Dr. Chris Oakley's home page

Politics

• If Tony Blair had not left office of his own accord, there seems little doubt that he would have been pushed, probably because - not being a natural socialist - his party were only prepared to support him while the going was good. The going in some quarters - Iraq most notably - having got tough, it was not going to be long before the murmurs of discontent became outright rebellion. All very well, but apart from his commendable decisiveness in stabilising financial markets following the Lehman collapse, Gordon Brown did not do any better. The "good cop, bad cop" double act they had as Prime Minister and Chancellor actually worked rather well: the Chancellor's fiscal caution providing a useful counterweight to Tony Blair's desire to be all things to all men. Tony Blair, though, has something in buckets that Brown had only in strictly limited quantities, which is charm. One should not underestimate this quality in a statesman. Gorbachev's charm brought the end of the Soviet Union (and one day they may even thank him for it). Tony Blair's charm was critical, inter alia, in bringing peace to Northern Ireland. Although the British were relatively unappreciative of this leader, Americans across the whole political spectrum generally did not have similar reservations. There was even a campaign to make him the next U.S. president (despite the constitutional difficulties). Personally I do not think that that would have worked. America is badly in need of the medicine that Mrs. Thatcher provided to the U.K. in the 1980's: someone needs to take on the vested interests - the system is at present far too corrupt. Such a thing requires a leader who does not mind being unpopular, and I doubt that that would either be Mr. Blair or anyone that their bizarre electoral process is likely to produce. I live in hope, though. But since Tony Blair left office relatively young, I am sure that he has more to contribute in making the world a better place. Also, it is noteworthy that the 2010 U.K. election turned up the best answer that the Conservatives have to Blair in the shape of Cameron.
• The most sinister vested interest in the U.S., and one that desperately needs to be challenged is the NRA. America must toughen its gun laws before more innocents get slaughtered. There is more than twenty times the probability that you will suffer a violent end by a gun if you are from the U.S. as compared to the U.K. The U.S. is well up there with Jamaica and Colombia in terms of gun deaths per capita. Why not aim for a place in the civilised world instead?¹.
• If someone asked you to gamble their money at a casino, and the terms were that if you won, you would keep 10% of the profits, but if you lost you would not have to pay anything, would you take on more risk than you might otherwise? I am guessing that you would, so maybe it is not a total surprise that people like Richard S. Fuld Jr., who were remunerated on this principle, were apt to take outrageous risks with their firm's money. I worked with traders in the financial markets in London for over ten years, and even at the height of the bull market, because of this reward scheme, I would never have trusted any of them with my own money. Unfortunately, though, I did not get a choice. HBOS - who I banked with - were directly affected by the drying up of funding following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and if the government had not stepped in, I might have been seriously fearful of losing my life savings. So please, let us get it into law: financial institutions that manage money of ordinary people should never be allowed to remunerate their decision-makers according to this principle.

Other

• My CV.
• If you read the above you will see that I have a doctoral degree in theoretical physics. As I am sick and tired of seeing science in movies that is just plain wrong, I hereby offer my services as science consultant, free of charge, to any film maker who intends to raise any of the following topics: relativity, quantum mechanics, time travel, black holes, wormholes, multiple universes or antimatter.
• The Vl'hurgs (from Douglas Adams' cult series of books/records/CDs/DVDs/Radio series/TV series and now film, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy ). Here is explained what happened after the disastrous "small dog" incident. And here are a few comments about the film.
• The Oxford Byron Society, where - increasingly less often - we try to keep the spirit of the dissolute lord alive.
• Do a line or two of Greek Mythology on Banned Substances
• Here are a few notes on John Charity Spring
• I have written music. I seem to have inherited the Oxford Wagner Society, and would not rule out organising something or other at some point.
•  OLE Automation. How is it that the same company who produced elegant and useful Visual Basic also produced unnecessarily complicated COM and OLE? Simple: VB didn't come from them. Here is my attempt to discover simplicity amid COM's tangled web.
• QUANTUM FIELD THEORY - the physics problem that the 20th century failed to solve. But we should not give up. Here's why . And here is what I have so far on my Relativistic Quantum Mechanics on-line text book.
• The FAMILY ALBUM, which I hope will grow as more people contribute. I have set it out in a way that has no "centre" as such: there is just one page per person with links to parents, spouses and children. My own entry is here. Relatives of note discovered so far: (i) Royal photographer Patrick Lichfield (5th cousin, once removed); (ii) Writer Robert Graves (4th cousin, 3 times removed); (iii) Explorer Richard Francis Burton (2nd cousin, 6 times removed); (iv) Quartermaster General to George Washington, Stephen Moylan (great[6]-uncle); (v) Children's book author and painter, Hilda van Stockum (grandmother); (vi) Mathematician Willem Jacob van Stockum (great uncle) and (vii) Fantasy painter Brigid Marlin (mother).
  It appears that - owing to a youthful adventure of a Peer of the Realm - I am a great[21]-grandson of Edward III. George King, later to become the third Earl of Kingston, ran off to the West Indies with one Caroline Morison about 1790, where they had three children out of wedlock, including my great[4]-grandmother Mary Morison King. Also, through her granddaughter Emily MacDonnell, I am a descendant of Somerled (d. 1164), Lord of the (Western) Isles (of Scotland). The descendants of Somerled number about 500,000 and include the MacDonald, MacDonnell, MacDougall and MacAllister clans. See, for example, here. Emily MacDonnell's ancestor John Carragh MacDonnell built Tinnakill Castle in Co. Laois (Ireland) in 1450. This was outside the English Pale (of Dublin), and a suitable base from which, in his capacity as "the best captayne of the English" to suppress the native tribes. It was on one such expedition in Co. Offaly in 1466 that he was killed. See here.

¹U.S. gun enthusiasts often cite the Second Amendment as justification for gun ownership. The wording is this: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". Not actually very clear: maybe deliberately so. It could mean that a private individual can keep and bear arms, and that part of this picture is a well-regulated militia protecting everyone's security (the NRA's interpretation). But then again it could just mean that a well-regulated militia is the context, and the only context, in which arms can be kept and borne (the interpretation of pussies like me). Lawyers love ambiguity like this - time spent arguing this one way or the other generally being chargeable - but the bottom line is this: whatever it actually means the Second Amendment is man-made, and as such can be changed.