus é Brasileiro? for new preface – in English.

Vashti revisited

I began my inaugural blog on this website On becoming Vashti as follows: My nomination for the most prescient work of science fiction is The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. A recent comment on this posting by a former student, June Gibbons, has prompted a further re-reading of The Machine Stops. With each re-reading Forster …

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Two old men

John Adams and (even older positively venerable) Mayer Hillman are looking for a younger enthusiast to carry on a research project that Mayer and Anne Whalley began at the Policy Studies Institute. In 1971, they conducted a survey of English childrens independent mobility how they got to school, visited friends and so on, whether they …

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Making God laugh – part 3

God, I suspect, finds Photoshoppers especially amusing. Grudging thanks to Peter Holtham for spoiling my tutorial. See http://www.cargolaw.com/2005nightmare_catch-day.html for the answers to the questions posed at the end of my last post.